Last week, rumors circulated about the UFC working on a matchup for UFC 178 featuring Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and Bellator MMA Lightweight Champion Eddie Alvarez. Trouble is, Alvarez is still under contract with Bellator. So all week, MMA fans waited for the other shoe to drop, and for Bellator to announce that it had parted ways with its estranged former poster boy. As of yet, this hasn’t happened. But it should.
Two weeks ago, the UFC surprised fans when it announced the return of Nick Diaz to active competition, and followed it up with news of Diaz facing Anderson Silva at UFC 183 Super Bowl Weekend. However, Nick’s younger brother Nate Diaz remains inactive as part of his contract holdout, and Nick refused to answer questions about his brother’s dispute with the company.
After all, the week before, UFC President Dana White contrasted the two brothers in saying that while Nick “moves the needle,” Nate does not, and thus, is not worth the kind of money his brother is. With Nate obviously feeling otherwise, the two sides remain at an impasse.
So why shouldn’t the two sides agree to take on the problems of the other? Nate has requested to be released before, and presumably, with Scott Coker running Bellator now, that organization wouldn’t be averse to acquiring a problem child like the younger Diaz brother. White may not believe that Nate Diaz moves the needle, but he’s underrated fighters before, and Diaz, the Season 5 winner of The Ultimate Fighter, is likely more valuable to Bellator, Spike TV, and Viacom than to Zuffa. In Bellator, Diaz has fresh matchups with Michael Chandler and Will Brooks at lightweight, and could even jump up to welterweight and take on someone like Paul Daley. Diaz is not averse to taking on an aggressive fighting schedule like his former opponent Cerrone (as long as he’s paid what he believes he’s worth) and matchups featuring Diaz instantly become main event worthy.
Furthermore, Bellator’s new regime might want to distinguish themselves from the old Bjorn Rebney regime, who developed a really bad reputation with managers of up and coming prospects because of Bellator’s propensity to lock fighters into their contracts and prevent them from moving on. And the Alvarez situation was the most high-profile example of this mentality at work, souring a relationship which to that point was mutually beneficial. The Alvarez-Bellator legal dispute took years of Eddie’s prime away, and although Alvarez only has one fight left before he is free and clear, letting him go, or agreeing to a contract buyout, would be a gesture of good faith that would signal a new standard operating procedure for fighters who have run their course in the organization, and keep the pipeline of prospects flowing. It might be tempting for Bellator to use the Zuffa-inspired ironclad contracts offensively in order to aggressively compete with the UFC, but with the sheer amount of fights the UFC puts on, the competition for prospects has never been as fierce as it is now. Better to get prospects on board and convince them that they should stay then never get them on board at all. Letting Alvarez go would be an important step in mending those fences with managers, and opening the door to the promotion getting the next Michael Chandler to go along with the current one.
And in procuring Alvarez, the UFC would find itself in a position to book a world champion and proven action fighter who has headlined multiple events. He’s not an established draw, but he’s comparable to a Gilbert Melendez (who, you may recall, Bellator also made a run for, before the UFC matched the promotion’s offer). So even if he doesn’t defeat “Cowboy,” he’s a lock for multiple “Fight of the Night” awards over the course of his career, which makes him a natural fit for Fox. Bellator isn’t in a position to use Alvarez in this fashion, because it is contractually obligated to put his final Bellator fight on pay-per-view, and despite the success of Bellator 120, the cost was cannibalizing the Spike TV Bellator shows. It’s not worth it to harm multiple events to stack a PPV that the company isn’t ready for just to burn off one fight; Bellator could utilize Nate Diaz in multiple fights over the same timetable.
Now of course this approach would be unprecedented, but I’m sure that Coker’s relationship to UFC management is much more amicable than Rebney’s was. And the two parties needn’t directly collude; they could merely recognize that allowing these two disgruntled fighters to pursue greener pastures would not harm either organization. There could be a negotiation of sorts when it comes to using prior footage in promotional materials, of course, but both the UFC and Bellator have an interest in using clips from these fighters’ respective highlight reels. Neither side would feel put upon, and neither side would risk more than the other.
Every now and then, something unorthodox seems sensible. UFC and Bellator deciding to either release or buy out the contracts of Eddie Alvarez and Nate Diaz is one such example. Both would be more valuable to their new promoters, and both would be happier in new surroundings. As the clock ticks and the window closes for getting Alvarez on the UFC 178 card, this could be a winning strategy to spur Bellator’s cooperation, in part by giving that organization access to a valuable asset, albeit an unpredictable one.
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UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso (formerly UFC 178: Jones vs. Cormier, UFC 178: Jones vs. Gustafsson II) is due to take place on September 27, 2014 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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