Bjorn Rebney: March 20th, 2013 –
“We haven’t really made substantive moves on guys that have been part of the recent UFC cuts. It’s just not our focus. There’s a lot of guys who have potential to be vintage Bellator guys, follow in the Eduardo Dantas, Pat Curran, type of road. That’s where our focus is. We have a lot of fighters under contract. We don’t want to have a situation like UFC, where you have to cut 150 guys or whatever they’re cutting. My focus and the team’s focus is let’s continue to find the guys we can build into stars under this banner. We do a rankings system of 1-10 across the divisions of guys we’re looking at recruiting from across the globe. We’re focused on those guys. It wasn’t so much about not wanting Fitch as it was that there was a series of guys we believe we can build up to be top guys in those weight classes, and that’s where our focus is going to remain.”
June 4th, 2013 –
Bellator as of today has signed ex UFC fighter Matt Riddle, Rampage Jackson and now Cheick Kongo. Which is awesome, but is it a sign of Viacom not wanting to focus on those indigenous Bellator fighters? Does Viacom want to pump the cash now for ratings and not sport? I guess so.
The two Wolf’s Lair teammates in Cheick and Rampage are headed to Bellator. Add a stoned Matt Riddle and we’ve got ourselves a sitcom.