(See? We told you he said it.)

It’s kind of shocking how quickly the reputation of Bellator Fighting Championships has gone from the humble yet respected #2 promotion in MMA to the center of all things shady and soon to be #3 promotion in MMA. We’ve heard stories from two of the promotion’s former champions — Eddie Alvarez and Zach Makovsky — about how dirty the promotion plays ball with its own fighters, and recently, we’ve seen the promotion claim that an imposter agent was reaching out to ex-UFC fighters like Leonard Garcia and offering them fake contracts, a claim that was almost instantly debunked by Garcia’s management. In short, it appears that Dana White was right about the promotion pulling “dirty, scumbag moves.” Dana White was right…

And now, Bellator’s own welterweight champion, Ben Askren, has all but blown the lid off the promotion’s drug-testing process. Or lack thereof.

Askren posted the above Tweet yesterday, which quickly raised a lot of red flags from the MMA community for obvious reasons. How was it that the #2 promotion in the sport had only tested one of their champions once in eight fights? Was this just their way of dealing with sweeping their fighters sudden need for TRT under the rug? Is Viacom a front for the Legalize It movement? Or are Bellator’s fighters just that clean? BJPenn.com’s Giovanni Burns attempted to bring some light to the issue, and was probably responsible for Askren’s tweet in the first place:

(“Alright, let’s see who you REALLY are! *tugs ears* Damn it, Scooby Doo made this look so easy…”)

If you follow college football at all, you probably remember the story of Kevin Hart, the high school lineman who held a press conference on national signing day in 2008 to declare that he was going to play college football for the Cal Bears. When the team announced that they never even had interest in recruiting him – let alone offering him a football scholarship – Hart claimed that he had been duped by a fake agent. It was one of the most bizarre sports stories in years; one that surely couldn’t happen again.

Yet here we are only five years later with an extremely similar story, only instead of involving a mediocre high school athlete from a small town in Nevada, it involves former UFC featherweight Leonard Garcia.

As we have covered, the recently released Leonard Garcia expressed no interest in signing with Bellator, even though they supposedly offered him a deal. In a way, this is a good thing, because according to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, the promotion never actually planned on signing him in the first place. Via MMAJunkie.com:

(Well, it’s safe to assume that Alvarez’s new training camp is off to a rough start.)

Lightweight Eddie Alvarez was a busy man on Twitter yesterday. Last October, Alvarez completed his final contracted fight for the Bellator organization and became a limited free agent. Emphasis on limited.

Almost immediately after said fight, the UFC made Alvarez an offer, one that Bellator had the right to match if they hoped to keep Alvarez. Since that time, Alvarez and Bellator have been locked in a battle over what the term “matched” truly means. While Bellator believes that they matched the UFC’s offer and therefore still have rights to Alvarez, their former lightweight champion disagrees. The two parties soon sued one another. Somehow, I just know that this is all Obama’s fault.

In January, a federal judge denied Alvarez’s petition to be freed from Bellator, but in April, the same judge also denied Bellator’s petition that part of Alvarez’s suit against them be dropped (Ed note: Are we having fun yet?). Though there were rumors that the two parties would eventually reach an agreement, Alvarez’s Twitter account said otherwise yesterday.

“We will be going to Trial And there will be NO settlement I want to see this thing through and Let the truth come out in the End,” the fighter tweeted.

(Despite what your grandmother thinks, Twitter is not a euphemism and does not warrant a squirt of Dawn in your mouth.)

By Jason Moles

Back in 2010, the brain trust at CagePotato HQ compiled a list of the 25 most essential MMA Twitter feeds to follow. Boy, do we sure know how to pick ‘em. Miguel Torres, Kimbo Slice, Mayhem Miller, Reed Harris, Shane Carwin, and Strikeforce have all since faded out of relevance or gone off the deep end. Wait, Reed does what now? Are you sure? Nevermind — we’re back with an updated list of who you should really be following on Twitter, and this time we’ve actually put some thought into it instead of blindly tossing darts at our screen while simultaneously using a Shakeweight. Please note, this is 2013 and if you don’t already know you should be following Dana White, Arianny Celeste, or Ariel Helwani, you’re probably the reason Jon Jones is defending his title against Chael Sonnen this Saturday at UFC 159. Speaking of the gangster from West Linn…

twitter.com/sonnench

Bio: “Godfather of integrity; dual masters in dominance and modesty; once outboxed Hemingway; & author of this year’s bestseller, available NOW on Amazon”

