Bellator is a dead end of top flight fighters.

I was just looking at the Bellator champs and its shocking how many of them have hit a total dead end as far as getting decent competition.

Shouldn't leave Bellator yet:

Joe Warren (Top 10 ranked), he is still the 145lbs champ and after a failed run at 135lbs he will probabally return to 145 where he has 2 top 10 opponents in Pat Curran and a rematch with Pitbull who he holds a SD win over.


At 135lbs we have Zach Makovsky (Top 15 ranked), who has some healthy competition in Bellator, theres Alexis Vila who demolished the champ in the devision above him, the Bw tournament will likely produce a challenger higher ranked than him so there no rush for him to look at leaving Bellator.
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On the fence:

Ben Askren (top 20 ranked), Askren is fighting Hieron who is top 15 ranked next, its a good fight for him. After that he has to take on the Winner of this years Ww tournament which could be Saunders or Lima, either of which is a fairly credible challenge. Basically he has 2 good fights but after that theres no Welterweight tallent in Bellator.

He has had the title for a year and not defended it yet which shows the lack of depth at Ww in Bellator
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Should leave Bellator asap:

Eddie Alvarez (Top 5 ranked), Been champ since mid 2009 and only defended the belt once again Curran (who in fairness wasnt a credible challenger at 155) he did get a credible fight outside Bellator against Kikuno and is matched up against Aoki next year but lets be honest theres fuck all keeping him in Bellator,
Michael Chandler is his next fight who is ranked about 29th according to fight matrix. UFC wont let him fight Aoki so his best bet is to take the Aoki fight asap and get out of Bellator because it is the defination of a dead in at Lw with Kurt Pellegrino being the next most credible challenger

Hector Lombard (Top 10 ranked), Been champ since mid 2009 again only 1 title defence against Alexander Shlemenko who was top 25ish, he has stayed busy outside the company and crushing cans in bellator and that seems to be a continuing trend with him fighting Prangley who has 1 win in his last 5 fights! Theres a Mw GP going on now with Bryan Baker and Shlemenko likely meeting in the finals, the winner will be verging on top 20 and thats all Bellator can offer him, not to appealing if its a Shlemenko rematch especially.

Cole Konrad (Top 20 ranked), Been champ a year and they have only found him a fight with Buentello (non title) Buentello was far far from the best or highest ranked fighter available (Infact Ricco Rodriguez on the same card was higher ranked) Hw's who were free agents at the time included Sylvia who beat Buentello and Rizzo who was top 15 ranked as well as Gonzaga who had said he was returning to MMA... Bellator purposly put him in against an easy opponent. I dont think he could cut it in the UFC. Ivanove, Sparks, Santos and Prindle are all fighting in the Hw GP but as bad ass as they have looked the highest ranked among them is Prindle at 53 according to fightmatrix. Slim pickings.
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For me Bellator is a dead end for top fighters, they reall struggle to challenge their champs and at most the Champs have 2-3 potential challengers.

I wonder if Bellator would do themselves a favor and sell the contracts of their champs on to UFC, maby allowing them to put on more shows and run more Tournaments in more weight classes during the year

Is it same Champ clause as in UFC? So Lombard/Alvarez cant join any other promotion until they lose belt or retire? There contract never runs out as long as there Champs...

I think Konrad needs a little bit more seasoning in Bellator before making the move.

Hector, Askren and Alvarez all belong in the UFC though. Alvarez would beat any UFC LW IMO. I think Askren has the wrestling to be UFC Champ. He's done a lot of work on his stand-up with Duke Ruufus over the last 6 months. I can see him being a Sonnen type fighter if he keeps working hard, but with better submission defence. Not sure how Hector will do, but he's fun to watch.

This is why the contract system (unlimited champions clauses) in MMA is bollocks.

Imagine having the skills to earn five times more than you currently do, doing the job you currently do but at a bigger company, but never being allowed to leave your current job because your employer has it written in your contract that if you become their best employee you can never leave. If you want to work in your chosen profession again for the rest of your life you must work for us.

This is ridiculous and illegal in pretty much any other industry, yet guys like Alvarez and Lombard, who could be earning millions of dollars a year in the UFC, are stuck getting payed a fraction of their market value.
It is not acceptable in human society. You're good enough to be a chef at a michelin starred restraunt? Tough, you were too good at cooking breakfasts at little chef so they'll never let you leave.
You could argue don't sign the contract in the first place. But you need to start somewhere.

I'm with anfield with regards to Konrad.

Definitely see Askren having the pedigree to be a challenger in UFC, and would love to see Alvarez and Lombard make the move.

Pity that Vila is so old, the few times I've seen him, I've been really impressed.

I think the whole contract thing is fairly justified. Why would an organisation allow a situation where their champion could just jump over to another promoter? Is it really too much of an ask to have them retire the belt before moving? Okay, I understand from a fighters perspective, that they can possibly earn more from a rival org, but, surely they owe something to an organisation that may have given the opportunity to showcase their talents?

There should be a compromise, of course. Like a maximum of 4 or 5 fights per contract plus an extra 1 or 2 should they become champion.
But tying people to unlimited contracts is grossly unfair. They can't owe an org infinity fights.

Mryzyz wrote:There should be a compromise, of course. Like a maximum of 4 or 5 fights per contract plus an extra 1 or 2 should they become champion.
But tying people to unlimited contracts is grossly unfair. They can't owe an org infinity fights.

But in reality, all they need to do, is relinquish their title surely?

No. The org decides who has the belt. A fighter can say 'I'm not the champ anymore', the org will just say 'yes you are, you're fighting in january, it's in your contract'.

Like when Randy wanted to leave to fight Fedor in Affliction. He couldn't just relinquish his belt. It wasn't up to him.

A fighter would have to show up and lose on purpose. Which would damage his sellability, as well as being very unprofessional and undignified.

I think Eddie and Lombard are the only two that really need to get themselves in the UFC sharpish,they've cleaned up the challengers at that level and to be fair they did that along time ago.
They are obviously on the best contracts Bellator will offer,but I think they have both past the point in there careers,where they both should care about being the top dogs in a small Org,they should be thinking about proving that they are big dogs in the overall sport now,and test themselves at the UFC level.

Conrad,Askren and Joe Warren are all very good,and I'm sure they would get some good results at the UFC level if they went there tomorrow,but I personally think they are all still very green in the sport at the moment and they would all benefit from another year or so honing their skills in Bellator.