Bellator executive Scott Coker sees several good reasons to hold a joint event with BAMMA.
One of those is to get an up-close and person look at the rising talent in the British based promotion.
Bellator 169 this Friday night from Dublin, Ireland will feature several bouts put on by BAMMA. Coker was asked about it being a “scouting mission” during a press conference this week.
“The mission statement of the company is to bring the best fighters in the world to Bellator,” he said. “So we’re going to be watching very closely I know there is some great talent here, and I’m excited to watch it and see what the future holds.”
Coker stated that a friendship started with BAMMA executive David Green over a year ago and believes that the two can work together more in the future.
“David and I became friends a little more than a year ago, and has a big television producing background, and he’s done stuff for Spike and Viacom in the past. He’s a very big producer here in the United Kingdom,” Coker said. “But as far as coming together, if you look at the background of Strikeforce or even before that in kickboxing, we were never opposed to having fighters in one organization against fighters in another organization. In the earliest parts of the Strikeforce career in MMA, we sent Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson (among others) to Pride against some of the Japanese fighters and they sent over (Shinya) Aoki, (Tatsuya) Kawajiri and some of the best fighters they had. To me, this is what martial arts is all about. We should have more events like this where top guys from different leagues compete against each other to find out who the best is. We’re not going to be opposed to that. That’s always been our philosophy.”
