(“Keep laughing, Eddie, because as soon as you lose that belt, your ass is mine.”) 

Former President Clinton once made infamous the phrase, “It depends on what your definition of the word ’is’ is,” while answering questions from the Independent Counsel’s office on the all-important subject of Monica Lewinsky. With former Bellator lightweight champion/UFC hopeful Eddie Alvarez and his boss, Bjorn Rebney, the discrepancy appears to depend on what one’s definition of the word “matched” is.

It has been no secret that the UFC wants Alvarez under their banner. The top lightweight fought the last fight under his Bellator contract last October but the promotion has the right to match any contract offered to Alvarez and thus keep him with them.

The UFC did indeed recently make an offer to Alvarez, but it is here where the stories from the former champ and the Bellator CEO begin to differ.

First, Alvarez sat down with The MMA Hour and claimed that Bellator had not matched the UFC’s proposed terms. Rebney then went on MMA Weekly Radio and said that his organization had, in fact, matched the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, point for point.

And then things got really awkward.

(Last warning, Hector. If you grunt like that one more time we’re going to revoke your membership.)

In a new report about Eddie Alvarez’s impending free-agency, MMAFighting.com got Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney to share details of a similar situation in which his promotion got into a bidding war with the UFC. It happened six months ago with their former middleweight champ Hector Lombard, and in that case, it didn’t exactly work out for either party:

Lombard hit the open market, where he was immediately offered a lucrative deal with the UFC. Rebney said that contract, which according to him paid Lombard a $400,000 signing bonus, a $300,000 starting purse per fight and pay-per-view participation points, was cost-prohibitive from Bellator’s standpoint.

If the UFC came in with a similar offer for Alvarez, who is considered by most observers to be right around the top five lightweights in the world, it is believed that would make him the highest-paid 155-pounder in the UFC. On the other hand, Lombard’s debut in the UFC was considered a disappointment, as he lost a lackluster split-decision to Tim Boetsch. That development could cause the UFC to reconsider a big-money offer for another free agent.

(Fighter escapes power-bomb to land big knockout on neckbearded savage, via MMA: Inside the Cage.)

- Dana White Goes Off Again on Jon Jones, Greg Jackson (MMAFighting)

- Contracts, How Do They Work? The Bellator Story (BloodyElbow)

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- Matt Lindland Discusses His Future, Fedor Emelianenko, Fallout With the UFC, And More (Fightline)

- Woman vs. Workout: Model Lauren Berlingeri Learns the MMA Basics With Louis Gaudinot (YouTube.com/3V)

- Must…resist…horsemeat joke… (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- A Female MMA Fighter Will Be a Character in the Upcoming ‘Dead or Alive 5′ Game (MiddleEasy)

- The 25 Fittest Football Players (MensFitness)

- The 50 Most Brutal Hits in NFL History (Complex)

- Movie Supercut Video: Animals Covering Their Eyes With Their Paws (FilmDrunk)

- The 50 Coolest Kids in the History of the Internet (WorldWideInterweb)

- How to Fight With Your Wife (MadeMan)

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(If that kick had been thrown in the UFC, there’s a 99% chance it would have knocked Santiago out.) 

According to Swedish news source mmanytt, Polish middleweight phenom Mamed Khalidov has supposedly reached an agreement with Strikeforce and will make his debut in early 2013. Khalidov, whom you may recall was offered a contract with the UFC a few months ago that was plain laughable, has won his last five fights by way of stoppage, with all of those wins coming within the first three minutes of action. It appears that his desire to get, get, get, get get, get that paper has actually paid off, as he has not only been offered a much higher payrate per fight with Strikeforce, but will also be free of the contract exclusivity that UFC fighters face. As long as he does not become champion, that is.

A skilled submission fighter with equally as deadly striking, we have sang the praises of Khalidov for some time now here at CP, and it’s good to see that he may finally be getting the chance to show off his skills to a wider audience. Let’s hope he doesn’t blow it (we’re looking at you, Mr. Lombard.)

We will have more on this possible signing as it develops.

After the jump: A trio of fight videos that sees Khalidov wipe the floor with UFC veterans James Irvin, Rodney Wallace, and Jesse Taylor.

