Tag: Eddie Alvarez

More Details Emerge Regarding Eddie Alvarez vs. Bellator Situation

Eddie Alvarez’s next contract as a fighter was destined to be decided by the courts ever since he agreed to a “first refusal” clause with his current promotion, Bellator. That clause means that, once he became a free agent in November…

Eddie Alvarez’s next contract as a fighter was destined to be decided by the courts ever since he agreed to a “first refusal” clause with his current promotion, Bellator.

That clause means that, once he became a free agent in November, Alvarez, 28, was free to field offers from any other promotion, as long as Bellator was given 14 days to match the offer.

Being that he is the most desired free agent in MMA, no promotion could ever match the offer the UFC could put on the table, simply because it’s the biggest in the whole of the promotion.

That means, if Bellator wanted to keep the lightweight sensation, they were always going to have to fight for him.

Earlier we noted that the UFC offered Alvarez an eight-fight contract worth $70,000 in “show” money for each fight, plus a $70,000 bonus for each win with an additional $5,000 escalation for each additional win, to a maximum of $210,000. The UFC also offered a $250,000 signing bonus.

Alvarez would get an immediate title shot if he joins the UFC, as well as a coaching spot on a season of The Ultimate Fighter, a fight on a Fox card and three commentary opportunities.

In a detailed analysis of court documents by Sports Illustrated, it’s clear that Bellator lawyers, under instruction from president Bjorn Rebney, went to great pains to match the UFC’s offer.

Bellator, which was recently purchased by media conglomerate Viacom, also offered Alvarez front-line TV promotion, which includes a Spike TV behind-the-scenes special, for which he’d be compensated $25,000; a season-two coaching position on Bellator‘s reality TV show (with the caveat that he must win back the Bellator title first) carrying a $100,000 payday; and a one-time, guest-host stint during Spike’s “Road to the Championship” series.

As SI says:

Other than these added incentives, the Zuffa and Bellator contract offers mostly mirror one another, and for good reason. Bellator deliberately took Zuffa‘s contract and red-lined it, substituting its own name in for Zuffa‘s, so the aforementioned terms, and their verbiage, remained unaltered. (This red-lined version was included in Bellator‘s lawsuit exhibits).

However, Alvarez’s lawyer, Steve Klein, in an email to Rebney, said the two offers were not identical. Bellator‘s claim largely hinges on whether fighting on Fox Network Television with the UFC is the same as fighting on Spike TV with Bellator.

“Match means match. Match means provision by provision, term by term,” said Klein (h/t SI).

Term by term, they have to offer the same thing…[Fox Network Television to Spike TV] is, of course, clearly the most major change… The value of the contracts are different, as is the ability to deliver under the contracts… Monetarily, it will mean different things to [Alvarez.] This is not a match.

This argument raises the obvious conclusion that Bellator never really had the capacity to match the UFC’s offer considering that Bellator doesn’t have a Fox deal. But Rebney insists, in Bellator’s submission to the New Jersey courthouse which is deciding the case; that Spike’s audience of 100 million is equivalent to Fox’s 110 million, even though the former is on paid cable while the latter is on free-to-air television.

“We can ultimately match [a Fox bout’s] numbers very easily by replaying Ed’s fights in primetime on Spike TV,” said Rebney. “It boils down to how many people see the fight, and we’re completely prepared, if that became an issue, to replay Ed’s fights.”

The case continues.

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Eddie Alvarez UFC Offer Included Pay-Per-View Share, Commentary Opportunities

The UFC would plan to give Eddie Alvarez an immediate title shot and a cut of the proceeds whenever he fights on pay-per-view, according to court documents.MMAJunkie obtained the documents, which were submitted as part of Bellator’s lawsuit against Alv…

The UFC would plan to give Eddie Alvarez an immediate title shot and a cut of the proceeds whenever he fights on pay-per-view, according to court documents.

MMAJunkie obtained the documents, which were submitted as part of Bellator’s lawsuit against Alvarez, their former lightweight champion and now a coveted free agent. 

The UFC’s contract offer is plenty lucrative from a pure financial standpoint, but it also contains several non-monetary provisions presumably designed to sweeten the deal.

Under the terms of the eight-fight deal detailed in the court document, Alvarez (24-3) would earn $70,000 in “show” money for each fight, plus a $70,000 bonus for each win with an additional $5,000 escalation for each additional win, to a maximum of $210,000. The UFC also offered a $250,000 signing bonus.

Along with the immediate title shot, the UFC proposal offers Alvarez, 28, a fight on a Fox card and three commentary opportunities.

