Coker: Benson signing just the tip of the iceberg

Bellator president Scott Coker appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and said that he does not expect Benson Henderson to be the last fighter to choose his league over the UFC. Coker also said ‘Smooth’ was his #1 target.

“This guy has done it all,. He’s fought everybody,” said Coker, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMAFighting.com. “He’s such a class act and such a great guy, too. I thought he’d be a great fit for our company.”

“I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. Fighters are fighting out their contacts. They want to negotiate. They really want to see what their value is. We’re going to help them to define what their value is. It’s always good for the industry to have more than one bidder.”

“If he wants to go for the belt, c’mon. The guy has done it all. How can you say he doesn’t deserve a shot? He’s been there and done that. For me, we would have no problem doing it.”

“I’ve always said we’re going to build our roster from the ground up and then buy the free agents from the top down that we wan. By the end of this year, I think we’re gonna have a really good roster on our hands and some really big fights ahead of us.”

“All these free agents that are out there aren’t just testing free agency just to test it. I think there are other fighters out there that we’ll get.”

Other names currently on the market include Alistair Overeem, Aljamain Sterling and Matt Mitrione.