If you thought Sonnen refused to break kayfabe only when the cameras were rolling, you must not have been paying attention because his gimmick is boundless. The People’s Champion maximizes his 140-character limit with every emasculating jab at his opponents, peers, and detractors in the MMA media. The American Gangster is the only man on Twitter to follow absolutely no one, not even his own mother.

Sample Tweet: “15 – the number of letters in the word hydropneumatics as well as Chael beats Jones. #UFC159 #4/27/13″

Photo courtesy of Scott Hirano/LowKick.com

Despite being one of many fighters released from the UFC in February, forty-two year old Vladimir “The Janitor” Matyushenko won’t be hanging up his gloves just yet. Earlier today, Bellator announced that they have signed the former IFL champion to compete at a future event. While it was announced that Matyushenko will be making his promotional debut in a non-tournament bout, neither a date for the fight nor a prospective opponent have been named yet.

In a news release posted on Bellator’s website, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney appeared very optimistic about the signing. “Vladimir is a fighter I’ve watched for years. He’s an exciting fighter with an incredible wrestling background and a great pedigree in our sport. When the opportunity presented itself and we had the chance to have him join the Bellator family it was a very easy decision to make,” he said.

(Red rover, red rover, we call Captain America on over! Pic Props: MMAFighting.com)

By Jason Moles

Between preparing to launch a new mixed martial arts reality television show on Spike TV, to selecting venues for 2014, Bjorn Rebney‘s time for small talk is sparse. But the Bellator MMA CEO always seems to have a moment to discuss his favorite topic — how much he loves running the second-largest MMA promotion in the world, and what the future holds in store.

Early Friday morning, just after the Bellator 87 post-fight press conference concluded at the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in frigid Mount Pleasant, Michigan, I had the opportunity to speak with Rebney about some of the important topics that have developed in the past few weeks, and the impact they would have going forward for the ever-expanding fight promotion.

You could tell the man was tired by the look in his sleep-deprived eyes. Sitting on stage, and probably still laughing on the inside after having watched lightweight contender Lloyd “Cupcake” Woodard shave his facial hair after losing a stipulation match to David “Caveman” Rickels not more than five minutes prior to our conversation (the clippings were still on the table next to him), the most powerful man in the building finally had a fleeting moment to collect his thoughts while resting for the first time that day…

On Randy Couture Signing with Spike TV/Bellator:

“Randy’s a great addition to the team and is known to fans everywhere. We’re excited for the role he’ll play in helping Bellator reach the next level. I know you and the other media want more info than that, but wait until Tuesday [February 5th] — that’s when we’re holding the big press conference and that’s when you’ll have all the details of what’s going on. That’s when all the questions will be answered.”

On the Controversial Stoppages Earlier in the Night:

“I have an unfair advantage; we’ve got probably the best sound team in all of MMA production. What I’m able to do is, when there’s any kind of controversial stoppage, I can go back into the truck, super slo-mo things and listen to things. I can hear the things the fighters say because our sound design inside the cage is so spectacular. You can literally hear what the fighter’s saying and what the referee is saying — you can hear everything. I think they were great stoppages. I think Dan [Mirgliotta] did an amazing job and when you see it in slow motion, for example on the knee lock, you hear him scream and then see his head go back and ultimately see one tap. Now it’s a super soft tap, but you see it. Inside the truck, in super slo-mo, you can hear the screaming and see his head go back and that’s a verbal submission. According to the Unified Rules, when your head goes back and you scream out — it’s over whether you tap or you don’t tap. But I thought he did a great job.”

