Lex McMahon, the manager of former UFC middleweight title contender Nate Marquardt, has hit back today at comments made by Bellator’s CEO, Bjorn Rebney who said the fighter wasn’t the right fit at this point in time and ruled out signing him at least for now. Speaking via MMAWeekly.com, McMahon said:
“Certainly he’s looking to fight some of the top fighters in the world, particularly he addressed Hector Lombard and Ben Askren and B.J. Penn and Paul Daley, and there are some great fights there. He in particular selected those fighters because they disrespected him publicly while he was going through a difficult time. Nate’s never been someone whose done that to anyone else while they were down. I think he took a great deal of offense to that, and we’d love any of those fights, any time, anywhere.”
“Regarding the idea of Nate not being a fit at this time, I’m not sure what not being a fit means? Nate is a top 5 fighter in the world, certainly he went through a difficult period, but the fact that he was cleared from his suspension in less than three weeks and not fined, shows a tremendous amount about who Nate is as a person, and what his conduct really was. I just fail to see how when a fighter of that caliber comes available, when you’ve got programming that’s on the MTV networks where they’re looking for content to counter program the UFC, I just find it hard that Nate’s not a right fit for them.”
“Bjorn’s (Rebney) indicated that there’s opportunities for super fights, frankly that’s something that we’d love to see, and he didn’t put that on the table. If that’s something Bjorn wants, I suggest we sit back down and have a discussion about super fights. Nate is very interested in fighting Hector Lombard or Ben Askren, or both. We weren’t afforded the discussion to talk about super fights, and it’s one that makes a great deal of sense to all concerned. It will be some of the best ratings Bellator has ever enjoyed.”
“I do want to respect the process of the negotiations and not get into the details, but ultimately what I think it boils down to is Nate’s one of the best fighters in the world, if you want him to be part of the organization for the long term, then he needs to be compensated for that. I think Bjorn and his team made an excellent effort, but we’re not there. We have a tremendous amount of respect for Bellator and Bjorn Rebney, but let’s be honest, Nate Marquardt’s the right fit for any organization he’s in.”
“Nate Marquardt’s ready to fight, we’re looking for the right partner and anyone that’s talking about super fight opportunities, let’s sit down and have a discussion. To come out and say that Nate Marquardt’s not the right fit, just makes no sense to me.”
It is becoming more and more clear that Marquardt’s management team were looking at Bellator as their salvation should they fail to patch things up with UFC President, Dana White and are now scrambling to salvage any possibility of a relationship with the upstart promotion following Rebney’s comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment