The one-hour original series will premiere in 2013 and will showcase the fighters from the emerging mixed martial arts league.
Spike TV and Bellator Fighting Championships are partnering with one of television's most acclaimed producers, eight-time Emmy(R) Award winner Bertram van Munster, the visionary behind "The Amazing Race," to create a cutting-edge new unscripted reality show. The one-hour original Spike series will premiere in 2013 and will showcase the fighters from the emerging mixed martial arts league, Bellator Fighting Championships. Details of the show will be kept closely under wraps until later this year.
"Some of the most physically-gifted and fascinating athletes in the world fight in Bellator, and I believe they make ideal subjects for an innovative new non-scripted series," noted van Munster.
"We are thrilled to partner with an industry legend such as van Munster, whose creativity and ingenuity will help expose Bellator to an expanded new audience next year on Spike," said Bjorn Rebney, CEO and Founder of Bellator.
"The concept of this ground-breaking new series will broadly appeal to not only mixed martial arts fans, but to reality show enthusiasts as well," said Sharon Levy, Spike TV's Executive Vice President of Original Programming.
van Munster and Elise Doganieri will serve as Executive Producers for the new series. Levy and Tim Duffy, Senior Vice President, Original Programming, Spike TV, will oversee the project for the network.
Profiles Television Productions, LLC was founded in March of 2003 and is the parent company of both World Race Productions and Earthview, Inc. Owned by eight-time Emmy(R) Award- winning Producers Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri, Profiles Television is a full service production company focused on creating, developing and producing high quality television programming for the worldwide marketplace.
Profiles Television has produced such shows as "Profiles From the Front Line," "Oprah's Big Give," "Focus Rally America" and most recently, "Take The Money & Run." Currently, Profiles Television is producing (in association with Imagine Television and Fox TV) "The Great Escape." Also in current production is "Escape Routes" for NBC. Profiles Television division (World Race Productions) is responsible for the ground-breaking, Emmy(R) Award-winning TV series, "The Amazing Race," which airs in primetime on the CBS network as well as some 80 countries worldwide. Profiles Television is also involved in producing local versions of "The Amazing Race" series in Asia, Australia, South America and Israel. In addition to offices in Los Angeles, Profiles Television has offices in Hong Kong, Singapore, Buenos Aires and New Delhi.
Bellator Fighting Championships is a Mixed Martial Arts promotional company headquartered in Chicago. Bellator, translated as Warrior in Latin, is partnered with entertainment industry leaders Viacom and Fremantle Entertainment, and is the world's leading tournament-based mixed martial arts organization. Bellator showcases many of the most exciting fighters in the world and currently airs Friday nights at 8:00pm ET on MTV2 and Epix with prelims on Spike.com. This season's tournament features an action-packed eight-man tournament in the middleweight, welterweight, lightweight, and featherweight divisions with the winners in each weight class securing a large cash prize and a shot at the coveted world title. Next year, Bellator Fighting Championships will move to Spike TV.
