In a recent interview, Alistair Overeem revealed that he has never talked to any other MMA promotion while he was a free agent before finally deciding to join the UFC once again.
That actually might be true. The MMA fighter didn’t really have any contact with other promotions, but apparently, Scott Coker says Overeem’s representatives did get in touch with Bellator.
“I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but of course there were negotiations going on. It’s true that Alistair wasn’t talking to me directly, because his agent or manager or lawyer was talking to me. I think that’s kind of what the story is, and negotiations went back and forth, and at the end of the day we chose not to make an offer. And really what it came down to was a value proposition of what he wanted and what he thought was the market value for him.So that’s what it really comes down to,” the Bellator president revealed.
Overeem sealed a new deal with the UFC a couple of days ago, and is already scheduled to fight this coming May. During the interview, Overeem was quite reluctant to spill the details of his new contract, but he definitely implied that the UFC was the only promotion perfect for his MMA skills and this promotion is the only one he believes in.
Just recently, another free agent re-signed with the UFC as well. Aljamain Sterling, the 26-year old bantamweight champ, has revealed that he also joined the UFC once again.
Coker, however, said that Bellator actually discussed if Overeem would be worth going after, but they decided that not to.
“And same thing with Sterling. I mean, Sterling was offered to us, and we just didn’t make an offer. We decided not to engage with any conversations toward him. We have other plans for our 135-pound weight class, we have other plans for our heavyweights and also a our light heavyweights. There are other free agents that are on the market that we’re going to go after. There’s a lot of fighters out there right now,” Coker said.
When asked about how close did Overeem get an invitation to join the MMA promotion, here’s what Coker had to say:
“I think just to make a long story short, we just felt that there were a couple of things we didn’t feel like was a good fit for us. And that’s what it was. It came down to value proposition. And right now it’s, like I said, there’s other fighters out there and maybe we invest in other athletes right now.”