Bellator has matched the UFC’s contract offer to Eddie Alvarez and CEO Bjorn Rebney expects him to be back in the organization’s cage “in relatively short order,” Rebney told The Post.
“We matched the offer – deal point for deal point, dollar for dollar, every element of it,” Rebney said in a phone interview Thursday night.
Alvarez’s contract expired following his October knockout win over Patricio “Pitbull” Freire. He is the former Bellator lightweight champion and arguably the organization’s biggest star. Bellator had the right to match any offer Alvarez received from a competing organizations and the UFC extended him one last month.
MMAjunkie.com reported that Alvarez had not accepted the offer as of Wednesday and may be “seeking clarification on contract language in each of the two deals.”
Rebney was confident Alvarez would remain with Bellator, but he didn’t believe he would be fighting on the organization’s eighth season, which debuts on Spike TV on Jan. 17 (10 p.m.). The CEO said signing Alvarez might not have been possible if not the backing of Spike TV and new ownership Viacom.
“If would have been a different scenario if we were on ESPN Deportes, [Fox Sports Net], even MTV 2 without Viacom,” Rebney said. “This has given us a much, much different economic model.”
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Rebney is “disappointed” in the events surrounding former UFC star Paul Daley’s inability to compete in the Season 8 welterweight tournament.
Daley, who is from England, cannot get a visa to enter the United States after being charged with assault stemming from a bar fight. He faces up to two years in prison. Currently, Bellator is working on paperwork which would allow Daley to fight for an organization in his native country while his legal woes get sorted out.
Daley has denied the charges.
Bellator invested money in Daley, making him part of its “Vote for the Fight” promotion and he was selected by fans to compete in the organization’s first bout on Spike.
“We wanted him the fight this season,” Rebney said. “We’ll see. It really is going to come down to, unfortunately, when he goes to trial in April.”
Rebney said he was warned about the difficulty of dealing with Daley before Bellator signed him. After all, he was cut from the UFC following his punch of Josh Koscheck after the bell sounded signfying the end of their fight.
“Paul is a very charismatic character,” the CEO said. “When you combine huge knockout power and a personality like Paul’s, sometimes you’re gonna get explosive stuff that works and sometimes explosive stuff that doesn’t work.”
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Bellator’s tournament format is here to stay. Rebney said that was part of his initial plan when he started the company in 2007 and doesn’t envision a Bellator in the future sans tourneys. A fighter cannot earn a title shot without winning one in the unique system.
The company did institute a caveat last month allowing rematches of title fights, on a case by case basis, without having the challenger enter back into tournament competition. Rebney doesn’t feel like that “sacrifices the integrity” of the structure.
“It’s always about when the cage door shuts, who’s gonna win?” he said. “The rest is just superfluous nonsense. When push comes to shove, true fight fans want to see the two best guys fight. I can’t see how we can get away from that.”