Coker: Bellator ready to hold summer events if 'we get the green light'

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Bellator is slowly gearing up for a return to hosting live events.

Company president Scott Coker says there's a plan in place for his promotion to hold cards in the summer if a commission is willing to regulate the events and administer "certain testing," presumably for COVID-19.

"If we get the green light at the end of June, we are ready to go," Coker told Showtime's "Morning Kombat" on Monday, according to CBS Sports' Brian Campbell. "If we get the green light in July, we are ready to go. What we have done is map out a plan for June, July, or August reentry, and each one of these plans has an execution of events with how many we need to do to catch up."

Coker said he expects many Bellator events will be held on studio production lots during the remainder of 2020, not at arenas with fans like usual.

"Don't be surprised if we end up going to a Paramount lot or a CBS lot and do some sound stage fights," he said. "I think it's going to take time for a consumer to feel comfortable going back to a sporting event and being around a bunch of people. I think we are going to take it into a studio setting until the end of the year or late fall, and then we might start going to arenas again."

Bellator postponed events through the end of May - four in total - in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The promotion's next event is currently scheduled for June 6 in Chicago.