Calling today a lazy Sunday is an understatement. In fact this entire weekend has been pretty lackluster when it comes to MMA. Fortunately UFC 163: Aldo vs. Korean Zombie (that’s the actual title of the card, Chan Sung Jung doesn’t even exist anymore) will be launching on our TVs in two weeks, so at least we have that to look towards. There’s also this week’s Sunday Morning Rumor Mill.
Once again, the SMRM is a collection of rumors that we’ve heard from within the industry that we can’t publish as fact, since they’re rumors — hence the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill.
For some bizarre reason, people can’t understand that the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill is filled with rumors. Nothing is being reported. Reporting is for MMA journalists — and don’t you guys insult us by calling us one of those. Now, on to the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill.
.Despite being the Bellator champion, Ben Askren only has one fight left on his contract and as of Friday there has been no attempt to renegotiate his deal. The rumor is Bellator wants to let him go so he can get an offer from UFC. Bellator believes due to the generally held notion that Askren is a ‘boring’ fighter, the UFC will ‘low ball’ him which will enable Bellator to match the UFC’s offer and resign him to Bellator at a drastically reduced price.
.Bjorn Rebney ordered a promo to be created in his honor last year. The promo was completed, slated to air, and then Viacom turned down the video, which will probably never see the light of day.
.It’s rumored that Bam Bam Healy vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov will be going down at UFC 165.
.In regards Jimmy Smith being pushed out of Bellator, it appears someone from within Bellator wanted to fire Jimmy Smith and Viacom basically vetoed that person’s idea.
.Not really a rumor, but people believe that MiddleEasy has some agenda against Spike TV because we created a show for them and it was later killed in the post-development process. This is entirely not the case. We have no problem with Viacom/Spike TV and we would love to continue to create shows for them, however we just have incredible sources from within Bellator who are giving us inside info and we simply can’t ignore it.
