Scott Coker

At the end of the day, it's a business about fighters and a business about people. This is our philosophy.

Whereas there's more of a learning curb with MMA, kickboxing is pretty easy to understand and has no geographical boundaries.

We've always looked for guys and girls who have striking ability... there's a reason my past company was called Strikeforce.

All my fighters know I'm a fan of theirs. They know I think of them as the stars and that we will facilitate in the building of their stock.

When you think about martial arts here in the states, kickboxing was here in the '70s, and it kind of ran its course. But I always felt there was a place in combat sports for kickboxing.

MMA has a great safety record. I was always confused as to why it was illegal in New York in the first place.

When I first came to Bellator, I wanted to take it back to what we accomplished at Strikeforce and look at the next generation. So we signed the Aaron Picos of the world and put them in our development programme to nurture them.

My background in promoting martial arts started in 1985 when we were doing PK Karate, which was on ESPN. Fast forward to when mixed martial arts became legal in California. I made the jump to MMA and never looked back.

Let's go back to super-fights. Let's put on fights that are great live or on television.

You get a world-class athlete like Hershel Walker, who was a Heisman trophy winner and did some amazing things, but he had a martial arts background. He did kickboxing. He had a combat sports background. It was just rekindling that training and that martial arts workout ethic. He got back into it and did quite well.

It's good to team up with Spike and Viacom. I see a lot of potential.

When I was a kid, there were probably 100 schools in the Bay Area that just did martial arts.