Bellator president Scott Coker rips those who claim the fix was in for Fedor Emelianenko vs. Chael Sonnen.
Last night (Oct. 13), Emelianenko and Sonnen shared the cage for the semifinals of the Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix. In the end, it was Emelianenko who emerged victorious via first-round TKO. He will meet Ryan Bader for the Bellator heavyweight championship on Jan. 26.
Scott Coker Responds To Fight Fixing Conspiracy
A small group of fans have often targeted Bellator with baseless fight fixing claims. They were back at it again, claiming Sonnen purposefully gave up a rear-naked choke attempt to give “The Last Emperor” top control. During the Bellator 208 post-fight press conference, Coker blasted the claims (via MMAFighting.com):
“Come on, that doesn’t even deserve a response to the people that are saying it. Listen, Chael got clipped. He told me, ‘Man, he hit me and he hit me really good,’ and he was done. So that’s it. With Chael, the thing with Tito, ‘oh, he let him go’ or something, come on, why would you do that? You’re a professional athlete and you’re a fighter. He wants to continue, he wants to go to the next round of the tournament. That’s just all rubbish. To me, they see Chael, he’s got this character and I think they just feel like with Chael it’s just like this character, so maybe that’s what they’re thinking. But If you had Fedor punching you and kicking you and kneeing you like he was doing today — that was real, that was not fake.”
A small number of fans have accused past Bellator fights of being fixed such as Kimbo Slice vs. Ken Shamrock and Tito Ortiz vs. Sonnen. Coker has dismissed these accusations before, but it appears his patience is running thin with the claims.
Why does Bellator appear to be the target of these fight fixing claims?