Those of you who watched Bellator’s debut on Spike TV – which drew in almost one million viewers, by the way – probably noticed a lack of upcoming advertised squash fights. No, I’m not just typing that as a way of reminding everyone that Renato “Babalu” Sobral and Seth Petruzelli were both eliminated from the light-heavyweight tournament. Rather, you may have noticed that Bellator didn’t announce any non-title super fights for the promotion’s champions.

That’s because Bellator CEO Bjorn has officially put an end to non-title super fights, according to a recent interview with MMAFrenzy. No more pointless bookings for the sake of keeping champions active (more on that in a second), no more risking that the champion will actually lose what was supposed to be a squash match. Also of note, champions will no longer be allowed to fight outside of the promotion – for obvious reasons.

(In the words of my life coach, “If you ask me one more fucking question about that fucking joke Eddie Alvarez, I will fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”) 

The drama continues to unfold in the Eddie Alvarez/UFC/Bellator love triangle that last saw Bjorn Rebney and Co. break go Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on their former lightweight champion’s ass. And as Bill Shakespeare would tell you himself, no love triangle would be complete without a little dash of comedy. Enter Rebney, who recently attempted to shed some light on the convoluted goatscrew that (Bellator) negotiations oft become in a recent interview with BloodyElbow radio. When Rebney previously told reporters that he had matched the UFC’s offer on Alvarez “word for word,” the general consensus seemed to be that Rebney was simply speaking in hyperbole, for how could Bellator match the pay-per-view stipulations of the UFC’s contract when they don’t in fact broadcast pay-per-view events to begin with?

Well, it turns out that — at least according to the man himself — Rebney was not tugging our respective dicks when he said “word for word”:

I didn’t anticipate that the UFC would come in where they came in. They came in at a dollar figure in terms of the $250,000 signing bonus and the $70,000 plus $70,000 and some of the terms that we felt very comfortable matching. To avoid any questioning, to avoid any conflict, we literally took the UFC contract, took it out of a PDF format and we changed the UFC name to Bellator and we signed it and we sent it back to Ed. 

Call me unrealistic, but I’d like to believe that Rebney signed his name in poo, or at least wiped his ass with the reprinted contract before sending it back to Eddie. And then when Alvarez flipped to the last page of this foul smelling document, there was a photo of Rebney, performing said act of asswhipery. Because those are the kinds of shenanigans that people who don’t give a fuck are wont to do.

Much more from this interview after the jump.

Bjorn, You fool! Never give this man such easy access to your neck!

Even though Bellator hasn’t been giving us our weekly Friday night events over the summer, the promotion still managed to give us some big news last night. Yesterday, while you were preparing for dude’s night out, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney took to his Twitter page to announce that the promotion had come to terms with former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Along with the above image, Bjorn Rebney tweeted “Great news. Babalu now in the Bellator family. He’ll compete in our 205 tourney on Spike in January. Can’t wait.”

A fourteen year veteran of our sport, “Babalu” holds notable victories over Shogun Rua, Jeremy Horn, Chael Sonnen and current Bellator light-heavyweight Travis Wiuff. Given Wiuff’s current run in the promotion, there’s a very good chance that we’ll see these two fighting for the Bellator Light-Heavyweight title if they were to meet up again. Sobral’s most recent fight was a thirty one second armbar victory over Tatsuya Mizuno at ONE FC 4 in June. He was initially scheduled to fight at ONE FC’s August 31 show in Manila, Philippines, although an opponent had never been named.

“Day-bow-bow“

Bellator’s welterweight division just became far more interesting.

Earlier this morning, the organization announced that it had signed Marcus “Lelo” Aurelio (no, not Maximus), an explosive Capoeira fighter from Brazil. If the name sounds familiar, it should: He’s the guy from the infamous Capoeira kick knockout video from 2009. And the equally awesome flying switch kick from last August, for that matter.

After getting caught in a triangle choke during his first professional fight, Lelo has gone on to win six straight. None of his fights have ever gone the distance, and his only submission victory was a rear-naked choke over Canadian Muay Thai champion Ken Tran at Battlefield Fight League 7 last March. His most recent effort saw him KO Matt Dwyer with a slam just thirty seconds into their bout in April.

