Frodo Khasbulaev won the season eight Bellator featherweight tournament in April of last year when he defeated Mike Richman in the final, but his title shot has been delayed due to visa issues. 
Bellator MMA Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney initially told TheMMAReport.com about these issues in November and Rebney stated on a conference call today that Khasbulaev is still dealing with this.
“It’s not in a good place,” Rebney said when asked about the current state of Khasbulaev. “When you are dealing with the government, trying to uncover what is the catalyst behind guys not being allowed to come into the United States. They typically don’t email you and gave you all of the specifics but we can not get him into the United States.”
Bellator holds nearly all of their events in the United States, but they will be heading to Casino Rama in Canada during the upcoming tenth season. While a date for the event in Casino Rama has not been announced, Rebney said on the conference call that he began to look into whether they would be able to get Khasbulaev into Canada.
“We thought long and hard about getting him into Canada and trying to something up on the Rama show with him but now there are questions on whether we can get him into Canada. At this point, we don’t know. He is just on hold. He won that tournament long before [Patricio] Pitbull or anybody else had won a tournament, but the guy literally can not get into the United States at this point or Canada. We are going to wait, see what happens, keep working with our immigration attorneys and try to get him in.”
Current Bellator featherweight champion Daniel Straus will be making his first title defense against former champion Pat Curran at Bellator 112, which will be the third meeting between the two 145 pound fighters. With Khasbulaev’s status being unknown, Rebney confirmed that Pitbull will get the winner of the upcoming title fight on March 14th.
“When and if he gets the green light, we will put him into the mix but for right now, Straus-Curran will go off on the 14th and Pitbull will face the winner.”