Author: Dave Meltzer

While biding his time hoping he can resume his career as a fighter after a rare heart disorder, Dan Hardy has signed on to become part of UFC’s new third English language announcing team, handling the European and Middle East market.

Dan Hardy has been in almost every position, both mentally and physically, inside the cage in his UFC career. 

He was a struggling prelim fighter. He was a title contender being counted on to promote a major pay-per-view. He fought guys he didn’t like. He fought guys he did like. He’s knocked people out and been knocked out. He battled with his back against the wall and his job seemingly at stake. He went all over the world to train and learn. His career may have been cut down by an affliction that doesn’t bother him in the least. And he has no trouble talking about it.

He will be providing the insight from all those experiences as part of the UFC’s new broadcast team for the European and Middle East market. 

Hardy will be the fighter analyst of a team that includes John Gooden, the former Cage Warriors commentator in the U.K., and soccer emcee Andy Friedlander. The trio will become the company’s third English-language commentating team, along with the long standing Mike Goldberg/Joe Rogan duo that handles the pay-per-view and FOX shows, and the Kenny Florian/Jon Anik team that does fights on Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2 and other international Fight Pass shows.

They will start to work on the March 8 show in London, England at the O2 Arena, headlined by Alexander Gustafsson vs. Jimi Manuwa. The team will be the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa announcing team. For now, that means Europe and Abu Dhabi, primarily on events that will air on UFC Fight Pass in the United States.

The team will be working together for the first time this weekend. Hardy has some experience and has gone through several screen tests before he was hired for the job. He said that after a little big of tweaking, he already feels comfortable in the spot, saying it’s now easier than he thought it would be.

“We’re going to have a practice run this weekend,” he said. “The guys are coming to town. We’re going to get some time together so we know what to expect when London comes around. 

“John–he’s going to do a fantastic job. He gives me a little confidence because he’s very organized and I’m not so organized. I think we’ll make a good team. I think we can improve the quality of the commentary, without taking anything away from anyone else. With me and all my experiences, we can point out things fans haven’t seen before. I’ve experienced everything from a four-fight losing streak to a world title shot. I’ve experienced that pressure and can relate that to the fans.

“To be honest, I don’t have a great deal of experience (commentating) at live shows,” he said. “I did some small level shows, but this is a real step up. The UFC wanted to see if I can do the job. They put me through some screen tests. I did fights that I hadn’t watched before. I’ve been watching fights, analyzing fights, all I have to do is tell the fans how I feel when watching the fights.”

Hardy (25-10, 1 no-contest), a welterweight who headlined a major pay-per-view in challenging Georges St-Pierre for the title four years ago, has been out of action for 17 months, since being diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome. WPW is heart abnormality that caused the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) to red flag him. It’s not an abnormality that affects ones athletic performance, so he feels fine, in fact, better than ever. He didn’t want to get the heart surgery the commission wanted to license him. With no symptoms, most who have it never know and it doesn’t affect them. However, in about 0.6 percent of people with the affliction, they can suddenly die without warning from cardiac arrest.

“I’m still training every day,” he said. “I’m only 31. Unfortunately, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in my whole life. For the time being, I’m seeing a cardiologist getting this all figured out.”

But his experience with every aspect of training and fighting he feels will allow him to give a different type of perspective in calling the matches. His mentality, after some trial and error, is to just do what he’d do if he was hanging out with his friends watching a fight and explaining what he’s seeing.

“I was spending too much time thinking about what I was saying rather than doing what comes naturally,” he said about prior announcing experiences. “When I started my screen test, I was processing before I was speaking. I finally realized it and just started speaking like I’d talk to a friend, and it became so much easier. John and I can just be fight nerds.”

