Bellator Releases Texts From Bjorn Rebney to Scott Coker

But I could see the Bellator guys winning all of those fight and that’d be bad for SF. As much as I want to see it, I doubt it will happen.

This is so childish. Either you can do business together or don’t. I don’t care who’s holding what up

This is just making me think about how bad M-1 has been. I know they are still awful to work with, but maybe Coker is also a huge part of the scheduling problem. The more I hear about the guy, the more inclined I am to believe he has no idea what hes doing.

Simply to cut a promo full of balding voice cracking fury on how much of a scumbag Bjorn is. No way in hell Scott would speak up to this guy.

He’s got charisma and ambition … makes Coker seem kinda like a dud …

Told ya who the liar liar pants on fire was… Coker wants rebney nowhere near showtime.

 MMA people are quickly finding out that Bjorn lies and plays games. Managers who have dealt with Bellator know what I am talking about.

Or have your balls in a jar in Bjorn’s basement? That is the question Scott ponders at night.

Nate – any chance you will rethink your stance on which of the two is telling the truth? How does this fit with your ealier assesment that Coker was the “rare” honest promoter?

Whatever the full truth is, Rebney has positioned this story to make coker and SF look like the are ducking and running scared. That is never a good image to have in the fight business.

I also think its time that everyone stop saying that SF is the only one with something to lose. SF has no more or less to lose than Bellator.

SF has struggled all year to put on a compelling card. While the ratings may be good for showtime, having your events watched by 400K people is not doing much to grow the brand. SF continually fails to find deserving/compelling opponents for their champs.

I would argue that SF has the most to gain from this. A compelling card with lots of buzz could be SF’s ticket to get back on CBS.

Bellator vs SF on CBS should do great ratings. I believe they should unify their titles. Neither promotion can keep their champs busy with deserving opponents. Having a unified champ that defends 1-2 times per year at SF and 1-2 at Bellator would be best for both promotions. This would give them both a strong champ worthy of a high ranking. It would give SF time to develop worthy challengers and Bellator time to run tournaments to develop challengers. Everyone wins since the champs would fight on Fox when defending against Bellator opponents and then fight on show/cbs when defending against SF opponents.

If any fighter feels they are not getting a legit opportunity to fight for the belt, they can go join the Bellator tourny and win their shot.

Neither of these promotions are going to overtake Or even compete with UFC – BUT – if they play their cards right, work together they could build a very strong number two that everyone finds interesting and worth watching.

Bellator has brought Fox their best ratings ever in their time slots – so I would argue Bellator is closer to being the 2nd best promotion at this time than SF. I actually enjoy the Bellator format and have not missed a show.

I have seen many people on here say that Bellator is losing money etc and going under, what is this based on? Where are the facts to back this up? While I admit to not having any facts regarding the financial well being of either promotion, I would argue that Bellator is much more stable than SF and has much better prospects at continuing than SF.

Bellator just wrapped up their 3rd season and they are already starting to build their own stars (Frausto, Askren, Warren, Lombard). SF seems incapable and unwilling to build new, fresh hone grown stars.

If they unite the titles and have one recognized champ over both promotions, then neither has more to lose or gain. They can continue operating just the way they are now without making any changes. I am sure LOTS of fighters would like the prospect of going to either promotion with the knowledge that if they became champ, they would be seen on Fox, Showtime and CBS. This could make for some very lucrative sponsorship deals for the champs and be a big selling point on getting talent to sign with either SF or Bellator.

Or have a hissy fit flamewar on forums. Either one. Probably not both.

“Scott I missed you at the sauna in the gym today, write back, P.S you are dreamy. Bjorn.”

The fact that the text messages are even out there like that. Who runs that kind of business? I love MMA and am happy to finally see it get so popular, but it’s shit like this that make the sport look like a joke. It’s like that couple that gets into fights in the Denny’s parking lot…

I don’t know if it’s a show or what but it’s embarrassing to the sport… IMO…

IMO this makes Rebney and Bellator look like fools. This is just the beginning of the diseased infection that is Bjorn Rebney. I could careless about any crap that comes out of Bjorn’s mouth.

Coker has got to love the kind of publicity this is getting his organization. This is some real high class co-promotional negotiations going on here.

Seriously look at this treatment Coker is getting from Rebney all because he says he is open to co-promotion. I think Coker needs to use these actions by Rebney and put a stop to it right now. Admit he lied about getting texts and phone calls from Rebney and say it was an attempt to get the negotiations back behind the scenes where they should be not in the media. So now Coker should just come out and say he is not going to do business in the media and any potential co-promotion with Bellator is dead as of this moment because of Rebney’s actions.

but this just seems like a bit of desperation, really. I think that his best fighters (Alvarez, Lombard, Askren, etc) are probably getting frustrated by the lack of challenges and are looking for bigger things than Bellator can offer. They seem pretty loyal to the organization, but some of these guys just need to break out in a big way and the clock is ticking, especially for a guy like Alvarez, who is in his prime and who really may be the best lightweight in the world. I think Rebney just desperately wants to offer his fighters, who he probably values in terms of business and also personally, somewhere to go and cement their legacies — without losing them to the big show. It may be childish, but he’s only doing it because his best fighters are dissatisfied and his options are few.

If the fans of this sport weren’t so dumb, maybe they’d actually push for this fight to happen instead of worrying about how a promoter might cope with the aftermath. No one sits around watching NFL games of wild card level teams thinking “Oooh, maybe they can get a more enriching official pizza deal if they get to 9-7! And some more spots on Monday Night Football!” But MMA fans will do that all day and night rather than demand fights that aren’t crap because Strikeforce has to keep their position and blah blah blah.

In fact, if you believed internet forums and message boards, they’d rather watch crap so long as idiots and degenerates can be convinced to watch because “BUYRATES!” and “SHARE NUMBERS!” mean more to them than competition.