Liam Fisher must feel like a South American drugs baron would after buying a stubborn police chief right about now. His competition will both praise him and will jealously want to soccer kick him in the head, Vale Tudo style. If you didn’t know, Liam is the head of BAMMA, and has just secured a multi-fight deal with the ex-UFC middleweight contender Nate Marquardt. While Marquardt was recently reported to be in talks with Bellator and some (i.e. – me) expected him to sign to Strikeforce, BAMMA have demonstrated good old British daring by swooping in and picking up the fighter. Twitter has already blown up with “Nate’s moving to England so he can juice” tweets but he was quoted as saying:
“Offers came in from several fight promotions, but we felt that BAMMA was definitely the best fit. They put on high-quality shows, stack their cards with top-level fighters, and sign those fighters to multi-fight deals. They are also the only fight organization in the UK that implements PED testing. To be honest, that is one of the main reasons that we chose BAMMA. I want to prove to my fans and to the world that I’m the real deal and that I belong on top”
Marquardt will join fellow UFC veterans Frank Trigg and Efrain Escudero as well as Joey Villasenor in BAMMA as they continue their plan for world MMA domination. It must be noted that BAMMA seems to be following the model set by now defunct UK promotion Cage Rage of pairing well known names with domestic talent. Let’s just hope BAMMA isn’t bought and killed off in the same unfortunate manner. If Nate stays at middleweight and BAMMA go on to sign Siyar Bahadurzada, the only thing you will be able to hear over my cheering will be Liam Fisher’s maniacal laughter. But already sometime BAMMA fighter Paul Daley has challenged Nate to a fight as soon as he is done with Tyron Woodley, so it looks like Marquardt will also compete at 170.
[source]