“Although it’s a job, it doesn’t feel like one,” he said. “This is just a great opportunity for me. I get to be a UFC fan again. In the UFC, as a fighter, it’s very difficult to watch a card and just enjoy it for what it is. When you’re competing and watching guys you may fight, you think you should be learning and studying. But now, I can’t wait for the (Rory) MacDonald-(Demian) Maia fight (on Saturday’s UFC 170 show). I don’t have to watch it and think about how I’d deal with these guys. I’m looking forward to watching Mike Pyle and (T.J) Waldburger, (Robert) Whittaker and (Stephen) Thompson. All three of those fights are in my weight class, but I can watch them as a fan.”

He also said it’s goring to be a different experience being around fight week, without the pressure of a looming fight, or cornering a fighter, which he said can be just as unnerving.

“I’ve always enjoyed fight week,” he said. “I enjoy the hotel, the whole fight week experience, the fighters in the hotel, the different camps, the camaraderie and the tension of fight week. From this point, until I fight again, I’ll experience it from the other side of the table, not as a fighter or a corner man, which is also exhausting. I can be completely unbiased, and hang out with the fighters.”

UFC’s Fight Night on Saturday, headlined by Lyoto Machida’s five round decision win over Gegard Mousasi ended up being the third-most watched company broadcast since moving to Fox Sports 1 in August.

The event, airing from 10:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., pulled a 1.04 rating and 1,400,000 viewers. On paper, that number would be a surprise given the later than usual time slot, and a main event that wouldn’t appear to be something that would come close to record numbers. Not only that but the main event didn’t even start until about 12:30 a.m. Eastern time.

FOX Sports 1 actually had the biggest day in the history of the station, paced by the Sprint Unlimited NASCAR race lead-in which drew 3,526,000 viewers, nearly double the previous record audience for any show on the station. This lead in gave UFC a far larger audience at the start than for any show it has had in many years.

It lost viewership during much of the show, since it was inflated by auto racing fans, but still never fell below 1 million viewers at any point. The audience rose back to 1.4 million viewers when the main event started.

What was notable was in the Male 18-34 demographic, the UFC show averaged 230,000 viewers while the NASCAR race, as big as it was and in a far better time slot, had 169,000 viewers.

The only UFC shows on the station to have beaten the 1.4 million mark were the debut show on the network, the Chael Sonnen vs. Shogun Rua fight on Aug. 17, which did 1,782,000 viewers, and the prelims before UFC 168, the biggest night of last year for the promotion, which did 1,554,000 viewers.

It’s been more than a decade since his long UFC light heavyweight tile reign ended and his lower back and neck started turning on him. But Tito Ortiz, after a retirement and a TMZ-laden hiatus from the sport, is still taking about a comeback at 39 years old.

There was more than a little skepticism when Ortiz (16-11-1, but 1-7-1 over the last six years of his career) said he was coming out of retirement for a Nov. 2 pay-per-view fight with Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. And a lot more “I told you sos,” when he had to pull out due to a fractured neck, the same type of injury that he’s encountered in the past and resulted in neck fusion surgery. But he’s been talking again of late about coming back to Bellator, which signed him to a lucrative deal last year.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney doesn’t yet have an answer to the Ortiz questions, the ones like if or when he’ll be fighting again. Ortiz last fought on July 7, 2012, a decision loss to Forrest Griffin in what still could end up as the last fight of both men’s careers.

“I’ve been having a good number of conversations with Tito,” said Rebney. “The prior neck injury was disturbing, but we’ve gotten past that. The fracture was really disturbing because of the potential for paralysis under a worse-case scenario. We’re doing a pretty exhaustive series of tests to see if he’s fine, because we want to be 100 percent sure.

“It’s one thing to have a fighter come back from a knee injury or a shoulder injury, but the neck and head, I’d rather err on the side of being overly cautious than rush and something happens. We need to be really careful.”

Ortiz was brought in specifically to be a big-name opponent for Jackson. Since the injury canceled the match, Jackson has said on a number of occaions that he’s no longer interested in that fight.

