Tag: Bellator FC

Former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvareaz has had his bid to sign with the Ultimate Fighting Championship put on permanent hold after ‘The Silent Assassin’ had his injunction denied by U.S. District Judge Jose L. Linares.

After completing his Bellator contract, Alvarez was offered a contract by the Ultimate Fighting Championship which would see him debut inside the Octagon in April at UFC 159. Bellator replied with their own contract but in Alvarez’ eyes the deal failed to match the UFC’s offer which included revenue generated through pay-per-view buys.

The two sides went to court and Judge Linares offered his ruling this afternoon, refuting Alvarez’ defense teams claim by telling them they failed to properly demonstrate that the former champ would be irreparably harmed if he was unable to sign with the UFC.

The public documents were released by the U.S. District Court.

As to the first prong, the Court is not satisfied that Alvarez has demonstrated areasonable probability of success on the merits by virtue of Bellator’s purported failure to matchZuffa’s offer. The crux of Alvarez’s argument is that Bellator’s failure to provide an identicallymatching contract amounts to a failure to match. This argument, however, is untenable. Obviously, in any contract that Bellator would match, it would have to change certain words.For example, it would have to substitute its name for that of Zuffa. If, as Alvarez claims,Bellator’s substituting its name for that of Zuffa amounts to a failure to match, Bellator would never be able to match the terms of any contract, and thus its right of first refusal would amount to no right at all. 1See, e.g., Travelers Indem. Co. v. Damman & Co., Inc., 594 F.3d 238, 255(3d Cir. 2010) (“We must also endeavor to avoid ignoring certain words or reading the contractin such a way as to make any words ‘meaningless.’”). This Court must apply a common-sense interpretation to the word “match.” See id. Applying this approach, the Court declines to hold that in order to “match” the Zuffa contract, Bellator had to include identical words in its matching offer.

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In this case, there is no illegal restraint that Bellator is seeking to impose on Alvarez, noris Alvarez precluded from competing professionally absent a grant of his application for apreliminary injunction. It is speculative to suggest, as Alvarez does, that an inability to competein the April 27 event will result in irreparable harm in the form of a lost opportunity to obtainnotoriety, endorsements, and a wider exposure to viewers. Alvarez’s argument requires thisCourt to make speculative assumptions about what might or might not happen as a result of hisparticipation in the April 27 event. Based on the record before it, the Court cannot make such aassumptions.

After reading through the document, it’s interesting to read about Bellator’s plans for pitting Alvarez in a rematch with the promotions current champ Michael Chandler on a March 30 pay-per-view.

This isn’t the final piece of the story as both sides will take some time to review today’s proceedings and return with their latest arguments.

In the end, it could be that Alvarez is forced to sit out for a year while he waits for Bellator’s right to match to end.