Rebney Responds To Coker “To Make A Deal The Phone Has To Be Picked Up.”

Added on Nov 04, 2010 by John Petit in

UFC & MMA

A few months ago Gilbert Melendez, Strikforce Lightweight Champion made some comments about wanting to Eddie Alvarez who is Bellator’s comparable champion. He was basically saying he wanted to fight the winner of the Alvarez/Huerta fight, which ended up being Gilbert Melendez. Without blinking Alvarez said he wanted the fight, and of course Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney wanted to make the fight as well.

As reported on sportsbettingworld.com Rebney’s attempts to contact Strikeforce Scott Coker were in vain, as Coker never responded to texts and calls from Rebney. “That’s a fight we should make happen as mixed martial arts promoters. Take the CEO hat off and just be fans,” Rebney said to Sherdog. “That’s a fight that we should do.”

Rebney continued “If Scott had just called me back and said, ‘Hey, I’d love to work with you, but the Gilbert fight against Eddie is not one that makes sense for us,’ I never would have brought it up with the media. It’s just that to pretend to be engaged publicly and then not be responsive to my attempts to reach him for going on 90 days, I don’t think it’s fair or reasonable.”

Rebney is quick to point out that this was all Gilbert’s idea, and Alvarez is a fighter who responds to anyone who calls him out. “He’s a fighter very much at the core, His perception of it is if Gilbert called him out and if Gilbert keeps talking about it, Gilbert should go to his promoter and say, ‘Do the fight. I want this fight to happen. I’m your champion and now I’m looking like a guy who is part of an organization that doesn’t want it to occur.’” Rebney continued “Have your champ stop talking about the fight, so that Eddie can not have to respond to it and I don’t have to respond to it, or just sit down with me and let’s work it out.”

Coker chastised Rebney for making comments publicly saying “Thats not how deals like this get done, It makes us not want to work with them.” Rebney shot back saying “The only reason I followed up so aggressively with Scott both publicly and privately on his own private phone was that it seemed to us, based on his responses, he wanted to make the fight happen, I completely understand him not wanting to make the fight happen. Were the roles reversed, I probably wouldn’t want to make that fight happen either.”

In fact, Rebney is very understanding with regards to the reasons Strikeforce may have for not wanting to make the fight happen. “There’s no shame in saying, ‘I don’t want the fight. It doesn’t make sense for our organization. We don’t want it.’ But just let us know, or just pick up the phone or sit down and have dinner with me. It’s a pretty simple process. We’ve gone out of our way to try to make it work. Doesn’t look like it’s going to work. Doesn’t look like Scott wants it, and I respect that if that’s the case, but just let us know you don’t want the fight.”

The more time that passes it seems more likely the fight won’t happen. However Rebney is still open to working together, but it takes two to make a deal. “I like Scott. He seems like a good guy. A lot of people in this industry like him. I’d fly out to San Francisco in two days and sit down and take him out to dinner and talk through it and put this fight into motion, but the phone’s gotta get picked up.”