MMA Junkie reports that Bellator has signed Michael Chandler to a “long term deal” with the organization. According to Bellator, the signing makes Chandler one of the highest paid lightweights.
According to Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, Chandler will be with Bellator for a “minimum of eight fights.”
Ironically, Chandler’s deal was made easier due to the Eddie Alvarez lawsuit. Chandler defeated Alvarez for the Bellator belt.
Via MMA Junkie:
Of course, Chandler admitted, it helped that an ongoing legal battle between Bellator and Alvarez has made the details of the organization’s offer to the former champ public knowledge. It showed him what Bellator was willing to pay a man he’d already beaten, and informed his own notion of what he should expect to make for a new deal, he said.
Payout Perspective:
Securing Chandler to a long term deal made sense for Bellator but did it for Chandler? The UFC is still the major leagues in MMA when it comes to competition and earning potential. No word on the type of money Chandler could be making but we may assume he’s one of the top paid in Bellator. It is interesting that Chandler (and his reps) would not have known the market for him but for the Alvarez contract becoming a matter of public record. While it’s likely that they would have known a ballpark figure, the documents produced in Alvarez’s lawsuit helped with filling in specifics. For Chandler, being the top guy in the lightweight division Bellator may be a good career choice provided he’s afforded sponsorship opportunities and other revenue streams. If Bellator/Spike contract with Chandler to help build his brand and grant him opportunities outside of the Octagon (e.g. Spike TV appearances, announcing, specials) the deal could help Chandler beyond the length of the deal.
Can they cut chandler at anytime like the ufc can its fighters ?
They just released Daley and Falcoa or whatever his name is. So I would say yeah.
If Bellator copied and pasted the UFC contract as it did in the Alvarez fiasco the answer would be probably. I would hope Bellator has redone it’s contract since then. That is right of first refusal, matching rights, etc.
As a fan I’m not happy about this cause this means we wont get to see Chandler vs the best LW in the world but a guy who was making 17/17 in Bellator as the champ is gonna jump at a big offer they throw him.
I said it when he started to complain about Eddie getting more than him when he beat Eddie, I said Bellator is gonna keep this kid from ever being a free agent, they will throw big money at him now and he wont be able to refuse.
I do think the should have waited, another year he would be free agent and being an unbeaten, young, Bellator champ who is a good looking kid and marketable, the UFC would pony up big money to get him and then even if he resigned with Bellator it would most likely be for alot more than he gets now.
But if he lost then any huge deal is gone and his value diminishes. So taking the money now isnt a terrible move.
Just sucks that we wont get to see him vs Bendo, Pettis, Gilbert, Punk, Grant, Maynard, Healy, Miller, maybe Aldo etc.
Well said Chris.
Godwilling bellator will be big enough for ufc to send its top guys to enter a bellator tournament. of course people will say that ufc mid tier guys will wreck bellators champions but that remains to be seen. that boetsch lombard decision was questionable. I’m boetschs biggest supporter and its neat how he almost plays the role of “problem solver.”he fixed the okami and lombard situation and now he has the call to fix the kennedy situation.
Chris,
That is the major problem with “competition” to the UFC or a leader in any sports industry. Casual fans, and i call them that because they blindly want changes that hurt the sport and the product they pay for, are always obsessed with fighter pay and try to apply other industry logic to sports. So they rally around the “competition is good” stance. It is good if the fighters getting a few bucks more is the only thing that is important to you. I can understand why fighters want comp. BUt even then i believe a healthy sport will pay off for them more in the long run. BUt as a sport and for fans. A single powerful Promotion means ALL fights are possible. We saw that when Pride colapsed. All the years i followed MMA online. All the top was between UFC and Pride fans arguing who would beat who. It went on for 5+ years with nothing ever happening. UFC sent guys over and Pride placed them in a bad spot in the tourny to avoid the fight everyone wanted to see (Chuck/Wandy). Pride said they would send Sakuraba to the UFC and lied. Both sides protect their interest. It wasnt until the UFC took over Pride that every fight outside of Fedor hiding in another promotion(again competition) was possible. We finally got to see all the fights we talked about for years. This was the golden age of MMA imo. It took the death of competition to do it. Fans loved it but it goes against everything they believe and cant see how sports monopolies do actually work. Comp actually hurts the quality of the product in sports because the talent is unique and in short supply. However the taste of Coke doesn’t change because Pepsi started competing. So a rival brings prices down while keeping the same quality. That doesn’t happen in sports.
No competition always leads to bigger and better things. ufc can’t get caught up in its own hubris as it is starting to do. actually its whites hubris. he thinks he can do know wrong and has all the answers.
It should read “no,competition”, oops. We should be able to edit posts on here. but that would lead to certain people attempting to backtrack.