The deal signed between Gilbert Melendez and Bellator on Friday opens the door to some of the biggest fights in Bellator history. The plan would be to have Melendez debut in the spring. But the ball is in the UFC’s court, as it has the right to match the offer.

The announcement on Friday that Gilbert Melendez had agreed to terms to a multi-fight and multi-year deal with Bellator could mark the first time in four years that UFC would have lost a genuine top title contender to an outside promotion when their contract expired.

But even if it doesn’t work out that way, it is a signal of a significant change in the business of mixed martial arts, in particular, leverage for the top fighters from all organizations when their contracts come due.

The deal has put the UFC in a position, for the first time in several years, to have to use the matching terms clause in their contract. While Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney wasn’t clear on the exact date, the time frame for UFC to agree to match the offer or Melendez will be able to execute the new deal is a relatively short window, believed to expire sometime in March.

Matching terms can be far trickier than it sounds on the surface, given the issues between Eddie Alvarez and Bellator last year, That wound up in a court case over exactly what matching terms entailed. Eventually, an out-of-court settlement was reached which led to Alvarez back fighting for Bellator.

The last time UFC was in a situation where a legitimate top title contender left the promotion was in late 2009, when Dan Henderson, who had been in serious talks for a middleweight title shot at Anderson Silva, frustrated with how his UFC negotiations were going, signed a lucrative deal with Strikeforce. But the bargaining leverage for most top fighters disappeared when Zuffa purchased Strikeforce in early 2011.

Rebney indicated this wouldn’t be the last time something like this would happen. He noted they are going to aggressively go after the best fighters when they are legally allowed to, and said they are in talks with name talent right now.

“Some of them you’d know by first name alone, and some are guys you’ve never heard of who will become the next Michael Chandler, Daniel Straus, Eddie Alvarez and Eduardo Dantas.”

Bellator will open its weekly Friday night live card schedule on Spike TV starting on Feb. 28, run though May, do monthly shows in the summer, and have a fall season of weekly shows from September through November. Rebney noted it’s going to be all out from now until he sits down to eat Thanksgiving dinner.

“We’re gong to continue to sign the best fighters, whether they are from a favela in Brazil, the frozen tundra of Siberia, or they are fighting in the UFC,” he said. “That’s the mission. The fighters are the ones fueling pay-per-view buys or fueling cable television ratings. You’re not fueling ratings by promoting Bjorn or Bellator. Promoting the fighters should be first and foremost.

“We’re going after everybody, more-and-more often. I think there’s a bigger picture issue. The biggest thing is there are two major players in MMA. It’s far and away better for the fighters. When a fighter has one option, he has no power at the negotiating table. But when he has two options, the fighter has all the negotiating power. That’s actually counter intuitive, coming from the CEO of a fight company. But that’s the truth.  And my checkbook may take a shot because of it. But if the fighters can earn what they feel they deserve, overall we and the sport will be in a better place. You’re going to see much more of this as we move forward, guys coming from the smallest regions where we find undiscovered talent, to the superstars from the UFC and other guys we find in the United States.”

The Melendez contract obviously calls for a number of fights, as well as a cut of any pay-per-view shows he’s a headliner in, but also has a number of topics covered outside the cage.

“I can’t be too specific,” said Rebney. “But it includes on-air opportunities, entertainment opportunities behind-the-scenes, some marketing opportunities, really, the whole genesis is Gil-specific. The key to the deal is building the Gilbert Melendez brand, not the Bellator brand or the Bjorn Rebney brand. The fighter’s brand is what’s important. The focus was on talking to Gil and his team. How do we leverage all the different resources to build the `El Nino’ brand, and that’s what got us all on the same side of the table to put this structure together.”

Melendez (22-3), was the No. 2 contender in UFC’s lightweight division, behind champion Anthony Pettis and former champion Benson Henderson. With Josh Thomson’s loss to Henderson on Jan. 26 in Chicago, and Henderson having two losses to Pettis, it put Melendez at the front of the line for a title shot. But that shot would be delayed if a Pettis vs. UFC featherweight champion Jose Aldo superfight was to be made this summer.

