Coker: Bellator has ‘other plans’ for Kimbo than Fedor fight

Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

Two weeks ago, Fedor Emelianenko signed a multi-million dollar offer to fight for former Pride FC boss Sakakibara’s new promotion in Japan. According to the official press release, the event, which takes place on December 31^st, is expected to be broadcast on Spike TV and will feature several Bellator fighters on the card.

Once that announcement came about, many believed it was only a matter of time before an inevitable Fedor vs. Kimbo Slice fight was announced as the NYE headliner.

However, Bellator CEO revealed during a segment on The MMA Hour that that will not be the case.

“No, no. Kimbo is a Bellator fighter,” Coker said. “We have other plans for Kimbo.”

Slice is responsible for Bellator’s top ratings. He achieved that when he returned from a five-year hiatus to KO Ken Shamrock in front of a peaking television audience of 2.1 million live viewers. According to Coker, Slice could fight multiple times in 2016.

“We’re going to fight [Slice] early next year,” Coker said. “And I think next year, you’re going to see Kimbo Slice fight three times in Bellator.”

Transcription taken from MMAFighting.com.

Share this story

About the author

Karim Zidan

Karim Zidan is a investigative reporter and feature writer focusing on the intersection of sports and politics. He has written for BloodyElbow since 2014 and has served as an associate editor since 2016. He also writes for The New York Times and The Guardian. Karim has been invited to speak about his work at numerous universities, including Princeton, and was a panelist at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival and the Oslo Freedom Forum. He also participated in the United Nations counter-terrorism conference in 2021. His reporting on Ramzan Kadyrov’s involvement in MMA, much of which was done for Bloody Elbow, has led to numerous award nominations, and was the basis of an award-winning HBO Real Sports documentary.