Sunday is here, and it wouldn’t have been possible if yesterday didn’t occur. Thank Saturday for today, and Friday for giving birth to Saturday. Let’s not forget those days, they put in hard work to make today possible. Therefore, this Sunday Morning Rumor Mill is dedicated to ‘Friday’ and ‘Saturday,’ the weekend warriors that are highly overlooked throughout the year. Respect the work they put in for this day to arrive.
Most of the would-be rumors on today’s feature could not have been possible without the help of an endless chain of phone calls last night and this morning. Thank you for supplying us with info, some even too sensitive for the SMRM. As you know, the SMRM is composed of rumors that have been heard around the MMA world. They are rumors. Feel free to speculate and come to your own conclusions, and when you do that, I’ll try to find my car keys. They’re in my bedroom, somewhere.
- M-1 Korea is now in business, an organization that has been created to compete with Road FC, but it’s not run by the same people who operate M-1 Global. It just holds the ‘M-1 brand.’ They plan to have an event called ‘War of Monsters’ that will most likely be composed of some fun, ‘freakshow’ matches.
- KSW light heavyweight Jan Blachowicz will join World Series of Fighting and take on Rumble Johnson at 205 lbs.
- UFC plans to do something called ‘The Ultimates 2013’ which some speculate is a ZUFFA-only award show.
- It appears the UFC is going to team up with Dodge to release a custom ‘Dodge Dart’ that will be branded with the UFC logo, along with some other exclusive automobile styling.
- Alright, so I’ve been reading over Bellator contracts all weekend (yeah, fun way to spend a Saturday night) and it appears that Bjorn Rebney is doing everything correctly, contractually at least. However ethically, that’s another story. It’s Eddie Alvarez’s fault (and every other fighter in Bellator that are complaining) that they inspected and signed a highly-restrictive contract. Some people have been blaming Bellator for insane clauses in their fighter contract — but the reality is every fighter contract (even UFC’s) is insanely restrictive. Just look at Roy Nelson, a dude that could potentially fight for the UFC heavyweight title and he’s still on a TUF contract. Now ethically, the two organizations are drastically different. You have a guy like Eddie Alvarez that clearly doesn’t want to fight for Bellator, yet he’s contractually binded to the promotion. With UFC, Rampage made it clear that he didn’t want to fight for UFC and after his most recent fight, I can’t imagine a scenario in which Dana White would force Rampage to step foot in the Octagon again. Yes, technically Rampage’s contract was finished, however the UFC still has an option to match any non-ZUFFA fight offer he receives. If Rampage Jackson wanted to sign for WSOF or even Bellator, there’s no way Dana White would hold him to that clause. Sure it’s speculative, but it’s also most likely correct.
- There’s a rumor that Matt Riddle is going to fight Leonard Garcia at a catchweight in a K-1 rules fight.
- Phil Baroni will be signing a three-fight, non-tournament contract with Bellator.
- Kawajiri will be doing voice talent for a new Japanese MMORPG called ‘Legend of Souls.’ The game is rumored to be pretty gnarly, with 100 vs. 100 PvP combat. Kawajiri seems to have a major role in the game.
- Jon Jones appears to be on the verge of landing a massive Gatorade contract.
- An unnamed Bellator fighter has a horror story from the promotion that he/she wanted me to share. Apparently the fighter was offered to fight in Bellator and were told hotel and flight would be paid for. After getting the medicals done, Bellator then says the fighter will not be compensated for hotel or travel. The fighter said they would not go on with the fight since the price of the hotel and flight would be more than their actual fight purse. Allegedly Bellator said they would ‘ruin his/her career’ if they don’t sign the contract. In the end, the fighter did not sign the contract and Bellator has fortunately done nothing to him/her.
- Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands has been asked by the UFC to lock two dates for a potential card: a date in December and a ‘back-up’ date in January.
- Also, a lot of Asian MMA media have been inquiring when the UFC will be hiring for their new Singapore office. Look for an official announcement from UFC soon.
- Nick Diaz appears to be launching his own MMA promotion. Yeah, wild stuff.
