San Diego, CA — Scott Coker was flooded with questions about the rumored sale of Bellator MMA throughout the Bellator 300 Fight Week in San Diego this past week.
Following Saturday night’s historic show, capped by three title fights, Coker had promised to address those questions — though the update, in the end, was no update.
“Two weeks ago, it was like ‘oh this thing’s going down in a week.’ A month ago, it was ‘this thing’s been going back and forth for how long? For the last six months.’ I don’t really want to engage in any speculation or see where the future goes as far as ‘is a deal going to happen, is it not going to happen?'” Coker said during the post-fight press conference, with media outlets including Cageside Press on hand.
“These things take time, and until the time gets solidified, to me it’s just speculation. I can’t engage in that, because it’s really unfair I think to the promotion, to the 300th event. We had some great fights tonight, we’ve been doing some great fights over the last eight, nine years. This company has grown so much. Tonight’s a celebration.”
Later Coker would add that “hopefully there is some clarity soon, and we’ll find out what’s going on.”
Asked about the whether there were any similar feelings between Bellator’s situation, with the promotion admittedly on the market looking for a new owner, and Coker’s prior company, Strikeforce, the Bellator CEO singled out one key difference.
“The difference is I owned Strikeforce. This is something that I don’t own,” noted Coker. “There are some feelings that feel the same, but at the end of the day it’s not my company.”
Regardless, Coker pointed out that he continues to try to focus on growing Bellator MMA as a company.
“We have a great company. When you talk about clear #2 in the space, nobody has the fighters that we have, nobody can pack this arena like we can pack it, other than the UFC. When I think about negative comments coming from other promoters, it just is what it is. I’m not really impacted by that. I really try to focus on business at hand and what’s important to the growth of this company and the growth of our employees to try to keep this going forward.”
If there was any sort of standout moment or moments coming from Bellator 300, it was likely Cris Cyborg dominating Cat Zingano in a women’s featherweight title fight, and Leah McCourt doing the same against Sara McMann. That has set up a showdown between the two.
“I don’t see how anybody can say that Cris Cyborg is not the GOAT in the female division. She is a beast. She is amazing. She took care of business. To me that was an amazing fight,” Coker said of his long-reigning women’s featherweight champ, who has held gold in Strikeforce, Invicta FC, the UFC, and Bellator.
Cyborg and McCourt faced off in the cage after the Brazilian’s latest title defense. Coker didn’t have an exact timeframe for the fight, but noted they like to have their champions in action twice a year.
“The world champions, we try to fight them twice a year. That’s kind of what I would put on the calendar,” said Coker. “When Cris wants to fight again — she’s probably going to want to rest and take a vacation, do whatever she does. But we’ll be back in touch with them soon.”
“That’s a fight that Leah wants, and Cyborg will definitely take it,” he added.
Watch the full Bellator 300 post-fight press conference with Scott Coker above.
