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For years, Scott Coker was on the other side of the deal: a high-level fighter would end his contract and move on to the UFC.
This is what has happened with many of the biggest stars of the last decade, including some of the biggest stars in the history of MMA.
Ronda Rousey was at Strikeforce, a company owned and founded by Coker, before being at UFC. Just like Amanda Nunes and Miesha Tate. And Daniel Cormier and Luke Rockhold and Jacare Souza and Tyron Woodley and a crowd of others.
Coker made the favor a few times in his five years at Bellator, including Benson Henderson, Ryan Bader and Rory MacDonald, as UFC freestyle players.
<p class = "canvas-atom canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "On Tuesday, Coker landed perhaps its most important among them, when he signed the former UFC, Invicta and Strikeforce featherweight champion & nbsp;Cris Cyborg Justino to a multi-fight contract& nbsp; which he describes as "greatest in the history of MMA". "data-reactid =" 26 "> On Tuesday, Coker may have won the most of his critics, when he signed with Cris Cyborg Justino, former UFC featherweight champion, Invicta and Strikeforce, a multi-fight contract that he describes as more important the history of MMA.
President Bellator did not want to define what he meant by "bigger," but he just said he made it clear that Cyborg would not need to cut coupons if it did not want to.
"Here's the thing: I do not want to get into the deal with exactly what we gave her, but we did research on what the best fighters in the world have made," Coker said at the time. a phone interview with Yahoo Sports. "I'll be honest with you: there is documentation that comes from I mean civilly [court] cases where different managers were arguing with their fighters and where some of these numbers were revealed in terms of what these fighters were doing.
"All I want to say is that we did our research and I feel comfortable saying that this is the biggest contract awarded to a fighter for a global amount.
Cyborg was abandoned by the UFC a few days after its victory over Felicia Spencer at UFC 240 in July. She published a video of her post-fight conversation with the backstage of UFC President Dana White, in which she later admitted that someone from her team had tampered with the issue. Audio to give the impression that White had said something that he had not said.
White said that the UFC was "out of the company Cyborg" and gave him permission to seek a new deal.
There were few valuable options for her beyond Bellator. Coker has an active featherweight division that few promotions would have been able to sign with Cyborg.
The UFC still has no ranking in the Top 10 for its featherweight women, the only one of its divisions where it's true.
"If you look at what we've done at Strikeforce in the past and over the last two, three years, we're in the 145-pound category. [for women], Said Coker. "The UFC has found people to fight, get people moving, and so on, but I'm not sure they were promoting 145-pound women like we are and as we did.
"We have a lot of people fighting for her. [Champion] Julia Budd immediately comes to my mind. Olga Rubin comes to mind. Arlene Blencowe comes to mind. We have Leslie Smith. Cat Zingano, another free agent with whom we discuss, We try to understand that. Right off the bat, I think we have five or six girls with whom she could fight and that would be great.
The addition of Cyborg gives Bellator a star with indisputable talent. Before being eliminated by Nunes in their fight for the featherweight title against UFC 232 in Inglewood, California, in December, she was widely considered the greatest female fighter of all time.
Nunes has exceeded it in the eyes of some, but not all. His record speaks for itself and his fights with Bellator will be hot news in the MMA space.
Cyborg Landing gave Coker the opportunity to gloat a bit. Many of his former Strikeforce stars have continued to do great things at the UFC. He highlighted a group of fighters who had previously been successful with him before becoming a UFC star.
The popular narrative, he said, is not always the right one. And he insisted that he was not concerned about some of the problems he had with Cyborg. White blamed her for failing a drug test in 2011 and said she was having trouble working with her and that she had refused many fights.
Coker stated that he had no problem with it and that he would treat it as he always did, even though he pointed out that it would be tested .
"In the day, I've always heard it said," Well, Strikeforce is not as good as the UFC, "which turned out to be bullshit when the sale was took place and that these guys had a chance to fight at the UFC and prove themselves, "Coker said. "… We know Cree and we know what she can do. Overall, she was at the UFC for three or four years and they did not create a division for her. Let's be real.
"We are going, we are determined to develop this division and make it as deep and competitive as possible, we will have the fighting and we will leave from there."
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