Bjorn Rebney Talks Rebuilding King Mo, Talking to Rampage Jackson, More
Posted by Larry Csonka on 03.20.2013
Plus comments on Josh Barnett and Eddie Alvarez…
- Bjorn Rebney recently spoke about King Mo, Josh Barnett, Eddie Alvarez and more. Here are the highlights…
On Plans For King Mo Following His Recent KO Loss: We rebuild him in a huge way. We put him back in, get him busy as quickly as humanly possible and we rebuild him. The magic of MMA is that anything can happen on any given day. I'm sitting in my hotel room late at night after Mo's fight and I'm watching SportsCenter, and the No. 6 moment of the day was the highlight of Emanuel Newton, this guy many people had never heard of, executing a spinning backfist that hit Mo right on the button. That moment is what we are all about. We're not going to take King Mo or Chandler or Curran or anybody else and feed them cans to get them to the promised land. You have to win the toughest tourney in sports to get to earn your shot at a title. If you get through, you've absolutely earned it. The reality is, when this tournament was set up, people were talking about King Mo meeting Babalu in the finals. Those are the moments that speak to how good Bellator is. We're going to build Mo back. I talk to him constantly. We're planning the strategy. He'll have to go through same gauntlet to get there. If he gets through, he'll earn that shot at the title, but he's not going to leapfrog over anyone. He's not going to get in by any way other than earning it, and that's what makes us different from the competition.
Have They Had Talks With Rampage Jackson?: We bounce. There are always open lines of communication with us and a whole series of fighters. There's no pending agreement of any kind. There's no substantive direction. Our circles are too small. The reality is you're always going to bump into the Rampages and Josh Barnetts. You're going to bump into a lot of people here in Southern California.
Is Josh Barnet on His Wish List?: I don't know if I would classify Josh as being on the wish list but he's sure on the radar. I've known him now for years. Like I said, the Southern Cali market is not huge, but it's a mecca for MMA. He's a talented fighter. He's not one of those names that wore out his stay. He's still got gas in the tank but I have no way of knowing if we can end up putting together a deal or not. I just know that anytime there's a heavyweight that's a legit top 10, you take a look.
On The Eddie Alvarez Situation: We try to keep the door open to have communication and we have had some talks. My hope remains that we'll be able to get it settled. We have had talks. It's tough to tell. I'm hopeful it gets settled but we're in the process of talking and I just don't know that it will. Our attorneys have been instructed to try to work through it and get a settlement worked out so we can get it behind us.
