Gegard Mousasi Reacts To Official Signing With Bellator MMA

The UFC and MMA community as a whole was dealt some big – even if it wasn’t all that surprising – news earlier today when a report surfaced that top UFC middleweight Gegard Mousasi had signed with UFC rival Bellator MMA.

Well, that news was just confirmed by Mousasi, who appeared on today’s (Mon. July 10, 2017) edition of “The MMA Hour” to officially discuss his move with Ariel Helwani:

“”I’ve signed a six-fight deal with Bellator, and I’m looking forward to be champion there. If I achieve that, I’m looking forward to going up a division, and get the 205 belt, but first things first, first the middleweight belt, that’s my goal.”

Mousasi was then asked why he would go to the recent UFC fighter retreat if he wasn’t going to re-sign with the world MMA leader but he said that was just to meet with Dana White and his lawyers:

“I went to the retreat just because I wanted to have the meeting with Dana White and the UFC lawyers. Other than that, yeah, we were close, we negotiated up until the end. And, yeah, I think the best choice for me was to go to Bellator at the end.”

Then questioned if the UFC’s offers, which have clearly drawn the collective ire of many a fighter in the current WME-IMG era, was too low, “The Dreamcatcher” confirmed that the promotion did in fact go up in price as talks went on:

“Eventually at the end they went up with the offers. I think they would have gone even more up but I think they decided not to compete at the end because they knew at the end I was going almost. So that’s why, that was the reason. At the end they had a feeling I would go to Bellator.”

Yet overall, Mousasi had little beef with the UFC, and as he was perceivably close to a title shot in the octagon, he was undecided if he would stay or go in the moments after his controversial UFC 210 TKO victory over former champion Chris Weidman. Ultimately, he was simply looking for the best offer for himself and his career, and knew he could find it with Bellator and their president Scott Coker, whom he had worked with in Strikeforce:

“No, I think I’m so close to the belt, I’m as close as I could be to the belt, to fight for the belt. You know, I worked before with Scott Coker, so I have no problems going to Bellator. I know how I’m going to get treated on Bellator and the opportunities I will get there. But at that moment after the fight, I don’t know, I knew all the options were open and I wanted to have the best deal for me. And that was it. At the end, Bellator was the better choice for me.”

He continued on that, with the offers becoming comparably in dollar amount, his focus wasn’t only about the money, it was also about how he would be treated. In his eyes, it was of vast importance that the honest Coker respects fighters and delivers on what he says:

“UFC was getting close to the Bellator offer at the end, but it’s not just basically the money. Like I said, I’ve worked with Scott. When Scott promise you something he delivers. He’s an honest guy, he’s a mixed martial artist himself before, so you know, he treats fighters with respect, and that’s one of the things that was also very important for me to go to Bellator. What can I say? The money wasn’t just the factor.”

To Mousasi, he’s never heard one fighter talk bad about Coker, and that’s obviously something that unfortunately could never be said about the UFC or White, for that matter:

“You have ever heard some fighter talk bad about Scott Coker? Mention me one fighter who has ever said Scott Coker is a bad guy hasn’t treated me well. I think all the fighters who have went from UFC to Bellator, they had a relationship with Scott or they’re looking forward to working with Scott and Bellator.”

Finally, Mousasi chose to clarify he had no ill will towards the UFC, and was thankful to them for helping him achieve the top ranking that earned him the new Bellator deal, noting that Dana White always treated him with praise in the media:

“UFC has always treated me well to be honest. Dana White has also talked good about me. I’m thankful to them. I’m at this point because they gave me the opportunities to where I am now. The thing is, with the middleweight division, listen, Whittaker won against Jacare and he skipped three places in the rankings and he went up and fought for the interim title. I thought I was ahead of him, that’s my opinion. I respect Whittaker a lot, he’s a nice guy, congratulations for winning the belt. But you know, I think if they would have come and said, ‘You’re fighting for the interim belt,’ things would have been interesting to me. Those things matter. Sometimes I feel like I should have been there already, I don’t know.”