Bellator 157: 'Dynamite 2' to air live in Japan through AbemaTV

Bellator 157: "Dynamite 2" comes to Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Mo., this Friday night (June 24, 2016). In the main event, former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will face Satoshi Ishii, the gold medalist for judo in the 2008 Olympics, in a 215-pound Catchweight fight.

Owing to both Jackson and Ishii's popularity in Japan, an international programming deal has been struck to broadcast the show outside of North America, where the main card will be broadcast on Spike TV at 8 p.m. ET.

Mobile streaming service, AbemaTV, will simulcast "Dynamite 2" at 9 a.m. in Japan on June 25, 2016. COO Takunori Fujii offers some insight into the service for Westerners:

"AbemaTV is a joint venture between IT company CyberAgent and one of the biggest TV station in Japan, TV Asahi, creating an Internet TV station based on a new type of video broadcasting business model. Since its official launch on April, AbemaTV achieved a cumulative total of 4 million downloads in 2 months, and is still under rapid growth. Martial arts are one of the most popular contents in AbemaTV. Bellator is a very famous event, popular among sports fan in Japan, and was longed by many people. We are sure that we can contribute to expand the popularity of Bellator by showing them on AbemaTV."

Ishii sports a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) record of 14-5-1 in 20 bouts, but is coming into Friday's bout off a knockout loss to Jiri Prochazka in Dec. 2014. Jackson (36-11), meanwhile, is on a four-fight win streak, including victories over "King Mo" Lawal and Fabio Maldonado (details here).

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