Scott Coker’s new MMA promotion may not have an official name yet, but the wheels are turning as the former Strikeforce head prepares to launch his new combat sports promotion in 2027.
After years of running Bellator under the restrictive constraints of Viacom, Coker has gotten a lot of the old Strikeforce staff back together. Strikeforce did a great job of building stars and putting together big fights, and was the last promotion to be a legit No. 2 to UFC … before UFC bought them in 2011 and swallowed the promotion whole a year later.
In a new interview with MMA Island, Coker revealed some details on the launch of his new mixed martial arts organization.
“You’ll see an event in Asia, you’ll see an event in Europe, you’ll see an event in San Jose,” Coker said. “And you’ll see an event in one territory that we’re gonna announce soon. And all those will happen in the first quarter [of 2027].”
According to Coker, we’re just over a month away from the promotion’s big reveal.
“On September 14 we’re gonna we’re gonna have a launch event,” he said. So keep your ears open and we’ll have more information for you.”
There’s two big questions we have for this unnamed league: who will be the broadcast partner, and where will Coker find the talent to fill his roster? The broadcast deal remains a question mark but Coker is hard at work traveling the world scouting out the next generation of stars.
“I always believe that there’s so much talent out there,” he said. “When I was in France last week with [matchmaker] Rich [Chou], we went to these gyms and they have just some killers over there. They have like 20 gyms, fifty, seventy-five fighters each deep. The talent pool is unbelievable.”
Coker and his team have a proven track record for finding fighters who became big names and champions.
“I always believed in this, even with Strikeforce,” Coker said. “Even though we had Frank [Shamrock] and Cung [Le], seasoned veterans already, I always felt like we gotta build from the ground up. Bob [Cook], go find me the next guy. He brings Daniel Cormier. He brings Ronda Rousey. He brings [Tyron Woodley]. Javier [Mendez] brought Luke Rockhold.”
“Javier says ‘You need to go out and get this kid named Gilbert Melendez’ … So we sign him. Sign Josh Thompson. Same thing we did with Bellator. A.J. McKee was a guy that I found right out of his last amateur fight. Usman Nurmagomedov, Javier said, ‘You need to go sign this kid. He’s really good.’ So we signed Usman. Bob Cook comes in, Aaron Pico, ‘You gotta sign this kid. He’s amazing.’ Okay.”
“So when Bob Cook, Javier, or Rich [Chou] say, ‘You gotta sign this kid,’ we sign,” Coker concluded. “I don’t even ask. Just give me the pen. We’re gonna sign this guy.”
We’ll find out how Coker’s boots on the ground approach to talent scouting does in 2027 when the promotion kicks off. And four events in the first quarter of 2027? The next year is going to be an interesting one for mixed martial arts.