(Man, 2009, right? Crazy times. / Image via City Pages)

Bellator sent out a press release this morning announcing that they’ve signed struggling slugger Brett Rogers, who will make his promotional debut at Bellator 71, June 22nd in Chester, West Virginia. “I am incredibly thankful to Bjorn Rebney and Bellator for giving me and my family this opportunity,” Rogers said. “I feel that I am still one of the top heavyweights in the sport and now I have the opportunity to prove it with Bellator. I love the tournament format as it will give me the chance to regain my top position, of course with a lot hard work.”

Rogers’s opponent for the June 22nd card hasn’t been announced yet, but his tournament ambitions will have until this fall; Bellator 71 is slated to host the quarterfinals of their 2012 Summer Series Light-Heavyweight tournament, featuring Travis Wiuff, Zelg Galesic, and Richard Hale.

After starting his career with ten consecutive wins — all by strikes within the first two rounds — Rogers hit a dramatic rough patch in which he lost three straight fights under the Strikeforce banner, got arrested and convicted for beating up his wife, then dropped a split-decision to Eddie Sanchez at Titan FC 20. Most recently, Rogers fought a 2-1 gym-owner named Todd Allee to a no-contest at Donofrio Entertainment’s “My Bloody Valentine” show; in his attempt to finish Allee on the ground, Rogers landed an illegal blow to the back his opponent’s head that Allee wasn’t able to recover from.

As Rogers explains in the press release:

I managed to catch up with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney after Bellator 69 at the L’Auberge du Lac Casino Resort in Lake Charles, Louisiana on Friday night. Bjorn touched on issues such as fighters who stuck out on the undercard, why the Asplund vs. Sparks fight didn’t happen, MMA in New York and much more. Come inside after the jump for the full interview, as well as fight videos from the fighters that Bjorn Rebney mentions.

(Who the hell just asked me if I want to be a f*cking fighter?!) 

Talk about a great way to start of your day. Confirmed by none other than “Lightning” himself via his Twitter, it appears that Hector Lombard has officially signed with the UFC. After being offered a contract a little over a week ago, Lombard gave the Bellator brass a chance to match the UFC’s bid. But Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney must have come to the same realization that nearly every sappy rom-com protagonist has; if you love something, let it go. Here’s what he told MMAFighting, who first broke the news:

We have a business model where we make decisions based on analyzing data. Since the first day we came into being, we made decisions based on real models, not hypotheticals. The UFC model is largely based on pay-per-view, and the offer they made to Hector is going to be monetized via pay-per-view. While pay-per-view could play a role in our future, today it doesn’t. So, we did our due diligence to review the UFC contract, analyzed it in terms of charging our audience to see Hector vs. putting him on free TV, and we decided to allow the UFC to sign Hector, where I am extremely confident he will win the UFC middleweight title on pay-per-view.

Currently 31-2-1 in MMA competition, Lombard finds himself on a ridiculous 25-fight unbeaten streak, including victories over TUF 7′s Jesse Taylor, UFC veterans Brian Ebersole and Joe Doerksen, and arch-nemesis Alexander Shlemenko, who, barring a sudden signing with the UFC, will not be receiving his well-earned rematch with Lombard anytime soon. Lombard has not lost a fight since 2006, where he dropped a unanimous decision to Gegard Mousasi at Pride Bushido 13.

So I ask unto you, Potato Nation, who should Lombard face in his octagon debut? And how will he cope with fighting in a ring smaller than your average soccer arena?

Join us after the jump as we bid adieu to Hector’s Bellator run with a look back at his greatest hits. 

(Anyone else want to negotiate?)

It’s looking like current Bellator middleweight champion and world renowned can-crusher Hector Lombard may finally get his chance to make waves in the UFC. Yes, it seems the man who has vowed to “take Anderson Silva’s head off” was recently offered a contract with the UFC in light of his dispute-ridden contract with Bellator expiring earlier this month. The Cuban-born knockout artist has been out of action since steamrolling Trevor Prangley in the second round of their catchweight non-title affair back in November of 2011, and has still yet to grant season five middleweight tournament winner Alexander Shlemenko his much deserved rematch. We can likely call that one a wash at this point.

