Photo courtesy Bellator
Amid all the bad press Bellator FC and CEO Bjorn Rebney are receiving this week due to the organization’s refusal to feature their 115lb women’s champion Zoila Gurgel on the main card of tonight’s Bellator 78 in Dayton, OH, the organization is making good with another one of its title holders.
As was first reported by TheFlyingKneeMMA.com and yesterday confirmed by MMAjunkie.com, Rebney has officially pulled his company’s bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas off the Bellator 79 fight card set for next Friday at Casino Rama in Ontario, because the fighter is experiencing post-concussion symptoms.
Back in August, Dantas was given permission by Bellator to compete at Shooto Brazil 33 in a stay-busy fight due to a lack of Bellator title contenders but suffered an upset knockout loss to relative unknown Tyson Nam, as well as a concussion.
According to Rebney when talking to Karim Zidan of TheFlyingKneeMMA.com, Dantas experienced “dizziness and some nausea” when he tried to return to training in early October, and that “it was clear he was not ready to get back into the cage.” Therefore, the promotion decided to delay his title defence against Marcos Galvao to its eighth season, the first on Spike TV.
Here’s what Rebney told MMAjunkie.com medical columnist on Twitter about the decision to hold Dantas back:
@drjcbenjamin Hi Doc, head injuries cannot ever be rushed.Far, far too important both short and long term.
— Bjorn Rebney (@BjornRebney) October 14, 2012
But really, Bellator didn’t have to do that. They could have forced Dantas to fight, and defend his championship even knowing he wasn’t totally 100 percent (you’d be lying to yourself if you thought Dantas was the first concussed fighter a promoter kept on a fight card.) The fact Rebney has removed Dantas from Bellator 79 is the right thing to do, even though it pains me to say that knowing I will be in attendance that night and was hoping to see Dantas compete.
I mean sure, it does help Bellator out a bit in the sense that they’re protecting one of their prized assets and they’ll have yet another title being defended during their debut season on Spike TV, and Dantas — 14-3 in MMA and undefeated at 4-0 in Bellator — is certainly someone that can be promoted as a star. But remember, nixing a title fight is going to hurt Bellator 79’s ratings and live gate, although it’s obvious Rebney is okay with taking this hit as its a decision that will ultimately benefit him, his company, and his world champion down the road.
Unfortunately, though, Bellator’s good will with Dantas has been overshadowed by the company’s decision to have Gurgel’s 125-pound non-title fight with Casey Noland on the Bellator 78 preliminary card despite the fact Gurgel is the company’s lone female champion. The reason for this, Rebney told Mike Chiappetta of MMAFighting.com, is that Gurgel’s long layoff from injury (she hasn’t fought since March 2011) meant she shouldn’t be rushed back too quickly, and that having her fight on the preliminary card was the right first-step back.
There have been rumors, however, that the reason champion Gurgel (who lives in Ohio with her husband, former UFC lightweight Jorge Gurgel) is on the undercard while Daniel Straus and Brian Rogers — both local Ohio fighters — are being featured on the main card is because of the promotion’s ties to NAAFS, who both Straus and Rogers used to fight for. Obviously that’s not something Rebney would ever confirm, but it is peculiar that a champion like Gurgel would fight on the preliminary portion of the card while Rogers — who has lost two of his last three fights and who is not a champion — gets a main-card slot.
Regardless, Bellator has received a lot of negative attention from this Gurgel incident, and along with the promotion’s recent contract-matching disputes with Nam and Roger Hollett, it’s overshadowed the fact that Bellator consistently puts on great fights and that, as cases like Dantas demonstrate, they aren’t always bullies to their fighters.
Dantas vs. Galvao will be one of the most-anticipated fights in MMA during the first quarter of 2013, so let’s all hope that Dantas can make a full recovery from his head injuries and that we all get the fight between two healthy, fully-aware, and talented athletes that we’re looking forward to.
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