If UFC declines to match, Bellator will then schedule Melendez’s first match.

“You can start with (Eddie) Alvarez (Bellator’s lightweight champion, (Michael) Chandler (former champion and current top contender), (Will) Brooks, (Dave) Jansen, all those fights would be awesome,” said Rebney.
Rebney used Alvarez’s name constantly in the discussion of potential fights for Melendez. A few years back, when Melendez was the Strikeforce lightweight champion and Alvarez was Bellator’s champion, prior to the Zuffa purchase of the Strikeforce brand, Rebney publicly tried to garner publicity for such a match. It never got past his call-out stage since then-Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, who had a stronger brand at the time and more exposure, had no interest in such a deal. But it is notable because many have thought it was inevitable Alvarez would be headed to UFC after his next fight with Chandler.

If Melendez signs, it would be Bellator coming full circle.

“Gil was the first big name I tried to recruit in 2008,” said Rebney, who at the time was looking for Hispanic fighters after he got funding to start the promotion and had cleared a time slot for 2009 on ESPN Deportes. “I jumped on the plane from Chicago to Northern California, sat down with Gil, and talked about the vision I had. It’s now like it’s night and day. Today, we’re the second-largest MMA organization in the world, we’re beating UFC ratings on cable, and then I was a guy flying Southwest with an idea and a dream. He was a great listener. He had a great vision of what he wanted to accomplish, and he was wise beyond his years, even then. You could see his skill level. Now he’s gone about maximizing his opportunities. But he was the first guy I went after. A few years later, I tried hard to figure out a way to do Alvarez vs. Melendez. We’ve been patient and built up the foundation, we have the right partners, the best broadcasting partner in MMA history, and now we may have Alvarez vs. Melendez or Alvarez vs. Chandler.”

Numbers on cable for both groups vary greatly. The biggest UFC events on its new home of Fox Sports 1 have drawn more viewers than Bellator’s biggest events, even with the disadvantage of being a weaker overall station and being available in nine million fewer homes. The biggest Bellator shows of the last season did beat all but the highest UFC shows on its new home.

Ironically, when Melendez opted to stay with Strikeforce in 2008, it was Alvarez, a star in Japan who wasn’t well known in the United States, who Rebney signed to be the top star of his new group. To do so, he offered Alvarez a deal for significantly more than UFC was offering at the time.

If Melendez comes to Bellator, that will not affect plans for the company’s first pay-per-view, scheduled for this spring, headlined by Alvarez vs. Chandler III. Rebney said that show is locked in. A planned pay-per-view in November fell though when Tito Ortiz, one of the headliners, was injured, and the second Alvarez vs. Chandler match, originally set for that show, ended up headlining a Spike TV special.

Rebney stated Melendez wants to get started as soon as possible. If UFC doesn’t match the deal, he would like to debut Melendez this spring, which with the Alvarez vs. Chandler III fight already on the books, means his first fight would be against someone else. If he should win that, his second fight could be the big one.

Should Melendez win, a fight against the Alvarez vs. Chandler winner would seem an obvious direction. With pay-per-view a facet of Melendez’s contract, it could figure to be the company’s second show in that arena. Rebney is already thinking of ways to promote such a fight.

“There were two fights that could have battled for fight of the year last year,” he said. “Michael vs. Ed II (Nov. 2 in Long Beach, Calif.) and the other was Gil vs. Diego (Sanchez, Oct. 19 in Houston). Those were two epic fights, both in the 155-pound division.”

Rebney noted it’s too early to script out exactly what the direction would be, but he’s salivating at the prospective opportunities.

