The hottest topic in the mixed martial arts community currently is not about a fight that will take place inside a cage but a fight that is set to take place inside a Pennsylvania court room.
Back in December, former Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez agreed to a contract with the UFC and Bellator had the right to match the contract. After reviewing the contract offer, Bellator matched the contract offer.
However, Alvarez’s legal and management team believes that the California based organization did not match the deal because of the pay-per-view points clause in the contract and also the fact that the contract calls for Alvarez to appear on FOX fight cards.
Viacom, the company that owns a majority interest in Bellator believes that they have matched the deal even with the pay-per-view points in the deal. Bellator has never done a pay-per-view, but the organization could head in that direction in the future.
Over the past couple of days, Alvarez has talked to several media outlets about this situation and has taken the “gloves off.” He is no longer pointing the finger at Bellator MMA Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney as he is pointing the finger at executives of Viacom since he believes they are the ones making the calls for the MMA organization.
In an interview with Bleacher Report, Alvarez said that Viacom/Bellator changed matching terms in his contract from “all terms” to “material terms” when the company gave him his early release papers that allowed him to talk with other MMA organizations.
“But when they sent me my early release, they changed the wording in my original contract,” Alvarez told Bleacher Report. “They changed the wording ‘all terms matched’ to ‘material terms.’ Because they know they cannot match all the terms of the UFC offer.”
In the contract offer Alvarez agreed to with the UFC, the contract stated that the UFC has “intentions” to give him a title shot and it would have taken place at UFC 158 in March. If the fight was unable to take place in March, the backup plan was to have the fight take place at UFC 159 in April. The fight would have been in the co-main event slot which would have allowed Alvarez to receive pay-per-view points.
The key part of the clause on the title shot and being in the co-main event slot was “intention.” As I pointed out on Monday’s edition of “The MMA Report Live,” I have intentions of winning $1 million dollars at the casino, but that doesn’t mean I am guaranteed to win $1 million dollars.
If the UFC contract would have said “guaranteed” instead of “intentions,” Alvarez is likely already in the UFC and may have faced lightweight champion Benson Henderson. Alvarez did address this clause with Bleacher Report and he explained why the word “intention” is in the contract and not “guaranteed.”
“They’re not reading the whole contract. Not reading it all the way through. I’ve read the whole thing, and if you read it all the way through, it’s guaranteed. They’re giving me the fight. The reason they have to put ‘intention’ in there is because you can’t guarantee a fight. You don’t know if I’m going to suffer something that keeps me out of the fight. That’s why you can’t put that it’s 100 percent guaranteed. That’s impossible to do with any contract for a promoter. But, if you read it in its entirety, they’re giving me the fight. One hundred percent giving me the fight, when you read the whole contract. UFC wasn’t trying to pull a fast one by saying ‘intention,’ you know?”
In the court of public opinion, nearly everyone has sided with Alvarez on this case. MMA fans want to see Alvarez in the UFC and feel that Viacom/Bellator is treating him dirty. Viacom and Bellator have not responded to the recent comments by Alvarez and TheMMAReport.com did reach out to them but no comment was offered.
While Alvarez is choosing to make his comments available to the media and the fans, Viacom/Bellator appears to be deciding to have their comments take place in a court room later this year.
Ultimately, a court in Pennsylvania will decide whether Alvarez or Viacom is legally right in their argument. The unfortunate part for Alvarez is that he is in the prime of his career and the only fight he can prepare for right now is a court battle and not a potential title fight in either the UFC or Bellator.