And although that sucks for Shlemenko, we’ve got to admit that we’d much rather see “Lightning” in the UFC. If you recall, Lombard was supposed to make his promotional debut way back at UFC 78 in November of 2007 against Karo Parisyan, but Visa issues forced him to withdraw after he was denied entry into the country. He was eventually replaced by Ryo Chonan, who couldn’t handle “The Heat” and was defeated by unanimous decision.

Five years and countless corpses of MMA journeyman later, we may finally see Lombard live up to his potential.

But before we start setting ourselves up for disappointment, we (and the UFC) are awaiting a move from the Bellator brass, who still have an opportunity to match the UFC’s offer. Bellator CEO told Sherdog that a “strategic decision” would determine Lombard’s future with the company, but that they wouldn’t even begin deliberation until after this weekend’s Bellator 66 event:

We’ve received the final proposed UFC agreement from Hector’s attorney, and right now we are in the process of reviewing it to determine whether we’re going to match the agreement. We’ve got the 60 pages of UFC contract that were forwarded to us by Hector’s counsel.

Out of respect for Hector, I think we will turn [the UFC contract] around very quickly. Obviously, we have a huge event coming up Friday. As soon as that is over, we will sit down with our partners and go through the UFC contract line-for-line and make a strategic decision whether we’re going to match it or pass. [If we pass, we will] wish him the best and let him go knock out everybody in the UFC.

Check out more from the interview after the jump.

Which means whoever made this picture just wasted a bunch of time.

If you were impressed with Vyacheslav Vasilvsky’s performance at Bellator 61, out gunning Victor O’Donnell en route to a unanimous decision victory, don’t get used to seeing him in Bellator just yet.

MMAJunkie.com is reporting that M-1 Global has been awarded damages from a breach of contract by former M-1 Light Heavyweight Champion Vyacheslav Vasilvsky by a Dutch court, and is planning on pursuing Vasilvsky- who wasn’t present in court, nor were any of his representatives, mind you- in the United States. Okay, that sounds pretty rough, but at least M-1 is being reasonable in their demands and not trying to bury the guy, right? Um, have you heard of M-1 Global?

The promotion has been granted €1,000 for each day he’s been in breach of contract (which, according to M-1, is exactly one year today), €5,000 for each fight he’s had in another promotion (five since 2010), and court fees. I’m not exactly a mathematician, but I think that adds up to 1,000x more money than M-1 Global could have possibly made off of Vyacheslav Vasilvsky. Ken Shamrock could not be reached for comment.

(I smelled bullshit as soon as he said “I wrote this myself.” Everybody knows that Jeff Ross ghost-writes all of Chael’s material. / Props: fueltv)

Some selected highlights from our friends around the MMA blogosphere…

- Junior Dos Santos vs. Alistair Overeem Official For UFC 146 (FightLine)

- Exclusive: Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney Talks Counterprogramming, Eddie Alvarez and Hector Lombard Negotiations (MMA Mania)

- Brittney Palmer: “I Plan on Being in the UFC for Many Years to Come and Riding This Wave.” (Five Ounces of Pain)

- MiddleEasy’s Guide to the Top Ten Memes in MMA (MiddleEasy)

- Strikeforce: Why American Society NEEDS Ronda Rousey (BleacherReport.com/MMA)

- Gilbert Melendez Says He’s Fighting May 19, But Doesn’t Know Who His Opponent Is (MMA Convert)

- Junior Dos Santos Signs With Sports Marketing Agency; Reveals He Spent $100K to Train for Cain (MMA Payout)

- Al Iaquinta Not “Feeling Too Much Pressure” Heading to TUF on FX (The Fight Nerd)

- Georges St. Pierre: Marijuana Is Not a Performance-Enhancing Drug (Lowkick.Blitzcorner.com)

- Dana White: Ronda Rousey Is a Star, But She’s Going to Need Help (5th Round)

- Would Testosterone Exemptions for Zuffa Fighters Be Approved Using USADA standards? (Fight Opinion)

(Well, well, well…)

Spike TV will become the new home for Bellator starting in 2013. According to a new USA Today report, Viacom — the parent company of MTV Networks — has purchased a majority stake in Bellator Fighting Championships, signaling the official end to their six-year relationship with the UFC.