In the dispute between Bellator and Alvarez, Bellator officials claim they matched the UFC’s offer, a claim Alvarez denies. That disagreement is at the heart of the current lawsuit, which Alvarez announced Monday on The MMA Hour broadcast.

Although Bellator may have matched the details of the UFC’s deal, a primary difference between the proposals necessarily lies in the PPV portion of the UFC offer. According to the court documents, the UFC is prepared to pay Alvarez $1 for every buy the UFC receives for each PPV event in which Alvarez appears. That number goes up to $2 per buy when total buys reach 400,000-600,000, and $2.50 when it exceeds 600,000.

Bellator is literally unable to match this provision, as Bellator currently does not air fights on PPV.

Bellator also offered Alvarez a $25,000 payout for appearing in a Spike TV show and a $100,000 payment for coaching in Bellator’s reality TV competition. He was also offered various appearances on other Bellator and Spike programming.

Adding still more intrigue to the proceedings is one small but important word in the UFC’s offer. According to a tweet from MMAJunkie reporter Steven Marrocco, the UFC offer does include wiggle room in what it proposes:

 

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The Saga Continues: Bjorn Rebney Spills the Beans Regarding Eddie Alvarez Debacle and It’s Kind of Hilarious


(In the words of my life coach, “If you ask me one more fucking question about that fucking joke Eddie Alvarez, I will fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”) 

The drama continues to unfold in the Eddie Alvarez/UFC/Bellator love triangle that last saw Bjorn Rebney and Co. break go Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on their former lightweight champion’s ass. And as Bill Shakespeare would tell you himself, no love triangle would be complete without a little dash of comedy. Enter Rebney, who recently attempted to shed some light on the convoluted goatscrew that (Bellator) negotiations oft become in a recent interview with BloodyElbow radio. When Rebney previously told reporters that he had matched the UFC’s offer on Alvarez “word for word,” the general consensus seemed to be that Rebney was simply speaking in hyperbole, for how could Bellator match the pay-per-view stipulations of the UFC’s contract when they don’t in fact broadcast pay-per-view events to begin with?

Well, it turns out that — at least according to the man himself — Rebney was not tugging our respective dicks when he said “word for word”:

I didn’t anticipate that the UFC would come in where they came in. They came in at a dollar figure in terms of the $250,000 signing bonus and the $70,000 plus $70,000 and some of the terms that we felt very comfortable matching. To avoid any questioning, to avoid any conflict, we literally took the UFC contract, took it out of a PDF format and we changed the UFC name to Bellator and we signed it and we sent it back to Ed. 

Call me unrealistic, but I’d like to believe that Rebney signed his name in poo, or at least wiped his ass with the reprinted contract before sending it back to Eddie. And then when Alvarez flipped to the last page of this foul smelling document, there was a photo of Rebney, performing said act of asswhipery. Because those are the kinds of shenanigans that people who don’t give a fuck are wont to do.

Much more from this interview after the jump.


(In the words of my life coach, “If you ask me one more fucking question about that fucking joke Eddie Alvarez, I will fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before.”) 

The drama continues to unfold in the Eddie Alvarez/UFC/Bellator love triangle that last saw Bjorn Rebney and Co. break go Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer on their former lightweight champion’s ass. And as Bill Shakespeare would tell you himself, no love triangle would be complete without a little dash of comedy. Enter Rebney, who recently attempted to shed some light on the convoluted goatscrew that (Bellator) negotiations oft become in a recent interview with BloodyElbow radio. When Rebney previously told reporters that he had matched the UFC’s offer on Alvarez “word for word,” the general consensus seemed to be that Rebney was simply speaking in hyperbole, for how could Bellator match the pay-per-view stipulations of the UFC’s contract when they don’t in fact broadcast pay-per-view events to begin with?

Well, it turns out that — at least according to the man himself — Rebney was not tugging our respective dicks when he said “word for word”:

I didn’t anticipate that the UFC would come in where they came in. They came in at a dollar figure in terms of the $250,000 signing bonus and the $70,000 plus $70,000 and some of the terms that we felt very comfortable matching. To avoid any questioning, to avoid any conflict, we literally took the UFC contract, took it out of a PDF format and we changed the UFC name to Bellator and we signed it and we sent it back to Ed. 

Call me unrealistic, but I’d like to believe that Rebney signed his name in poo, or at least wiped his ass with the reprinted contract before sending it back to Eddie. And then when Alvarez flipped to the last page of this foul smelling document, there was a photo of Rebney, performing said act of asswhipery. Because those are the kinds of shenanigans that people who don’t give a fuck are wont to do.

