LOS ANGELES — Brennan Ward remembers his Bellator debut well. It was in 2012, on the campus of the University of Rhode Island. Ward estimated that less than 1,000 people were in attendance.
At the time, Bellator was being broadcast on MTV2. That event did a whopping 149,000 viewers.
Fast forward a little more than four years later and Ward was in Hollywood on Thursday at a press conference promoting his co-main event fight with Paul Daley. Bellator 170 is Saturday at The Forum here in LA and it will be broadcasted on Spike.
Though the event, headlined by a fight between legends Tito Ortiz and Chael Sonnen, is not a sellout at this point, The Forum does hold more than 17,000 people.