One of the original voices of Bellator MMA is coming back home. Longtime color commentator, Jimmy Smith, is primed for a return to the promotion at Bellator Dublin on June 22, 2024 in Dublin, Ireland.
Following a seven-year stint with Bellator from 2010-2017, Smith parted ways with the promotion in Dec. 2017 and went on to sign with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) one month later. That deal last only a year before the two parted ways.
Now back with Bellator, Smith says there was never any hard feelings between the two parties so a return isn’t all that shocking.
“I got a phone call,” Smith told MMA Fighting. “‘Hey, do you want to come do some shows for us?’ I went, ‘Sure, yeah, great, no problem.’ People have this idea that I rekindled things, it’s not like I haven’t seen Scott Coker since then. It’s not like I haven’t been in touch with Bellator people since then. I called the directors and producers, we’re friends. So every now and then I’ll catch up, ‘How’s it going?’
“It’s not like there was some titanic, horrible burned bridges incident that we had to overcome. It was nothing like that at all. It was simply, ‘Hey, would you like to come do some shows for us?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’d love to.,” he added.
“It was a surprise a little bit, but not that much. It wasn’t like once again that we had some kind of blow up or anything like that. It had just been a long time since I worked for them,” he concluded.
Smith has done some work for WWE and Sirius XM MMA, but is back to his original post in the MMA world where he joins Dan Hardy and Sean O’Connell. With the re-branding of Bellator MMA following its purchase by PFL, the promotion is focusing on its International Series in 2024.
Bellator Dublin will feature a main event fight between Welterweight champion, Champion Jason Jackson, taking on undefeated (12-0) Ramazan Kuramagomedov. In the co-headlining act, Paul Hughes takes on Bobby King.
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