CEO Bjorn Rebney will remain in charge of Bellator. Speaking about the Viacom deal with USA Today, he said: “It puts all of those cornerstones of ownership in place for us, which is something that’s been so seriously lacking in the MMA space with so many different companies, including Strikeforce and the IFL and Affliction and all the different failures that have occurred…It alleviates those issues…It’s a very, very good day for mixed martial arts as a whole, because now you have two groups in the space that have a very substantial presence that obviously isn’t going to go anywhere for a very, very long time.”

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez (22-2) has suffered an undisclosed injury and has been forced to pull out of an October 15 title bout with undefeated Season 4 lightweight tournament winner Michael Chandler (8-0) that was slated for Bellator 54 at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, N.J.

In spite of the setback, Bellator chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney is optimistic that Alvarez will defend his belt in the fall, but wouldn’t say whether or not Chandler will wait for the champ to heal.

(“Publicity stunt, you say? What’s that?”)

Apparently Renato “Babalu” Sobral is a free agent. Otherwise, Bellator wouldn’t be talking to the former UFC light heavyweight contender about possibly facing its middleweight champ, Hector Lombard.

According to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, his promotion has been involved in talks with Sobral’s camp to sign the 36-9  submission specialist for a non-title bout with Lombard (30-2-1, 1 NC) at Bellator 58 on November 19, but nothing is set in stone. Strangely, the promoter still announced that the bout was in the works, which could simply be a tactic to pressure Babalu, who has only fought twice in the past two years, into signing on the dotted line.

“I’ve been a big ‘Babalu’ fan for a lot of years,” Rebney told MMAJunkie. “They weren’t really on our radar, but then they reached out to us and opened the door and asked for a few things. We agreed to all of them. … But now we’re siting back and waiting. We haven’t heard anything back from them in three or four days.”

Bellator is really stepping up their game with these promo videos. VidProps: BellatorMMA/YouTube

Well this is interesting: following in the pioneering steps of the UFC, Bellator is announcing that they will begin streaming the undercard fights on the series of tubes known as the internet.

That’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is who they’re partnering with: Spike. Yep, those guys.

According to a press release sent to the CagePotato Desk for Serious Journalism, You Guys (not actually a real place), the undercard fights will go live on Spike.com at 7pm ET as a lead-in for the main card broadcasts on MTV2 starting at 9pm. As we reported last week, the main cards will also be broadcast in HD on EPIX, which we personally confirmed is a extant channel that wasn’t made up by some Viacom dude with a stupid-long job title.

The press release included a quote from some Viacom dude (Executive Vice President, Digital Entertainment, MTV Networks Entertainment Group), a guy by the name of Erik Flannigan:

“Fight fans have been coming to our site for years for great mixed martial arts clips and information,” said Flannigan. “Now we are thrilled to provide them with action-packed live fighting each week.”

Here’s another highlight from Karma’s Big Adventure at Bellator 48 — an 11-minute gab session with the boss himself, Bjorn Rebney. After telling us that he reads and likes CagePotato (!?), Rebney discusses the upcoming production improvements for future Bellator broadcasts, the state of women’s MMA in Bellator, the promotion’s relationship with MTV2, the ways that Bellator develops fighters, and more. Also, Jeff plugs our Proving Ground promotion, and vows to become the Bundini Brown of women’s MMA. More to come…

“…and I also understand that he always takes a penny, and never leaves one. He once killed a puppy with a kitten. He wears black all the time. He’s a malefactor, a villain. I don’t really know him from Adam, but f*ck that guy.”

Mark Pavelich, the owner/CEO/Gran High Poo-bah of Maximum Fighting Championships, is not the kind of guy who holds back his feelings. He’s an expressive, gregarious type who uses Twitter like he was getting bonuses for followers, and describing him as “outspoken” would be like saying Amy Winehouse liked to get high.* And right now, he’s feeling pretty pissed off at the Son of Winnebago Man.