Then why do we miss out on fights when there is Comp? Why is every sports league now on top of the world but it wasnt the case when they had rival leagues? In fact it is even said in basketball circles that it is easier to win in the NBA today because the expansion of teams has made the teams weaker. Talent is spread across 30 teams rather than 14. Half the players in the league today would not have been in the NBA in the 70’s. Guys who used to not be good enough are now needed to fill the teams. So comp in the form of more teams in each league has also weakened the product for fans. So again i will ask. Where is the ABA? AFL?
In baseballs early days there was lots of comp and it caused the sport to be stagnant and struggle. The NL kill the National association. Then American Association was created as a rival. There was then the Players League and Union Association who tried to compete. Once the AL was created and partnered with the NL to create Major League Baseball. There has been no compeition and the game has flourished. The story is the same for every sports league.
We miss out because the promoters are scared for their guys to lose.
Orgs are scared to have their fighters compete. they are content to compete for ratings and ppv buys.
I wouldn’t say they are scared. It just comes down to being smart and doing what is best for the company. Regardless who the #1 promotion is. They will never give #2 the chance to take their credibility and lose their place at the top. On the other hand. #2 will take all the risk because they have nothing to lose. Then you have styles when it comes to setting up the fights. Who gets to cherry pick the match ups? Cross promotion never works because someone always has more to lose than the other.
Also if promotions worked together so well. I think it would have a negative effect on salaries. IF they are working together to co promote. Then they will stop bidding against each other since they will both get to use the fighter anyway. Its not as simple as people think.
Pride was #1 and they sent the#2 ufc and chuck liddell packing. So number ones do give numbers twos a chance. A prime liddell couldn’t even get to the finals. He was getting beat so bad by rampage that hackelman threw in the towel.
Suddenly you care about the fighters salaries? i thought it was what’s best for the sport and now its about best business interests? you flip flop more than john kerry bs.
Sport and Business go hand and hand. Both are better off with low salaries. No flip flop just your brain being to slow to comprehend.
Also Pride didn’t give #2 a chance. They were both equal at the time. Also they didn’t give the UFC a chance. The UFC wanted Chuck to fight Prides champ in Wandy. Pride refused to let it happen and put Chuck in the side of the tournament that were bad styles for him. He out toughed Reem but QJ was a horrible match up for him. As we saw later. If the fight was made that the UFC wanted and Dana was wanting to bet Pride pres 250,000 on. Chuck would have owned Prides Champ. They made sure that match up didn’t happen. They also knew better than to send any fighters to the UFC and give the UFC a chance to do the same with match making and make an example of their fighters. BUt an example was made of them later anyone when they come to the UFC.
But thanks for proving my point for me!
Sakuraba owned the ufc. he was a ufc tournament heavyweight champ as a middleweight. Plus pride had the ufcs middleweight champ in busta. so pride gave ufc a shot at their champ. It made sense to put wand and liddell at opposite sides of the tournament cuz it was the final everyonewantes to see.it was the smart business decision but ufc wasn’t good enough. Plus ufc couldn’t afford pride guys at the time. Pride held all the cards, and ufc was a distant second. white still had hair but he pulled it out after chuck lost.
You flip flopper. I’m just gonna start calling bs john kerry from now on because yiu know it was the business smart thing to do. chuck hadn’t even earned a fight with wand at the time anyway.
Was it also just good business that give Wandy the easier side of the bracket? Saku didn’t win anything. It was all rigged. He lost the first fight and even if he would have won. He would have got raped by Tank in the finals. But because the ending. They would let Tank fight and blamed it on his hand so they can set u the rematch for Saku. BTW, it wasn’t SEG who was running this event. It was a Japanese group who were running under the UFC banner. That’s why all the shady stuff was going on. So he won nothing. He got just got every thing rigged so he can win 1 fight. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the Japanese promoters weren’t behind the first fight being ruled a no contest. Yes it was a ref mistake. But those happen all the time and are never reversed.
Busta was a has been by the time he fought in Pride. It was over a year of inactivity before he fought In Pride. That was at 205 and he almost beat Rampage. His next fight was a headbutt. So it was actually over 2 years before Busta fought anyone close to his size in Pride. Pride wasn’t exactly getting the same fighter that was UFC champ.
Also the reason Busta sat out so long after he didn’t resign with the UFC is Pride would pay him either. So they wasn’t throwing around money either.
“It wad all rigged” waaaaah. boho. ufc got dealt with and white lost the rest of his hair becaude his guy got crushed by a guy who almost got whipped by a washed up middleweight hahaha.
Your mom finally brought me my slippers bs. Now i will go and put some water in her dish.
Says the guys who said Ed Herman was the best coach he ever had. LMAO!!!!!!.
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LMAO!!!!!!!! That is just way too funny!
One of. dude has skills. This was way back. I’ve ran into a lot of the northwests best.
I’m not giving your mom anymore water btw. no more soft food either. only kibble.