Bjorn Rebney talks Paul Daley.

Stephie Daniels asks Bellator's Bjorn Rebney about Paul Daley's situation:

I haven't seen anything that Paul has said or written, but we obviously have high hopes for Paul. I mean, we put him in the voting for the fight competition, we flew him down to Orlando for a very elaborate, four day photo shoot that was for our partners at Spike, we flew him to the US for exposure and to introduce him to US consumers, we gave him a signing bonus ... we've done a lot of things to show Paul how committed we are, and we think he's a very fun fighter to watch.

Unfortunately, Paul was arrested and charged with criminal assault in the UK. That arrest and charge and pending trial legally prohibits him from entering the United States. That action on Paul's part has made it impossible for us to include him in the tournament. He's scheduled to stand trial in April, and our hope, for Paul's sake, is that the trial goes well and that he doesn't have to spend time incarcerated.

With that in mind, we're currently trying to work through a structure that might allow him to fight outside our contract. We're not doing shows in the UK and he'd like to fight. We've done it with Eddie (Alvarez) and I think Hector (Lombard) fought outside our agreement five times. We're trying to make that work, but there's a process that we have to go through. There's a regimented process with paperwork and approvals and the like. We're worldwide exclusive promoters, and we're trying to work through it, and I'm hoping we can get something done, but that remains to be seen.

By no means is it official yet. Like I said, there's a process here, and over a dozen of our fighters have followed it and fought outside their agreements successfully. That process has yet to be followed here, and there's nothing official. We'll wait and see. If we can get it done to our satisfaction, we'll allow it to happen, and if we can't, then we won't. For the time being, nothing has been approved. If the process that we've laid out is followed, I think a fight for him could occur, but until that happens, he's in a hold mode, and we'll see what happens.