(Jake, you be Strikeforce. Jason, you be the UFC. Now, show us how the next few months will go …)

It’s been three days since Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s sudden jump to the UFC and we still haven’t heard anything substantive on the topic from Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker or anyone else in the lame duck MMA company. A week ago Coker went on a popular MMA “radio” show and danced around the issue of Miller’s future in Strikeforce. He said the promotion was talking to Mayhem’s management about a fight this summer. No mention of the fact Miller was twisting in the breeze without a contract. No mention that the UFC might stick its beak in. Used to be, it felt like a waste of time to ask Coker questions because it was hard to get a straight answer out of the guy. Now it feels like it’s a waste of time because he may no longer even know what’s going on inside his own company.

For all his talk about his ongoing commitment to “growing Strikeforce and making it work,” it’s pretty clear that Coker (and maybe Strikeforce itself) has become the metaphorical equivalent of a WWE referee. He’s just a dude standing the middle of the ring in an official-looking outfit, desperately pleading for order while the battle rages heedlessly around him. No one is listening. No one is even pretending he has any power anymore. That’s sad, because Coker seems like one of the sport’s legitimate good guys, but the quiet loss of Miller last week is maybe the most compelling evidence yet that it’s only a matter of time before that phone call from Vegas comes in, informing the Strikeforce staff that the charade is over.

("Hmm. This is not how things went down during my positive visualization sessions." Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

After being soundly thrashed by Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic on two days’ notice at UFC 110, Anthony "The Hippo" Perosh has been signed to a four-fight deal by the UFC, according to a report on InfiniteMMA. Perosh sports a career record of 10-6, a UFC record of 0-3 (including losses to Jeff Monson and Christian Wellisch in 2006) and victories over a bunch of random Australians. On paper, he has absolutely no chance of making an impact in the UFC’s light-heavyweight division, and the UFC’s next Australian event won’t be until next year at the earliest. But it just goes to show you that dreams do come true when you ignore your natural instinct for self-preservation and take guaranteed losses against larger MMA legends who have gone through actual training camps. Kudos, Anthony.

We’re still waiting to hear if anybody got un-signed after UFC 110. As predicted, Keith Jardine and Stephan Bonnar are in danger after taking their third-straight losses, but Dana White’s affection for the Dean and the Psycho could potentially save their jobs. Igor Pokrajac is toast, though, no question. Stay tuned…

According to a report on Sherdog, Strikeforce light-heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi has ended his professional relationship with M-1 Global, the promotional outfit best known for handling the career of Fedor Emelianenko. As Mousasi wrote in an e-mail:

Mousasi added that he’d like to come back to the U.S. to train with Josh Thomson at American Kickboxing Academy; the two fighters recently became acquainted in Miami during the last Strikeforce show. So what spurred Mousasi’s split with M-1? Apparently, they wouldn’t keep him on the payroll for life. Mousasi’s former manager at M-1, Apy Echteld, told MMA Junkie that the Last Gypsy broke ties when M-1 refused to sign him into a long-term management deal that would give the Dutch-Armenian fighter "lifetime security" — a contract setup reportedly enjoyed by Fedor Emelianenko.

Mousasi is still under contract with Strikeforce for as many as seven fights, and plans to enter DREAM’s light-heavyweight grand prix later this year. His next match is rumored to be against Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal in April.

After purchasing “select assets” including fighter contracts from Pro Elite last week, Strikeforce quickly went from a surprisingly successful regional promotion to a major player in the MMA scene almost overnight.  In this exclusive interview CEO Scott Coker talks about the deal and the acquisitions, as well as what his organization has planned for its new talent.

CagePotato.com:  Thanks for talking with me, Scott.  Since you purchased the fighter contracts, how has the transition been going?  Do you find that the fighters are eager to fight for Strikeforce now?

I’ll tell you, we’ve had about twenty or so, or about half of the roster, that we’ve reached out to as of this morning and had good conversations about scheduling and match-ups.  I think that, at the end of the day, a lot of these guys just want to get back to work and get back to fighting so they can continue their careers.  So I’d say the transition has been going well.

What about any fighters who might have been hoping to get free of their Pro Elite contracts and sign with the UFC?

I’ve only had that conversation with one fighter.  And we’ve had two or three conversations with that fighter since, and now I think they may be feeling a different way than they were before.  And I can understand the frustration that a lot of these fighters are feeling, because they’ve been out of work for a while.  Not everybody fought on the last show in October.  Some of them haven’t fought since June or July of last year.  

We dealt with that frustration at the very beginning and we understood where it was coming from, but a lot of these guys I’ve known for a long time, their managers are friends of mine, so I think the ice has all been broken.  And the fighter who was originally looking to go to the UFC is now saying, ‘Do you think I could fight by May?’  So I think they see what we’re doing and it’s going to be okay.

("No Love" has "No Job." Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Now that the country is losing jobs at a rate of almost 20,000/day, it was only a matter of time before the UFC’s contracted fighters began to feel the crunch. FiveOuncesofPain reports that the following fighters have been released from their contracts — and will now enter the worst job market since World War II:

— Rich Clementi was dropped shortly after tapping to a guillotine choke in the first round of his match with Gleison Tibau at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 17. It was his second-consecutive loss in the Octagon, following a previous decision loss to Gray Maynard at UFC 90. This is actually the third time that the UFC has given Clementi his walking papers; he was also dropped after losing his first UFC fight to Yves Edwards in 2003, and again after going 1-2 following his stint on TUF 4 in 2006-7.

— Luigi Fioravanti was also cut after UFC Fight Night 17. Though he was able to score a decision win over Brodie Farber at "Fight for the Troops" in December, his first-round TKO loss to Anthony Johnson on Saturday was his fourth loss in his last six UFC appearances.

(When you wake up, we’ll need you to clean out your desk. Photo courtesy of UFC.com.)

Just how rough is this economy? Well, former UFC top heavyweight contender Fabricio Werdum just got downsized after losing one fight. Apparently Dana White & Co. were less than understanding of Werdum‘s upset loss to Junior Dos Santos at UFC 90 and asked him to immediately re-negotiate his contract. The two sides couldn’t come to an agreement, prompting Werdum to leave the promotion; according to MMA Weekly, he’s already negotiating with other fight clubs in the U.S. and Japan.

For the record, Werdum’s base salary was $80,000 when he made his UFC debut in April 2007, dropping a decision to Andrei Arlovski. We’d assume that he made the same amount for his subsequent beatings of Gabriel Gonzaga and Brandon Vera (at UFC 80 and 85), and his loss to Dos Santos last month, but salaries for those events were never publicly released. At any rate, his old employer decided he wasn’t worth 80 grand anymore and put the screws to him, which is just another example of the imbalance of power that plagues UFC fighter contracts. You sign a piece of paper that seemingly promises you a certain amount of money for a certain number of fights, but it’s by no means a guarantee unless you win every fight. And as the UFC becomes the only game in town, the power it wields is even greater. Anybody want to start a fighter’s union?

(You do not want to mess with this man. Photo courtesy of CombatLifestyle via myspace.com/kenpavia.)

Led by the always-outspoken Ken Pavia, a group of high-profile MMA agents have joined forces to block their fighters from being sold to the highest bidder during Showtime’s planned auction of Pro Elite’s corporate assets on November 17th. From a new press release drafted by the Pav, and signed by Monte Cox, Ed Soares, and Cesar Gracie, among others:

Individually we consummated promotional agreements with Pro Elite. These agreements were made based on a multiplicity of factors including but not limited to relationships with certain Pro Elite personnel, venues, television exposure, jurisdictional concerns, public relations support, and numerous other intangibles. These considerations are not readily transferable…

We intend to fight the lawful ability to transfer these assets, and as we believe these are personal services contracts, we do not believe there is an obligation to perform if transferred. With pooled resources we are prepared to fight this issue.

The unity of this effort is unprecedented and the message that is being sent is clear. Absent significant pre-established negotiated terms, do not bid on these contracts unless you are prepared to fight the challenge to their legality. It is our intention to honor our commitment to Pro Elite, but if Pro Elite is not able to perform in accordance with the contractual terms, the fighters should be granted unrestricted free agency with the unfettered ability to enter the marketplace.

It’s good to see business rivals uniting for the rights of their fighters, especially when they haven’t always been civil towards each other in the past. Hopefully Showtime will get the message that some of these “assets” they plan on auctioning actually represent the livelihoods of human beings.

(Now that belt is worthless for two reasons.)

I never thought I’d admit this, but maybe KJ Noons’ decision not to defend his EliteXC lightweight title against Nick Diaz on CBS wasn’t so dumb after all. You’ll recall that everyone from Jared Shaw to, well, us, gave Noons a hard time for running from a Diaz rematch. He was eventually stripped of the title and claimed breach of contract as he headed back to the world of boxing, where he was champion of nothing and had no chance to be seen on network TV.

But now that EliteXC’s fighters are sidelined while they wait to find out whether their contracts will be auctioned off, declared void, or simply held on to in such a way that prevents them from making a living, Noons is off making money as a boxer again.

Noons (7-1 as a boxer) is set to face Alex Bogarin (8-6-3) in a six-rounder next Thursday at the Expo Center in El Monte, Calif. The fight won’t be on CBS in front of millions of viewers, so you can still argue that it was dumb of him to turn down that exposure and the opportunity to pull in some extra sponsorship money, but the fact remains that he’s working.

