Hector Lombard signs with the UFC
CEO Bjorn Rebney started Bellator by signing two fighters, Eddie Alvarez and Hector Lombard. Alvarez went on to win and then…
CEO Bjorn Rebney started Bellator by signing two fighters, Eddie Alvarez and Hector Lombard. Alvarez went on to win and then lose the Bellator lightweight championship, while Lombard won and held the Bellator middleweight championshi, until now.
Lombard has an unprecedented win streak, having gone 25 straight fights without a defeat, since December of 2006. He became a restricted free agent shortly after TKOing Trevor Prangley in November, and UFC President Dana White expressed interest.
Now he has been signed by the UFC.
Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney confirmed the move to MMA Fighting on Tuesday afternoon.
“We have a business model where we make decisions based on analyzing data,” he said. “Since the first day we came into being, we made decisions based on real models, not hypotheticals. The UFC model is largely based on pay-per-view, and the offer they made to Hector is going to be monetized via pay-per-view. While pay-per-view could play a role in our future, today it doesn’t. So, we did our due diligence to review the UFC contract, analyzed it in terms of charging our audience to see Hector vs. putting him on free TV, and we decided to allow the UFC to sign Hector, where I am extremely confident he will win the UFC middleweight title on pay-per-view.”
“There was no reason to make him wait. We got the information. We got the very long UFC contract, looked at the data, did the analysis, and made our decision.”
“He was a great fighter here, and there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll be a great fighter when he goes to the UFC. I’ve said for a long time he’s the best middleweight in the world, and I think he’ll win the UFC title in short order.”