“We’d like to get Gil busy,” he said. “Gil would like to fight at the same time as Ed vs. Michael III on that pay-per-view or on a major Spike show like we did with Rampage. There are some very legitimate other options and we’re looking at all of them. But for now, we have to wait out and see what UFC does.”

Rebney said the negotiations for a deal began as soon as they got word from the representatives of Melendez that they were legally able to talk about a potential deal in late January.

“It really started when they reached out to us,” he said. “I didn’t realize the status of his deal. As soon as they reached out, we started discussions.

“We went for two-and-a-half weeks, with a lot of back-and-forth. I recognized there was a shared vision of what would be the best thing for Gil, but inside and outside the cage. After speaking with Gil at length, and hearing from him what he wanted to accomplish with his career, both short-term and long-term, we then worked with Rodolphe Beaulieu (Melendez’s agent) and CAA to put together a package he was looking for. It came together pretty quickly.”

In more than 20 years of UFC events, only twice had a show featured nine decisions. The last two UFC shows, on events filled with newcomers, both had 10. Is this a statistical abnormality, or a harbinger of UFC in 2014?

For three years, if a top five fighter wanted to make the most money possible, there was only one place to go. Bellator’s bidding aggressively enough to get Gilbert Melendez to agree to an offer showed the MMA world that dynamic has changed.

The announcement on Friday that Gilbert Melendez had signed a multi-year contract with Bellator is a potential game changer for the entire industry.

No, Gilbert Melendez is not going to be the star that leads Bellator to overtaking, or even being competitive with UFC, as the leading MMA company in the world. But for top talent, everything is a little different today.

Since UFC purchased Strikeforce three years ago, the leverage for top fighters when it came to negotiating deals was all but gone. With only a few exceptions, UFC had all the top talent, and paid far better than anyone else. There were opportunities for bonuses not available anywhere else, and in a drying up sponsorship market, UFC was the place to be.

You couldn’t match the exposure, nor could you possibly build a name anywhere near as much on the outside. Bellator was there, but their game plan for the most part was to sign either undiscovered talent, or a few guys with some name value who had been let go by UFC, meaning they were no longer championship main event caliber. For most, Bellator offered relatively low start-up money while dangling the carrot of a potential $100,000 payoff for winning a few-month-long tournament.

Sure, they paid big money for Quinton Jackson, but he was already leaving UFC and looking to get into the entertainment world. Bellator, owned by Viacom, provided a better entree. They would help him break in, whether it be movies, a reality show or pro wrestling, and he’d fight to help up the profile of the promotion. Plus, in a television business, whether his best days were behind him or not, Jackson was one of the fighters who had established being a difference maker when it came to people wanting to see him fight.

Realistically, the only thing resembling a top guy that Bellator really got that UFC wanted was Eddie Alvarez, back in 2009. Alvarez was fighting in Japan, and had both charisma and an exciting in-ring style. He was both a good fighter but also had star potential, provided he could get to the top in UFC, which was far from guaranteed.

But in 2009, he was largely unknown in the U.S. market. Bellator, at the time catering to the Hispanic audience since their television deal was with ESPN Deportes, offered significantly more than UFC. To UFC, he was an unknown fighter, clearly one with marketability and potential, but there was no guarantee would be a top guy in their deep division. For Bellator, they were looking for a signature star with an Hispanic surname, and knew they’d have to greatly outbid UFC to get him. At their level, there was also a far stronger chance he would dominate the competition.

Unlike Alvarez in 2009, Gilbert Melendez is a proven commodity. He’s currently ranked as the No. 2 contender in UFC’s lightweight division. If he was still under contract — and if a superfight with Jose Aldo wasn’t on the agenda — he was the most logical next lightweight title contender.

This is not a run-of-the-mill fighter. This is a guy whose next fight could very well have been a pay-per-view main event or headlining a FOX special. It’s a guy who has already main evented on FOX and drawn very strong spring-level numbers in the process. It’s a guy who came one round — on a single judge’s card — from being the lightweight champion in his fight with Benson Henderon on April 20 in San Jose, Calif.