Sure, you could also wonder why, if he’s contractually free to box, he couldn’t have fought Diaz and defended his title like any respectable champion and still returned to boxing when EliteXC went tits up. But this has to feel like a moral victory for Noons, so let’s not spoil it with details. As for the rest of the EliteXC stable, let’s just say it’s looking like a lean Christmas this year at Scott Smith’s house.

(“Where’s the money, bitch? I want my money!”)

We’ve already gone over how Roger Huerta feels underloved and underpaid. But we haven’t gotten any sense of what El Matador thinks he’s actually worth — until now. From WrestlingObserver.com via MMA Mania:

Huerta, who has one fight left on his contact after the Florian fight, is far apart with UFC on terms for a renewal. Huerta, who has gotten a new agent, was asking for six-figures guaranteed per fight as well as points on the PPV, in negotiations that haven’t gone well for some time. That’s a better deal then [BJ] Penn, so he wasn’t going to get it. The UFC position is that they groomed Huerta and pushed him hard and were careful of his opponents, with the exception of Clay Guida…

OMFG. Six figures is a ballsy request for someone who’s four days away from being sent back to the middle of the UFC’s lightweight ladder. (Remember, he’s currently making $19,000 to show and $19,000 to win.) But asking for points on the pay-per-view take is straight-up delusional. All of a sudden, beating Clay Guida puts you into the Chuck/Tito/Randy level of compensation?

Not only does Huerta seem to have an over-inflated sense of his value — which is troubling enough as it is — but his demands could easily sink his chances of fighting for the lightweight championship. It’s the UFC’s policy to not allow title shots to fighters unless they sign contract extensions, and if the two sides can’t meet in the middle, he’ll be given the Arlovski treatment — a long, involuntary hiatus, a meaningless final match on an undercard, and a “goodbye” without the common courtesy of a “good luck.” So if he manages to get past Florian at “Seek and Destroy,” he’ll need to make nice if he wants a crack at the belt.

Or, he could just wait it out and join up with Affliction, where they literally sneeze at $100,000 base salaries. $100,000 is what they spent on shrimp cocktail for Tim Sylvia’s dressing room at “Banned.” And goddamn if he didn’t eat all of it.

(Dan Miller. Kneebar. Get some.)

When news dropped that the UFC was indeed buying the IFL’s video library and some fighter contracts, the logical next question was, which contracts? Surely the champs were a good bet, but what of Wojtek Kaszowski? While Wojtek might have missed the boat, the dynamic brotherly duo of Dan and Jim Miller are on their way to the big show.

The two have signed with the UFC, making them two of the biggest prospects yet to make the leap. Dan Miller won the IFL’s middleweight title with a submission victory over Ryan McGivern in May, but the company went in the tank before he could defend it.

Jim Miller, a promising lightweight, debuted with a decision victory over Bart Palaszewski and has since been waiting in the wings for another fight. Of course it’s been crowded in those IFL wings of late.

Check out clips of both of them in action after the jump, including an insane guillotine choke by Dan. Also enjoy the journey into the IFL’s yesteryear with all the fun “Battleground” features, like ringside correspondent/obligatory hot chick Tiffany Fallon. Wonder if the UFC bought the entire video library, including the IFL coaches rap song. We can only hope.

(Metaphorically speaking.)

Fighters.com is reporting that Zuffa (the parent company of the UFC and WEC) has acquired certain assets of the International Fight League, including the IFL’s video library and fighter contracts:

The deal is similar to the buyout of the World Fighting Alliance in 2006 and allows Zuffa to get its hands on the valuable IFL video library and fighters without assuming the failed company’s debt…

[T]he anonymous former IFL fighters who’ve confirmed to Fighters.com that they’ve been notified of the acquisition of their contract by Zuffa, LLC have also confirmed that their contractual obligations are now to Zuffa, LLC according to their respective managements and legal counsels.

Observant MMA fans noticed that the UFC was using IFL footage to introduce several of the new fighters during Saturday’s “Silva vs. Irvin” broadcast on SpikeTV, and that commentators Joe Rogan and Mike Goldberg made several references to the defunct fight league — a practice that was previously verboten. And it seems that the more financially clever of these observant MMA fans made the connection and started buying up the IFL’s stock.

