When one door closes, another opens. And given the closing of EliteXC last month, its nice to see more MMA come to national television, especially when it has a strong Latin flavor.

Bellator Fighting Championships announced yesterday that it has opened for business. The new company, which will focus on the growing Latino MMA market, also let it be known that it has secured a television contract with ESPN Deportes, which will air the company’s first show in April 2009.

Though no fighters are yet attached to the company, at least as far as we can tell, Bellator has laid out their eventual path to fame and fortune: tournament-style showdowns.

Bjorn Rebney, Bellator founder & CEO states, “We are implementing a tournament structure to determine champions and #1 challengers so that world-class fighters can control their destiny based on their performance.” Bellator events will showcase highly competitive fights between top competitors with each tournament bout winner earning substantially larger purses and moving closer to a championship fight. “Simply put, at Bellator, fighters fight their way to the title,” Rebney adds.

With a tagline that refers to its fighters as warriors that are on their way to becoming legends, Bellator differentiates itself by making its fighters the focus of the organization. “The fans’ connection to Bellator will be created through our fighters. That understanding will drive the promotion, publicity, marketing and advertising of Bellator’s fighters, making them the centerpiece of what we do,” says Rebney. On each telecast, leading up to tournament bouts, Bellator Fighting Championships will air back-stories on each fighter. “We will use the simple yet powerful sports programming philosophy of combining elite competition with compelling feature pieces that tell the story of who these fighters are, where they’re from and why they compete,” says Bellator founder & COO Brad Epstein. “MMA fighters have incredibly rich stories to tell, and we will bring these to MMA fans, allowing our audience to identify with who these warriors really are.”

Bellator’s nationally televised events will be highly competitive sports programming in its purest form and will have no connection to “reality television.” These events are structured as tournament competitions, crowning champions and top challengers at the end of each season.

Bellator points out in its announcement that every other sport uses a tournament to decide its eventual champion, so why not MMA? At the very least, you won’t have to worry about an over-hyped fighter with no real accomplishment losing a big fight while the whole world is watching.

Bellator also announced the launch of its website, found here, that will go live next month. There’s really nothing there now, but the company promises it will be chock full of “event and fighter information, behind the scenes video footage, fight clips and live interaction with Bellator fighters” shortly. So hold your horses, amigo.

New Mixed Martial Arts League Strikes National TV Deal, Breaks New Ground [PR Newswire]