Now, I know less about contract stipulations/negotiations than I do about sexual harassment in the workplace (according to Break’s HR department, at least), but has anyone ever heard of this kind of maneuver being pulled with hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line before? Clearly Bjorn was surprised by how apparently low of an offer Alvarez received, but damn, I put more effort into the articles I copy/paste together for a living. This one, for instance.

And indeed, it was the lowball offer Alvarez received that in turn led to the current dispute between promotions:

The reality of the situation is Eddie and I had a really good working relationship for four years. I would hazard to even say we had a good friendship going for a lot of years. The last couple weeks have not been the highlight, the high water mark of that relationship. We entered into a contract with Eddie. In that contract, just like in the UFC deal, there’s what’s called a matching provision and what that means is when the contract comes to an end, you’ve got the right as the promoter that had the contract with the fighter to match it. What that requires is that you match all the material terms of the deal.

If Eddie had been presented with a Hector Lombard type of deal, I told Eddie after his fight with us where he knocked out Patricky Pitbull, he and I sat and had a drink, spent some time together after the fight. I said, ‘Look, dude. If you get a Hector deal, I’m just gonna wish you the best of luck, I’m gonna be your big fan and I’m gonna root for ya and I’ll just let you go. I’m not gonna match that deal because I don’t think we can monetize that deal.’

According to Rebney, it was actually Alvarez who filed the lawsuit first, not the other way around. I’ll allow this poster of the 1991 Kevin Bacon vehicle “He Said, She Said” to clarify what is going on here for any of you slow learners.

We scheduled a call last week and there were a series of attorneys, I think five or six for Ed and it was me and my partner on the phone and we talked through it and we recognized by the tone of what happened last week as did Ed’s team. I’m sure that it was headed in a bad direction. They indicated to us that they weren’t going to accept the match. It wasn’t 30 minutes after the call ended, it was 42 and Ed’s team filed a lawsuit against us in New Jersey and we filed a lawsuit against them. The lawsuits are not lawsuits because we dislike Ed. They just say, ‘Hey, we’re trying to enforce our contractual rights,’ and they’re lawsuit, which I have not yet read because I do not have a copy of it, I don’t know what it says but I’m assuming it makes whatever their claim is relative to not wanting the match to abide but they filed on us literally, I think it was within an hour of the phone call ending.

And as far as those pesky pay-per-view numbers Alvarez had been promised by both parties? Turns out, the UFC’s figures/points were just as hypothetical as Bellator’s. Again, according to Rebney.

The way that it would work is this: When you look at these contracts, what we are obligated to do, as per our matching rights just like what the UFC is obligated to do with their matching rights is you have to match any element of the contract that is guaranteed. So if the UFC says they’re gonna give Eddie Alvarez a $250,000 signing bonus and they say, ‘This is when the signing bonus will be paid,’ we have to do the same. If the UFC says, ‘We’re gonna pay you $70,000 to show and $70,000 to win, provided you are declared the winner of the bout by the applicable athletic commission blah, blah, blah,’ we have to provide that exact same opportunity for Ed.

So that’s the essence of what the matching is. There is no guarantee of pay-per-view in any way, shape or form in the agreement that was sent by the UFC. We’re held to the level of having to match a guarantee. We’re not held to a level of having to guarantee or having to match what was projected or what might happen. I think that’s the key misunderstanding. It’s not a matter of what could or might happen, it’s a matter of what’s guaranteed under the contract and that’s clearly understood and clearly the way it’s written.

Definitely an interesting development in what has quickly become one of the more prominent pieces of news currently floating around the MMA landscape.

Rebney went on to say that he harbored no ill-will towards Eddie and hoped that his promotion and the former champ could reconcile their differences in time for Bellator’s upcoming Spike debut. Rebney also stated that he was hopeful to try and book a rematch of Alvarez and the man who took his belt, Michael Chandler, somewhere down the line should Alvarez end up back in Bellator. In my opinion, this would be the only silver lining in the scenario where Alvarez sticks with Bellator. If I could tread so lightly, I would go as far as to say that the pair’s first fight sat atop Dan Henderson and Mauricio Rua‘s epic brawl at UFC 139 on my end of the year list, but that is neither here nor there.

But what say you, Potato Nation? Is Alvarez worth all the trouble? Or should Bellator simply let him go, being that he clearly wants no part of their business anymore?

–J. Jones

UFC: 5 Possible Opponents for Eddie Alvarez in His UFC Debut

The UFC has made it clear that they are hoping to acquire the services of former Bellator champion Eddie Alvarez. After the completion of his last contractual obligation with the tournament-based organization, Dana White and crew submitted an offer to …

The UFC has made it clear that they are hoping to acquire the services of former Bellator champion Eddie Alvarez. After the completion of his last contractual obligation with the tournament-based organization, Dana White and crew submitted an offer to Alvarez in hopes of stealing him away. 