It seems that recent moves by Bellator, particularly acquiring top MFC talents Douglas Lima and Ryan Ford, has worked the Pav’s nerves to the point that he had to go on Twitter to air his grievances, and then follow that up with an interview so he make sure that everyone understood the words that were coming out of his mouth. Pavelich insists that Bellator has signed unspecified fighters that are currently under contract with MFC, and Bjorn is an idiot. Furthermore, Pavelich doesn’t even know who this Bjorn guy is.

You know how you go on a date with someone, and they talk for two hours about their ex?  Yeah, it’s like that.

Well this is interesting.  MMAJunkie is reporting that Bjorn Rebney has confirmed talks with Marquardt and his management, but that there is no deal in place.  With all the speculation and assumptions and begging and threats and promises and retorts that have been going around, it seemed like Nate the Great was headed to the BFC to lock horns with at least one of their champions.

So what happened?  Let’s hear it from the man in black himself:

“Nate’s situation was pretty unique. It’s an anomaly for a guy like that to become available, so we had discussions. But it just became pretty clear it wasn’t the right fit.”

Wait, so, a week ago, Bellator was interested, but now, it’s just doesn’t feel right?

Very interesting, indeed.  Let us read in between the lines for a bit, if we may.

“So then I said to Dana, I said, ‘Look, big guy, you take that check, and you roll it up real tight…’”

With the UFC’s current deal with BFF network Spike set to run out at the end of the year, Zuffa has been looking at other options on television, including buying a stake in cable network G4. It’s been fertile ground for all manner of rumors, but one piece of speculation that kept popping up was that Zuffa may be looking at buying Bellator Fighting Championships. This is not really a new idea, and it’s understandable given Zuffa’s demonstrated willingness to swallow its competition, but it ain’t happening.

Sure, Zuffa has pockets deep enough to write a check for the young up and coming promotion, but would they actually be interested in doing so? What would such an acquisition do for the UFC? Could they convert Bellator’s circular steel to Zuffa’s angular cage? Do they need Bjorn Rebney to come up and teach the finer points of running tournaments? Are guys like Eddie Alvarez, Ben Askren, Joe Warren, and Hector Lombard valuable enough to justify a takeover?

Well, short answer: no. Everyone knows that you can’t octagon a circle, so Zuffa would likely have a handful of round cages with nothing to do with them. Who wants a cage that doesn’t reflect your company’s logo? Come on, people, that’s just elementary.

Come on in past the jump and we’ll lay out our case, woefully uninformed though it may be, as to why Zuffa will not be buying Bellator anytime in the near future. We’ll even open up the floor for comments, if you jerks think you know better than we do. Just remember, if you make us look silly, we’re completely capable of doing humorous things to your log-ins, like adding links to diaper fetish sites and penis pump vendors. You’ve been warned.

(“Yes, I want to be a f*cking fighter.” PicProps MMAMania)

Bellator Fighting Championships announced today that on June 18 it will be holding open tryouts for undiscovered professional fighters who want to earn a slot on one of the Chicago, Illinois-based promotions’s future cards.

The tryouts will take place at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida on Saturday, June 18th. Registration begins at 1:00 p.m.ET and tryouts begin at 2:00 p.m. ET.

According to the release, Bellator is planning on putting fighters who make it through the tryouts on its future local regional cards starting with Bellator 50, which takes place on September 17 at the same venue as the tryouts. Extra consideration will be given to Florida-based fighters for that card. Non-Florida-based fighters are still encouraged to try out and will be scouted for other potential future roster openings.

(“Give me your fired, your poor, your troubled Diazes yearning for THC, blacklisted fighters you don’t want any more…”)

When the news dropped last month that the UFC had bought Strikeforce, one of the least talked about stories was where would the move leave Strikeforce’s contracted female fighters, should Zuffa decide to cease promoting women’s MMA. UFC president Dana White has long been a vocal opponent of having women fight for him as there aren’t, in his opinion, enough top female fighters to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

In spite of White’s proclamation that both companies would be running “business as usual,” after the purchase, there have already been a significant number of changes to the company that have fans, fighters and pundits are left wondering if Strikeforce’s fighting females have a secure future with their new employer.

