Bellator Season 6 To Air on Friday Nights in 2012
Dec 05, 2011 By Tristen Critchfield

After five seasons of Saturday night fights, the Bellator Fighting Championships is making a change.

Season 6 will premiere in 2012 on Friday, March 2, the promotion announced on Monday. It's the first time Bellator has aired on Friday nights. With the UFC's increasingly busy schedule, Bellator has often gone head-to-head with mixed martial arts' largest promotion on Saturdays. The new day won't mark the end of scheduling conflict with the UFC, however, as the updated format of "The Ultimate Fighter" is set to air on Friday nights beginning in 2012.

Still, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney believes that the move will allow his organization to reach a larger audience than it had previously.
“Our focus was to find the right night, where the largest number of MMA fans could enjoy the show,” Rebney said in a release. “We’ve been discussing this move with our partners at Viacom for months. When we looked at the alternatives, we agreed that Fridays provided a great night for us to reach MMA fans with our live, real sport, tournament events every week.”

The upcoming season will feature tournaments at featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and middleweight. A fifth tournament featuring an as-yet-to-be-determined weight class will be announced by the promotion at a later date.

Season 6 will continue to air live on MTV2 and Epix. Bellator is expected to move to Spike sometime in 2013.