Hector Lombard
That’s good news if your Bellator middleweight champ Hector Lombard (31-2-1, 1NC), but not so good for the Bellator Fighting Championships and it’s CEO Bjorn Rebney.
Lombard’s contract with the Chicago based promotion ran out late last fall and is now at the point where the UFC has offered the middleweight fighter a contract, leaving Bellator the option of matching or simply letting their 185-lbs champion go.
Lombard is Bellator’s first and current middleweight champion. Along with former lightweight champ Eddie Alvarez, represent one of the faces of the Bellator promotion.
Rebney spoke to Sherdog.com this Wednesday about where things were specifically between the three camps.
“We’ve received the final proposed UFC agreement from Hector’s attorney, and right now we are in the process of reviewing it to determine whether we’re going to match the agreement,” Rebney told Sherdog.com on Wednesday morning. “We’ve got the 60 pages of UFC contract that were forwarded to us by Hector’s counsel. We’ve been waiting on the actual contract itself to see all of the specifics and every conceivable detail and know exactly what is being offered. Now we have something really specific to look at.”
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“Out of respect for Hector, I think we will turn [the UFC contract] around very quickly,” said Rebney. “Obviously, we have a huge event coming up Friday [Bellator 66]. As soon as that is over, we will sit down with our partners and go through the UFC contract line-for-line and make a strategic decision whether we’re going to match it or pass. [If we pass, we will] wish him the best and let him go knock out everybody in the UFC.”
Lombard fought his last bout in the Bellator cage last November at Bellator 58, earning a second round TKO finish of Trevor Prangley. The win was twentieth straight victory and is undefeated in twenty-five bouts.
If Lombard does leave for the UFC, the Bellator middleweight title will likely see the Season Six Middleweight Tournament winner face off against Russian fighter Alexander Shlemenko, who won the Season Five Tournament.