Knowing a good thing when he sees it, Bellator president Bjorn Rebney believes that he matched the offer, which is a right he has based on the language of Alvarez’s original contract. Eddie seems to disagree.

“The Silent Assassin” sees the UFC as a fine dining experience and compared Bellator’s offer to McDonalds. While both organizations offered to metaphorically feed him dinner, there is no doubt that one meal will taste considerably better than the other.

Right now, Alvarez is reportedly being sued by Bellator, which strongly implies that he told Bjorn Rebney to take his Big Mac and fries somewhere else. Assuming that legal hurdles are cleared properly, the former lightweight champion should be signing a UFC contract sooner rather than later.

However, in the event that Eddie cannot get legal clearance to join the UFC, we can at least enjoy fantasizing about some of the potential matchups that await the world-ranked lightweight inside the Octagon.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the most fitting opponents for Alvarez on the UFC roster.

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Eddie Alvarez: How Will He Fare If He Joins the UFC?

The biggest story coming out of the Bellator camp doesn’t surround their move to Spike TV, the upcoming light heavyweight tournament or even a trio of title fights taking place in January. Instead, it focuses on the legal struggle between Bellator and …

The biggest story coming out of the Bellator camp doesn’t surround their move to Spike TV, the upcoming light heavyweight tournament or even a trio of title fights taking place in January. Instead, it focuses on the legal struggle between Bellator and former champion Eddie Alvarez.

Alvarez fought nine times for the promotion, which saw him win and defend the Bellator lightweight championship. However, with the world’s best lightweights fighting almost exclusively for the UFC, finding worthy competition for Alvarez was difficult.

In fact, due to the flaws of their tournament-style format, it took Bellator almost two years to give their champion a title defense. That sort of setting is not the environment that Alvarez can put his skills on display.

The current drama surrounds a matching period which was mandated by the existing contract Alvarez has with Bellator. Essentially, it states that Bellator has the right to match any official offer that Alvarez is willing to accept. 

Long story short, the UFC sent an offer to Alvarez, Bjorn Rebney sent an offer back which he claims matches the UFC’s point for point (MMA Weekly via Yahoo Sports). Alvarez disagrees and is currently being sued by the company that made him famous (MMAFRENZY.com).

The overwhelming theory here is that Alvarez has quietly turned down Rebney‘s offer and will be heading to the UFC. Otherwise, why would Bellator be suing him?

So the question must be asked, if Eddie Alvarez ends up fighting inside the Octagon in 2013, how will he fare against the world-class crop of lightweights who are hungry to knock him from his Bellator-shaped pedestal?

 

Skill Assessment:

Alvarez has some of the best boxing in the lightweight division, but his ability to bait an opponent is absolutely incredible. Jack Slack broke down this incredible skill by detailing the head-kick knockout that Alvarez scored against Patricky “Pitbull” Freire. Go read that article if you haven’t already done so. It’s magnificent.

Anyone who has only heard of “The Silent Assassin” might think that striking is his only area of expertise. However, beginning in 2009, Alvarez won five consecutive bouts by way of submission, including wins over notable submission artists Josh Neer and Toby Imada. 

With excellent conditioning, Alvarez has displayed an ability to keep his foot on the gas with the best of competition. The former Bellator champion went 25 minutes against Pat Curran and his battle against Michael Chandler went deep into the fourth round.

In addition, Alvarez has the benefit of training with one of the most talent-stacked fight teams in the world. As a member of Imperial Athletics (better known as The Blackzilians), Alvarez gets to work his striking with the likes of Tyrone Spong, Alistair Overeem and Melvin Guillard.  He can fine tune his wrestling skills with Rashad Evans before sparring jiu-jitsu against world-class jiu-jitsu specialists like Marcus Aurelio and Braulio Estima.

 

Matchups Against UFC Stars:

Due to his powerful striking and fantastic footwork, the boxing of Alvarez is on point with the best strikers that live in the UFC’s lightweight division.

With quality wrestlers like Gray Maynard and Benson Henderson in the division, the takedown defense of Alvarez would be put to the test in bouts with the division’s elite. However, Alvarez has proven himself to be stellar in the clinch and has a quality sprawl.

In terms of ground work, Alvarez has been caught with a pair of submissions twice in his career. However, one of those came against grappling wizard Shinya Aoki and the other came shortly after Eddie was hurt badly with a strike.

The sole unavenged loss that Alvarez suffered in his lightweight career came against Michael Chandler. That fight showed what kind of trouble Eddie has when paired up against someone who can match him blow for blow in the striking department and also possesses an edge in terms of grappling. 

