Tyson Nam cleared for World Series of Fighting after Bellator declines to match offer

A contentious few weeks between Bellator and Tyson Nam took a more civil turn today when the tournament-based promotion declined to match an offer the bantamweight received in the wake of his knockout of champ Eduardo Dantas.

"Bellator received the offer for Tyson Nam's next fight from a new promotional group (The World Series of Fighting), and we are not going to match that offer," Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney said in a statement sent to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). "We wish Tyson good luck as he moves forward."

Multiple sources close to the negotiations had Nam linked to a fight with ex-WEC champ Miguel Torres at World Series of Fighting 1, but a WSOF rep said the promotion was forced to move on in order to have sufficient time to promote the organization's first event.

WSOF matchmaker Ali Abdel-Aziz said an announcement is forthcoming on Torres' opponent at WSOF 1, which takes place Nov. 3 at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas and airs on NBC Sports Network.

It's unclear whether Nam will still fight for the upstart promotion's debut show.

As previously reported, Nam, who trains out of Portland, Ore.'s Sports Lab, received several offers from major promotions following his win over Dantas, which came this past month at a Shooto Brazil event in Rio de Janeiro.

A skirmish broke out when Bellator asserted its contractual right to match competing offers, and Nam's camp accused the promotion of holding his career back after releasing him in June. Nam's trainer, Phil Claud, stated the promotion threatened to sue if the fighter violated the clause and hinted it would sit on him if he re-signed with Bellator.

In a subsequent interview, Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney defended his promotion's right to match offers.

"What it does is it protects the promoter, in case a guy just doesn't get an offer, and then you as the promoter can keep making that fighter offers to fight," he said. "But if he gets it from somebody else just because a certain amount of time elapses doesn't mean your rights should kind of evaporate. In ours, typically, and most agreements, are about a year. And what it basically does is say we'll keep making you offers to fight, but if somebody else comes along, we should at least have the opportunity to give you as much as they're going to give you.

"You're not asking to restrict a fighter's ability to fight. You're not looking to hold somebody back from participating. All you're asking for is, look, if we give you an incredible opportunity to fight our champion in a non-title fight, or we give you a great opportunity to be on TV, we at least want what most promoters believe is fair – the ability just to match another offer. Not to give you less, but to give you what somebody else is offering, and they're in every single agreement we have, and I think they're probably in every single agreement the UFC has, as well."

UFC President Dana White recently took aim at Bellator's matching policies, calling them "despicable."

"I don't talk much about Bellator, but what they do is one of the dirtiest things you can do in the business," he said. "I have the right to match (contracts), but once I cut a guy and let him go and somebody else tries to sign him, I don't come back and say, 'Oh, you're breaking the contract. I have matching rights.'"

Rebney, though, pointed out that the UFC has, in fact, utilized the same process.

"There is a perception that we somehow release fighters and look to retain our matching rights and the UFC does not," he told MMAjunkie.com. "Dana's comments were very hypocritical. We follow the exact same process that Zuffa followed with us with 'King Mo' Lawal. Zuffa released King Mo on March 27, 2012. They went public with that release on their own website on UFC.com. Dana confirmed that they had released Mo free and clear the same day with the media.

"Three weeks later, in April, when we went to try to sign King Mo, we were informed that the UFC had matching rights, we had to take the offer and the contract for Mo (and) we had to submit it to the UFC. We had to send a certified letter, including the contract, to the UFC's attorneys. We had to then wait 14 business days, which is really over 20 days because of weekends, before we had any legal right to talk to King Mo, and when the UFC didn't match that offer, decided not to match our offer – then and only then could we have the right to go and sign a contract with King Mo."

The UFC could not be reached for comment on Rebney's claims.

Claud declined to comment on Nam's current contractual status but said there is ongoing dialogue between the fighter's legal counsel and Bellator.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/30808/tyson-nam-appears-headed-to-world-series-of-fighting-after-bellator-declines-to-match-offer.mma

Looks like we've got Torres' opponent now.

I hope they save torres/nam for wsof 2, since the nbc deal just is guaranteed for 1 event
http://fcfighter.com/post/report-nbc-sports-says-wsof-deal-currently-for-one-event

i think nam will fight in the second show since marlon moraes was announced as torres opponent today...

MR.WILLIE wrote:i think nam will fight in the second show since marlon moraes was announced as torres opponent today...

Aww..I was hoping it would at least be Reis

Glad that dispute is over. It would have been sweet to see him take out Torres but I guess that will wait for their 2nd or 3rd show.

CDF47 wrote:Glad that dispute is over. It would have been sweet to see him take out Torres but I guess that will wait for their 2nd or 3rd show.

as of now, wsof can moved nam vs torres as the co-main event and moved moraes vs cameron dollar? who is

on their roster or someone else...


dont u think bellator made a bitch move, the waited for torres to have an opponent to then not match nam's

deal, it looks bad for bellator imo, how you signed nam for a multi-fight deal and never used him?????

then he goes a ktfo of your champ and still you dont use his services?? something is wrong with this guys...

^ Cameron Dollar is fighting Chris Manuel soon, so this is fine.

Although it is kind of shitty, regardless.

moronoRepublic wrote:^ Cameron Dollar is fighting Chris Manuel soon, so this is fine.

Although it is kind of shitty, regardless.

oh i did not remember that one....but they can find someone and make nam vs torres (that would be brutal)...

for instance they signed tj o'brien to face jz and gunderson was the original opponent....

well see, ill be watching either way...

nam is a beast....