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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Eddie Alvarez went on a public tirade earlier this week, making several egregious comments regarding Bellator's Bjorn Rebney, Spike TV, and Viacom in the midst of their ongoing legal battle. At the heart of the issue remains whether or not Bellator truly matched the deal Alvarez was offered by the UFC, and that's something that will likely be determined by trial sometime this year.
However, one of the shadier pieces of the proceedings was Alvarez's claim that Viacom attempted to change the wording of his deal when they sent him his early release. According to Alvarez, they changed the terms in an amended contract they wanted him to sign to read that only "material terms" needed to be matched instead of the original wording saying all terms needed to be matched.
He also claimed that Bjorn Rebney no longer had any say in Bellator, calling him a "grunt" as Viacom and Spike were behind everything. Rebney finally had enough of Alvarez's public comments, and fired back on Friday in an interview with Luke Thomas at MMAFighting.com. Here are some of the refutations he made (check out the link for the full interview):
On his general take on Alvarez's comments: Well, the general take about what's happening is that Ed's made a series of statements about Bellator and Spike over the last few weeks that are completely untrue. You know, it bothers me - for as hard as this company works, and as much as Spike has meant to mixed martial arts and mixed martial artists, and providing the revenue, the ability and the platform for so many fighters to earn a great living in this space - for Ed to make the kind of statements he's been making about Bellator, Spike, and Viacom, is offensive. And they're untrue statements.
It had been my intent to maintain the high ground and not engage in a public back-and-forth. And we don't have any intent to engage in a public back-and-forth. This isn't going to be an ongoing public feud, but it just reached a boiling point where we had to come forward and point out the fact that many of the things he was saying are completely untrue. They weren't opinion, they were just false.
On his role in the proceedings: I will tell you this: every single decision, with regard to Ed matching the contract, the steps we've taken and the legal steps that have been taken, have been made directly from this office, from this CEO at Bellator. The decisions have not been made by Spike and they have not been made by Viacom. I'm sure you can imagine or conjecture a thousand different reasons why various parties would want to paint Viacom and/or Spike into this picture...
[His comments are] completely false. And I've sat down with Ed face to face and made it completely and utterly clear to him that the decisions, the movements, the steps we were taking and the position we were taking was a decision that I was making, and it was a decision I was making based on the contract he signed, based on the commitment we had made to him financially, based on the agreement he had executed, and there was no other party involved. There was no other party voicing an opinion, there was no other party saying "do this" or "do that." The decisions of this company on this matter have been made 120% by me and by Bellator. That's it - not by any other group or party.
On whether its worth having this fight with Alvarez in court: Yes, it is, and I'll tell you why it is. And this is a question I've been asked by a bunch of people but it's time we answered it. When you sign a contract with an organization like ours, or any of the other top organizations, of which there is only one, the UFC - the expectation is that you're going to honor that contract. We didn't get into this industry nor are we in this industry to be a developmental program for anybody. We didn't get into it to be a stepping stone. We got into it to be the #1 mixed martial arts organization in the world. And in 4 years, we've gone from being #6 to #2. The intent was never to be #2.
So, to allow a fighter that we've put on television multiple times, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to and given a $150,000 bonus to to sign a contract, to blatantly violate that contract and to not live up to its obligations is something that a second-tier promotion or a feeder-system promotion might do ... but it's not something that we're going to do. We're going to support our fighters, we're going to build them into stars, we're going to have relationships like the relationships we have with Joe Warren, King Mo, and Pat Curran, the list goes on and on, we're going to do everything we can to make them the biggest possible stars we can. We're going to put the focus and the focal point on them - not on the promoter, not on the person wearing the suit, but ultimately on the guys who have the courage and guts to step in the cage.
We're going to do all the things we do differently from the UFC. But we're surely never going to be a feeder system, and we're surely never going to be a stepping stone. So, if there's an agreement in place ... look, it's the fight industry, and this is a fight that we feel very vested in. And for Ed to be making the kind of false statements that he's making, it does not make this situation any more likely that we're going to settle it. We were interested in settling it when Ed was simply saying 'Hey, I just have a disagreement with Bellator' but now that I'm sure that he's come to the realization that we're contractually in the right.
Maybe that tone is changing, but until Ed stops spreading complete falsehoods about this company and about the incredibly good people at Spike and Viacom, who've given fighters like Ed the opportunity to make a $250,000 bonus; to make huge signing bonus money, to make six-figures per fight. That's because of Spike and Viacom. So until those attacks stop, filled with untruths, we're going to keep right on in the middle of this fight.
On whether document wording was changed: It's one of the aspects that's been so disconcerting. If you go to the court filings, every single document is there. There was never a change of a single word. What Ed is talking about - and this is what is completely and totally untrue, this is false, this is a statement that's completely untrue - Ed's attorney and our attorneys were communicating consistently when that early release document was drafted. The 2008 contract that Ed signed with this company has the exact same wording in it. The exact same wording that the early release document has in it.
Ed's claims that somehow he was tricked into material terms being in that letter is absolutely, completely 100% false. The documents are available in the courthouse and I can forward the documents over to you. That is a completely false statement.
Ed was not misled, Ed was not in the communications. Ed's attorneys were talking to our attorneys. Ed came to us and literally said to us, "Hey, is there any reason for us to wait out this amount of time with the exclusive negotiation period?" And, literally, as a favor to Ed Alvarez, because of how I felt about him at the time - a feeling that no longer stands - but how I felt about him at the time, I said, "Of course. Let's just let you go get the offer. If we're going to match it, we'll match it, and if not, there's no reason to sit you out for 3 months. Let's just let you go get the offer." The wording in our contract that Ed signed and the wording in that early release document are exactly the same. There is no mention of material terms in the release letter. It's completely false, and it's in the court documents.
Penick's Analysis: Just to clarify one point that seems missed, Alvarez made clear that he didn't sign a contract that had the "material terms" clause in there. His claim was they attempted to make that change, then after they caught the wording change and had them change it back, Viacom sent the "revised" copy to his lawyers while sending him another one that still had "material terms" in there, hoping he'd sign it. That's what Alvarez claims, and he says he has the copy of the contract they sent with "material terms" in it. So it's not something that would be part of the lawsuit, because he didn't ultimately sign it. His contention is it's something they attempted to do. As for the rest of it, it's devolving to a "he said/he said" issue here, and Alvarez remains defiant, already sending out Tweets in response to Rebney's comments. It's going to continue to drag out, unfortunately, and Alvarez may lose another year because of it.
Now, I've got to comment on Rebney's contention that they're never going to be a feeder league and that they're in this to be the No. 1 organization in the world. That's just not in any way, shape, or form a realistic goal at this stage, and it's not something that can be accepted at face value. Of course they don't want to lose their top guys, and they're giving a lot of guys a chance to make good money in the sport, but it isn't the same as the top guys in the UFC. It's just not, and can't be, and with the majority of the best fighters in the world competing in the UFC, their reach extending globally, their pay-per-view business still highly successful even if down from previous years, it's just disingenuous to say Bellator's going to ever overtake them in this sport.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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