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Eddie Alvarez receives UFC offer, Bellator taking 2 weeks to consider matching

2K views 21 replies 4 participants last post by  LL 
#1 ·
Up until this October, Eddie Alvarez (24-3) has been Bellator's Lightweight golden boy. He came to the organization back in 2009 and reeled off an impressive 7 straight wins. His BFC resume includes finishes over leg-lock expert Toby Imada and UFC veterans Roger Huerta and Josh Neer. In 2010, he hit his peak ranking as the #3 155 lb fighter.

Alvarez wrapped up his contract at Bellator 76 with a first round KO of Patricky Freire. The only blemish on his record with the promotion was a 4th round submission loss to Michael Chandler at Bellator 58 in a fight of the year candidate. Since then he's been enjoying the luxury of free agency. In the weeks after his last fight, he declined Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney's initial offer to re-sign with the company.

UFC president Dana White made it clear following the Freire fight that the UFC was definitely interested in Alvarez. However, it took him over two months to submit an offer.

Loretta Hunt announced the news on Twitter

To clear up any confusion: after Alvarez declined Bellator's offer, Rebney gave up his right to an "exclusive negotiation" period. By all rights, Rebney could have tied Alvarez down for up to 90 days where he could deal only with Bellator, but Bjorn forfeited that right on behalf of his company. That is not the same as the matching period, which Rebney did not waive. That means, if Rebney decides to match the UFC offer, Alvarez is obligated to re-sign with Bellator.

As far as the offer from the UFC, we don't have any details yet. What can be gleaned from the little bit of information that we have is that the UFC didn't back Alvarez anywhere near as strongly as they did Hector Lombard. Rebney said a while back that Lombard picked up a $300K per fight offer along with PPV points and a $400K signing bonus. That contract wasn't feasible for Bellator to match. The fact that Rebney says matching Alvarez's contract is within their means indicates that Eddie received a significantly less lucrative offer.

UPDATE: I spoke to Loretta Hunt on Twitter immediately following the posting of this article. She informed me that (1) Rebney and Bellator never extended an official offer to Alvarez following Bellator 76. They sit down to talk, but no official contract was given or rejected. (2) Bellator's ability to match Eddie's offer from the UFC is not an indication of it being less than Hector Lombard's.
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/12/...alvarez-offer-bellator-matching-two-weeks-mma
 
#3 ·
he might stay for more money and the ability to crush cans for easy money for the rest of his career with the illusion he is a top 10 fighter, seen other fighters do that before.
 
#6 ·
Bellator has almost a zero percent chance of staying and if Bellator does any sort of matching or anything it's just to stick it to the UFC and make them pay more.



Khalidov isn't going anywhere. He makes a good amount of money in Poland and the UFC is trying to give him a standard like 16/16 deal.
 
#8 ·
im sure if khalidov is as good as he thinks he is he can bump up that paycheck pretty quick by signing short fight term deals, he also just subbed kendall grove a former UFC fighter which might get him a little more negotiating leverage even though I think kendall is still a bum former UFC fighter or not.
 
#10 ·
probably but I was more referring to if he really thinks he's top shit at middleweight then he can't **** around with KSW C league fighters and castaways if he wants to be taken seriously.
 
#11 ·
haha yes, back to the original point. He has to take that pay cut (albeit a brief one if he can perform and surely he believes he can) to be considered a top guy at 185.

The problem here is that he is fighting in his home country, he has a lot of fans there, his sponsors are mainly based there. Nobody knows who he is in the USA.
 
#12 ·
I don't think he's ever claimed to be the best MW in the world.

Also, it's not like his paycut is guaranteed to be all that brief. I mean Shane Carwin was in his second contract and was headlining a PPV for a World Heavyweight title fight and was making like 70K.


Khalidov probably makes around that or more in KSW, especially with sponsors...not to mention the EURO is worth quite a bit more than the dollar right now.
 
#15 ·
Apparently a few months ago he was offered 30k per fight, beating grove would bump that up to about 36k imo based on his UFC history and they would take notice, I have no idea what he makes in KSW but if he lands his leg locks in the UFC he's taking away another 60k on top of the show up fee and the win bonus is double so he could end up with 70k to show up and win, and a leg lock may be good enough for another 60k looking at 130k and always increasing. Plus I think they would give him the lombard treatment and put him in big fights straight away and get him to title contention quickly. The thing with Mamed is he hasn't indicated he wants to go to the US for the better comp but instead to test himself in the US to bump up how much he is worth to the UFC.
 
#20 ·
To be honest it's useless to speculate, especially when you consider how it relates to the thread. ZUFFA has made it clear they don't want media, fans, or other fighters to know how much they pay, and that includes guys like Khalidov.

When there is almost nothing to off of outside of the absolute MEGA-stars like the contracts of Randy Couture, Overeem, Lesnar, GSP and Nick Diaz that have actually been examined down to specific bonuses and clauses....I doubt anyone can really get a firm idea on how much money they can possibly make in the UFC without being THE guy. And that's not exactly a promising prospect right now with that Anderson Silva guy at the top of the division.

Hence, why Khalidov laughed at the offer and stayed in KSW.


Hell, Bibiano Fernandez is proven and would definitely be fighting for a title with his combination of world class pedigree and athleticism and yet, even HE laughed off the UFC to fight in Japan.
 
#21 ·
Another factor is probably also these types of fighters like to be free agents that fight in multiple orgs for paydays and easy wins and also alternative sports like boxing, ***** and kickboxing which is not allowed under UFC contracts. Yeah we will never know how much these guys get really paid which is kinda good so the riff raff don't come and start mooching like they do to boxers
 
#22 ·
He's already fought Chandler, Pitbull, and Aoki so I guess it's time for him to come to the UFC.
 
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