In my opinion, Eddie Alvarez is a Top Five talent who has the well-rounded skills to defeat most stars on the UFC roster. I feel that he will have trouble with the absolute elite (Henderson, Maynard, Melendez and Cerrone) because each of those men can hang with anyone in a striking match, but he has an advantage if the fight hits the mat.

While there are quality grapplers at lightweight, only Donald Cerrone has the well-rounded skills that would be necessary to work this fight to the ground and secure a submission against Eddie.

Eddie can hang and I expect him to be a quality star in the UFC lightweight division over the next few years. However, I think those who expect him to immediately get into the title scene and blow past the guys currently on top are misguided in their views. 

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Contracts & Lawsuits – Eddie Alvarez, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney Go Public With Conflicting Stories on Fighter’s Deal


(“Keep laughing, Eddie, because as soon as you lose that belt, your ass is mine.”) 

Former President Clinton once made infamous the phrase, “It depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’ is,” while answering questions from the Independent Counsel’s office on the all-important subject of Monica Lewinsky. With former Bellator lightweight champion/UFC hopeful Eddie Alvarez and his boss, Bjorn Rebney, the discrepancy appears to depend on what one’s definition of the word “matched” is.

It has been no secret that the UFC wants Alvarez under their banner. The top lightweight fought the last fight under his Bellator contract last October but the promotion has the right to match any contract offered to Alvarez and thus keep him with them.

The UFC did indeed recently make an offer to Alvarez, but it is here where the stories from the former champ and the Bellator CEO begin to differ.

First, Alvarez sat down with The MMA Hour and claimed that Bellator had not matched the UFC’s proposed terms. Rebney then went on MMA Weekly Radio and said that his organization had, in fact, matched the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, point for point.

And then things got really awkward.


(“Keep laughing, Eddie, because as soon as you lose that belt, your ass is mine.”) 

Former President Clinton once made infamous the phrase, “It depends on what your definition of the word ’is’ is,” while answering questions from the Independent Counsel’s office on the all-important subject of Monica Lewinsky. With former Bellator lightweight champion/UFC hopeful Eddie Alvarez and his boss, Bjorn Rebney, the discrepancy appears to depend on what one’s definition of the word “matched” is.

It has been no secret that the UFC wants Alvarez under their banner. The top lightweight fought the last fight under his Bellator contract last October but the promotion has the right to match any contract offered to Alvarez and thus keep him with them.

The UFC did indeed recently make an offer to Alvarez, but it is here where the stories from the former champ and the Bellator CEO begin to differ.

First, Alvarez sat down with The MMA Hour and claimed that Bellator had not matched the UFC’s proposed terms. Rebney then went on MMA Weekly Radio and said that his organization had, in fact, matched the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, point for point.

And then things got really awkward.

“Everyone’s heard that Bellator has matched and whatnot. It’s a difficult situation,” Alvarez stated. “We went to settlement a couple days ago. We had a settlement meeting where everything was supposed to get worked out. I was sued maybe 30 minutes after that. There’s a lot of tension in the air. We don’t believe it was matched at all. I wanted to give details but I can’t because we’re in the middle of a pending lawsuit. ”

Rebney denied that Bellator did not match the UFC’s contract offer to Alvarez, saying, “Ed went out and got an offer from the UFC, and we took a look at that offer, reviewed it for about eight days, and decided to match it dollar for dollar,
deal point for deal point, term for term. We matched every single element of it, word for word.”

Well, Taters, I’m no lawyer and I don’t play one on TV, but it would appear that either Rebney or Alvarez are lying their asses off here. If Bellator actually copied and pasted the UFC’s offer to Alvarez, we’re not sure how Alvarez could reasonably not see that Bellator had matched the UFC’s contract [Ed note: Based on what I’ve read, it appears that the biggest discrepancy seems to be in the PPV figures Alvarez was offered by both parties. Whereas the UFC, you know, actually hosts PPV’s which Alvarez could cash in on, Bellator’s PPV proposal seems more hypothetical than anything. -Danga]. The only good thing that could come from Bellator suing Alvarez is that the contract offers may very well become public information before a court and it might become plain to see who is in the right.

With Rebney and Bellator’s penchant for playing tough with free-agent fighters and then playing it loose and fast with the facts in the media [Ed note: For examples of this, see Tyson Nam and Jay Hieron], Alvarez might be the safer bet to side with for now. One thing is certain, Michael Chandler has to be wondering what he has to do to get his own bidding war between Bellator and the UFC.

– Elias Cepeda