Propelled by the impressive viewership of his promotion’s first three events of season four on MTV2, Bellator Fighting Championships CEO Bjorn Rebney revealed to CagePotato.com yesterday that plans are currently underway to take his show on the road to Canada some time before the end of 2011.

“Earlier today I had a 45-minute conversation with the group that we work with who distribute Bellator programming up in Canada, The Score, about a collection of different venues, sites and dates that we’re going after to try to bring Bellator Fighting Championships to some time in the near future,” Rebney says.

(Rebney’s thinning patience with Coker showed in this recent Twitter posting.)

By CagePotato contributor S.C. Michaelson

CHICAGO — With the recent announcement from Strikeforce that it will put on a 2011 heavyweight grand prix tournament, the MMA community has been abuzz with excitement and intrigue. Many analysts predict that a successful tournament could be the catalyst to Strikeforce becoming more of a major player in today’s market. However, not everyone is as excited about the prospect of the proposed tournament — enter Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.

"Tournament schmurnament," spat Rebney. "Hello, does anybody remember what Bellator is? Our whole company is based around tournaments. Hell, we just had a heavyweight tournament last year!"

("My biggest regret? Not springing for caller ID. Next question …" PicProps: GalsGuidetoMMA)

Over the weekend, we brought you news that Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney was pursuing the very questionable strategy of trying to publicly shame Strikeforce into a promotional partnership with his lesser-known MMA company. After Rebney went to the media with his claims that Strikeforce jefe Scott Coker was ignoring his text messages about a potential cross-brand superfight between Gilbert Melendez and Eddie Alvarez (and Coker denied it, also to the press … so, you see where this is headed …) Bellator published some gloomy, Loch Ness Monster-style photographs of four messages Rebney allegedly sent somebody he had saved in his phone as “Scot Coker Mobile.” Yeah, it was all pretty hilarious in a slapstick, will-you-lookit-what-these-idiots-are-up-to-now kind of a way and the lolz just increased exponentially when later that same day Strikeforce confirmed that Rebney had been sending his texts to Coker’s old number.

Once we were all done shouting, “Smooth fuckin’ move, Bjorn!” in unison, we began to wonder aloud: How exactly would the boss of America’s second largest MMA promotion look upon the revelation that his potential new business partners would so readily try to out him as liar to the public … and even fumble around and fuck that up? As it turns out, not favorably. Coker told Bloody Elbow this week in his ever understated way that he has “concerns” about how Bellator handled this. If we had to guess about specifics, we’d wager the major concern is that Bjorn Rebney made himself look like a backbiting no-account who texts like my mom when she’s trying guilt trip me into calling her back about Sunday dinner. But maybe it’s best if we let Coker tell it in his own words.

(Step one of trying to create a strategic partnership with another organization: Publicly claim CEO of other organization is a goddamned liar. That’s some Dale Carnegie shit, right there. PicProps: Connect.in.com)

We’ve got a classic (and totally stupid) media gambit on our hands here between Bellator honcho Bjorn Rebney and Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker. Ever since Bellator decided that one of its primary corporate strategies would be to continually repeat the dubious claim that Eddie Alvarez is the No.1 lightweight fighter in the world, it’s been publicly pushing for a co-promotional, company vs. company show with Strikeforce. Rebney took the idea to the MMA media, saying he’d “love” for the two promotions to double-up on a pay-per-view effort featuring a bevy of cross-brand championship matches, but that Coker wasn’t calling him back about it. In response, Coker – who’s always down for totally mishandling a public relations opportunity – went on Sherdog Radio this week to say he too was interested, but denied he’d ever heard from Rebney and accused Bellator of pulling a PR stunt. Naturally, Bellator’s next move was to release what it alleges are a bunch of Rebney’s text messages to Coker. Ruh-roh.

It’s pretty easy to imagine someone in the Bellator office pumping their fist and yelling out, “Checkmate, motherfucker!” as they hit “send” on this particular email, which reportedly contained four fairly low-quality snapshots of Rebney’s texts. The images are after the jump, of course. If you squint, you can even kind of read them.