Bellator 120: Who's on the Hot Seat?

This is probably not the way Bellator drew it up. 

I know, I know. Climb in off that limb! It will never hold your weight! 

Seriously, though, this isn't going well. After Eddie Alvarez backed out of his Bellator 120 main-event rubber match with and lightweight title defense against Michael Chandler, fans howled. But the show will go on, and by show I mean "phenomenon of charging people a large one-time fee to watch Bellator 120."

And yet, despite all this, this is still a pretty solid card. Maybe not pay-per-view solid but solid nonetheless. Plenty of people have plenty at stake. 

Here are the people on the hot seat Saturday.

Tito Ortiz

Richard Shotwell/Associated Press

Tito Ortiz is 39 years old. This will be his fourth fight in the past three years. Also in those past three years, he has battled major injuries, which, presumably, he continues to battle in some form.

He also has one retirement on the stat sheet during those past three years. I think it's fair to say he did not un-retire purely for the love of the sport. 

At Bellator 120, he'll face Russian Alexander Shlemenko, who called Tito out for this fight. Shlemenko felt confident in his ability to beat Ortiz despite being a middleweight (and a smaller middleweight at that) to Ortiz's light heavyweight. And the oddsmakers share that confidence, making Shlemenko the heavy favorite. 

Ortiz has a big enough name that he'll probably have a home in fighting for as long as he likes. But there have to be diminishing returns at play, too. Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney has openly acknowledged this is a bit of a "freak-show" fight. If Ortiz is not competitive here, as many people expect, it's hard to know what sort of self-defilement will be on tap next.

Quinton Jackson

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is in a similar boat as Ortiz, if not quite as bad off.

Jackson is 35 years old with an inconsistent recent track record and a public act wearing thin. Again as with Ortiz, his celebrity status and past accomplishments will probably keep his head well clear of the chopping block.

But his seat is still quite warm, and he would benefit from a great performance against Muhammed Lawal. After Alvarez backed out, this became the main event. Can he do something interesting in the main event? If not, and especially if he loses, his options are that much more limited moving forward. And so are Bellator's, who got Viacom to put a healthy pile of chips on the Rampage square. No pressure, though.

Will Brooks

Will Brooks Twitter

Will Brooks is definitely not in danger of losing his job with Bellator. He is, after all, fighting for the interim lightweight title Saturday. He is 13-1 and on a four-fight win streak. He does have a great wrestling base with some cool striking techniques thrown in. And at age 27, he's just entering his prime.

But he's still on the hot seat. Why? Because he put himself there.

Brooks criticized MMA media members last week because said members criticized Bellator's decision to keep this event on pay-per-view. And hey, that's cool. MMA media members have thick skin.

But Brooks added pressure to himself by doing that. He clearly feels Bellator 120 should be viewed as a top-level event, one not to be diminished. So raise your hand if you're responsible for that prediction coming true. My hand is not up. Will Brooks, is your hand up?

As the evening's co-main-eventer, Brooks has a pretty big role in making his feeling a reality (or not). Make it good, Brooks! This is a man with his fate in his hands, and his actions will be directly responsible, at least in part, for determining whether what he said was true, and whether this event is deemed any sort of success.

But yeah. No pressure.

Bellator

USA TODAY Sports

Bjorn Rebney

The Bellator promotion, reflexively ridiculed by so many for so long, is always swimming against a stiff current.

Maybe the scorn is justified sometimes. Other times, maybe it's not. Either way, it seems Bellator will always need to go a mile farther if it wants to earn respect. 

But that's not usually what they actually do. Instead, they respond to adversity with something of a Napoleon complex. Last fall, they had to pull their first pay-per-view off of pay-per-view because of an injury.

I understand the frustration over the prospect of doing that again. But Bellator has a good chance to be "the people's promotion," if you will. Level with us. Hey, fans, we want to do right by you. So we're never going to charge you pay-per-view fees when we don't feel we can offer pay-per-view quality. We'll put it on Spike TV instead. That's something the UFC can't offer.

But no. They bulled forward instead, determined to get into the PPV sandbox come hell or high water. Even if it meant diminishing themselves and jumping through flaming hoops to do so, leaving themselves weakened when they finally got to the actual metaphorical field of battle.

Execs this week came out and said Bellator's future does not hinge on this event alone. Fair enough. But that doesn't mean it's not important. I personally wouldn't step into this arena unless I knew I was bringing my A game. That's not what Bellator is doing, and I think that's a risky play. We'll see what happens.

Scott Harris writes about MMA and other things for Bleacher Report and other places. Follow Scott on Twitter if you feel so inclined.