Obviously, those fighter contracts are the only things worth salvaging from Jay Larkin’s Death Ship. Reigning featherweight champ Wagnney Fabiano would be perfect for Urijah Faber’s next WEC title defense (assuming he walks through Mike Brown in September, which he will), Chris Horodecki and Ryan Schultz could help energize the WEC’s ho-hum lightweight division, and Roy Nelson would bring some big-bellied jolliness to the UFC’s malnourished heavyweight roster. And as we saw on Saturday, even the IFL’s lesser-known guys are often good for a highlight-reel head-kick knockout, or a comeback fight for Brandon Vera. If the UFC can steal the IFL’s ring girl contracts as well, it’ll be a total success.

(Props: MMA Training)

Just as the UFC couldn’t come to terms with Fedor Emelianenko partly because they wouldn’t allow him to compete in the Sambo tournaments that he periodically steamrolls through, a deal with top 10 middleweight and ATT member Denis Kang was also nixed over an equally minor request for competitive freedom. As MMAJunkie reports:

“Yes, we were (negotiating with the UFC),” Kang said. “I would have loved to fight in the UFC. I would love to fight in North America and not have to travel 12 hours for a change. At the end of the day, it came down to where I want to be represented at the moment and who was offering the best contract.”

The best contract, it seems, was one that would allow the half-Korean fighter to compete in South Korea’s SpiritMC organization on an annual basis. Kang has fought 10 times in the organization since 2004, winning all 10 fights, and is still the SpiritMC heavyweight champion.

However, the UFC requires exclusive contracts, which prohibit fighters from competing in other organizations. Such a limitation would have alienated many of Kang’s fans.

“SpiritMC was only asking that I fight for them once a year,” Kang said. “That’s one of the things that I really, really wanted to do — to keep my SpiritMC title and keep my fan base in Korea, which is really important to me.”

We’ve said it before: Now is not the time for the UFC to be stonewalling in regards to exclusivity, when their fighters are beginning to smell the money elsewhere (and specifically when there are virtually no contenders left in the UFC’s middleweight division). We understand the need for exclusive contracts — you wouldn’t want one of your stars building value for another brand, or getting injured while fighting elsewhere, or taking an image-harming loss against lesser competition. But there are exceptions where the benefits would far outweigh the costs. Even if Fedor Emelianenko were to lose in a Sambo tournament halfway around the world (an unlikely scenario to begin with), there are few American UFC fans who would see it, or care all that much, and the same goes for Denis Kang crushing cans in Korea. SpiritMC is not a competitor to the UFC; technically, Sambo isn’t even the same sport. Wouldn’t the UFC’s wisest move be to start handling these things on a case-by-case basis?

(Koscheck — unapologetically weird-looking.)

Somehow we slept on this one when it was published Friday, but FiveOuncesofPain recently interviewed Josh Koscheck and got him to not comment on the current state of his contract with the UFC — and you know what that means. The juicy bit:

Adam Morgan: There’s been a lot of talk about contracts and pay in the UFC right now. Are you happy with your current deal?
Josh Koscheck: I’m just gonna say no comment with that and just avoid the question altogether. It’s tough times right now and I’m gonna be coming up for a renegotiation of my contract after this fight. I’ll let my managers do all that. I don’t want to have anything to do with it. That’s why I have an awesome manager, Zinkin.tv, probably one of the best management companies in the world right now in mixed martial arts. I’ll let them handle that and I’m just gonna not comment on it. That’s their job and my job is to fight.

Are you still on your Ultimate Fighter contract? And is this the last fight on it?
Yes I am. I’ve fulfilled my nine fights and now there’s just time remaining on the contract but I didn’t just want to sit around for 8 or 9 months so I decided to just fight again.

We’d previously wondered what Koscheck and Diego Sanchez did to deserve being stuck on the undercard of UFC 82, and now it smells like Kos might be in the same boat as Andrei Arlovski; he was at the end of his contract, his management and Zuffa couldn’t see eye-to-eye during re-negotiations, and now he’s being punished with a dark match for what could be his last fight inside the Octagon. If the UFC has been paying Kos the same rate since the first Ultimate Fighter Finale in April 2005, it’s safe to say that he’s been underpaid for a while, and deserves a little extra. I don’t know if DeWayne Zinkin is demanding some outrageous figure for his client, but if you’re the UFC, it would probably be a good idea to keep your mid-level stars happy, when the big names are waltzing out the door, one by one. And if Diego Sanchez signed a contract at the same time Koscheck did (we can only assume), could this little drama be playing out with him as well? Is the UFC 82 undercard just a big graveyard for stalled contract talks?