It’s a guy who has been one of the best fighters in his weight in the world for just about a full decade. And he could be with UFC tomorrow, and in a championship fight the next day. All the company has to do is match whatever offer Melendez has already agreed to with Bellator, a number that has established his current value in the free market system. UFC has that right to match any outside offer and retain his services.

Having spoken to Melendez many times over the years, his long-term goal has always been to be viewed as the No. 1 lightweight in the world. Just like that could never happen in Strikeforce, it also can never happen in Bellator. But at 31, having picked up his fair share of injuries over the years, having an outside gym business and a daughter, legacy dreams are trumped by daily financial realities. He’s almost surely past the midpoint and will soon be heading down the home stretch of his career.

And who knows how he views the Henderson decision today, past the point he clearly believes he won. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, what did happen over the past year, without any question, is the legacy of the Melendez/Josh Thomson lightweight era in Strikeforce was clearly established as being a lot stronger than it appeared to be when it was actually going on.

Before last year, he may have believed he was as good as any lightweight fighters in the world, but it was only supposition, with no tangible evidence to prove it. The success of both Melendez and Thomson, both have gone into UFC and established they are championship level main event fighters, forces an assessment of both men’s careers to be significantly more favorable than just being big fish who feasted on lesser competition.
.
This is not a fighter who can be criticized for having boring fights. If anything he’s historically among the most exciting fighters to watch perform on the planet. He’s in his prime, although he hasn’t matched the ferocity of his 2011 win over Tatsuya Kawajiri, which would have to be his career peak. He’s coming off winning one of the wildest fights in company history.

If Melendez’s goal was to be ranked No. 1 in the world and hold the sport’s most important championship in his division, it’s something he’s come close to, but hasn’t reached. By signing the Bellator deal, he’s put himself in a position, if UFC declines to match the offer, that he’s made achieving that status almost impossible for the next several years, at which point he may no longer be able to fight at his current level.

If his goal was to prove to himself he was No. 1, and make the most money to support his family, he may have already proven the former to himself in the fight with Henderson, and by his decision this week, guaranteed the latter.

Of course, all things considered, having that income and getting another shot to prove he’s No. 1 would be the ultimate scenario. But that’s only happening if UFC matches the offer. UFC has not given any comments on the situation, past Dana White’s more than cryptic hinting that negotiations weren’t going well earlier in the week.

For the past three years, UFC has had the upper hand in negotiations with talent. The alternatives for a top-tier fighter was to take the offer, or fight for less money and no notoriety elsewhere. Melendez himself benefited from being on the outside in the past, before the 2011 Strikeforce sale. As far as base salary was concerned, Melendez’s Strikeforce contract was more lucrative than any UFC lightweight fighter’s base for the very reason that Strikeforce didn’t want to lose one of its key fighters.

That contract carried over to UFC. He earned a $175,000 base for his fight with Henderson, and almost surely earned more than that for the final fight of his deal, his Oct. 19 fight with Diego Sanchez, between winning and getting a fight of the night bonus in a bout that captured a number of Fight of the Year awards. The Sanchez fight was the final bout of the deal.

Because the terms of the deal with Bellator are not public, and because UFC has made any comment regarding passing on them or not, there’s nothing that can be said until they make the key decision.

Melendez is not a giant drawing card. If you look at the lightweight contenders who can possibly get the next shot, which would be T.J. Grant, Thomson, Henderson or the winner of the upcoming Rafael dos Anjos vs Khabib Nurmagomedov fight on Apr,. 19, Melendez would mean slightly more than anyone but Henderson as a contender. As a business, the UFC can easily afford the loss. But it’s a loss of one of the best fighters in the world nonetheless.

But for the industry, this was huge. Competition naturally raises the value of the performers, as well as their compensation level. Bellator has talked competition, but had yet to make a move to prove they really were.

Until now.