Bellator president Bjorn Rebney has voiced his frustration at the UFC’s failure to sign its welterweight champion Ben Askren.
Askren is one of the most dominant 170-pounders outside the UFC, but today sits as a rare free agent after he failed to renew his contract with Bellator.
In a three-year career with the promotion, the fighter has defeated all nine of his opponents and it was thought, by the time his contract came up, that the UFC would show some interest.
However, the UFC has passed on the fighter, a decision which has riled Rebney.
“I think it’s disingenuous and ridiculous,” Rebney told Luke Thomas of MMA Fighting. “If you stand up consistently at every press conference and meeting and every scrum and say the best fighters in the world fight here, and the No. 6-ranked welterweight in the world becomes available – unrestricted with no matching rights – and you don’t even make him an offer, then you need to stop saying the greatest fighters in the world fight there.”
The UFC’s decision not to sign Askren is a curious one. It has previously fought fiercely to capture Bellator’s top fighters and recently acquired their middleweight champion Hector Lombard. However, the UFC’s attempts to acquire Bellator lightweight champ, Eddie Alvarez, led to a year-long contract dispute and the fighter ultimately re-signed with Bellator.
This bitter history could have put the UFC off wanting to do business with Bellator, even though the promotion said it would not try to match any offers made to Askren.
Askren, though, is a polarising fighter in and of himself. He’s utterly dominated almost all his opponents, but he’s used his one skill set, wrestling, to control fights and smother his opponents. This has alienated many fans.
However, Bellator hasn’t shown much faith in Askren either. He’s served the company for years and now his future could be destined at new promotion World Series of Fighting (WSOF).
Rebney explained why they couldn’t reach a deal with Askren.
“His value of his perception in the marketplace was higher than my perception of his value to this company. I don’t know what he’s going to make where he goes. I hope he makes a fortune wrestling people to death.”
As yet, WSOF is the only promotion to have publicly extended an offer to Askren.
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