The trash talk is heating up, but not between the fighters involved in the potential matchup.
On Tuesday, undefeated free agent Kayla Harrison (12-0) re-signed with Professional Fighters League when the organization utilized matching rights to keep her under contract. Offers from the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Bellator MMA were beaten by the PFL’s unexpectedly large war chest, thereby keeping the two-time Olympic gold medalist under its banner. Following the signing, Bellator chief Scott Coker expressed his disappointment to MMA Junkie that Harrison was kept under lock and key with PFL.
“With Kayla right now, I don’t know who she’s going to fight over there,” Coker said in his interview with MMA Junkie Radio. “She’s got to fight the girls that are the dominant girls in that weight class, [who] are ‘Cyborg’ [Cristiane Justino], to me, the greatest female fighter of all time, Amanda Nunes, and then Kayla. She’s growing, she’s doing very well, but she’s got to fight somebody to really showcase that she has the ability to fight at that elite level.”
While lamenting that the contract negotiations did not go in Bellator’s favor, Coker shrugged off the potential future matchmaking options for Harrison in the PFL banner. In her run toward a $1 million check in 2021, the judoka defeated women with records of 16-10, 16-6, 4-1 and 3-1. With betting odds as high as -4000 in the finals, she cruised through the tournament by recording four finishes, with three ending in the first round. Harrison holds the majority of the women’s records in the organization, and she is fast approaching all-time records regardless of gender. Despite this, PFL founder and chairman Donn Davis has some ideas in mind for his star signee.
Via his Twitter account on Friday, Davis challenged Coker to a promotion vs. promotion fight card, with the primary focus on Harrison vs. “Cyborg.” In his callout, he made light of potential competition for Justino as a Bellator fighter. Justino smashed through opposition since joining Bellator in 2020, claiming the featherweight strap from Julia Budd and defending it three times against Arlene Blencowe, Leslie Smith and Sinead Kavanagh. The dominance of Justino has forced the promotion to already schedule rematches with women she had finished within the last two years, as “Cyborg” vs. Blencowe 2 is on the books for April. Davis made sure to point that out.
“Hey Scott Coker, who is ‘Cris Cyborg’ fighting over there at Bellator,” Davis challenged, with accompanying mocking emoticons. “To settle this nonsense: Kayla vs. ‘Cyborg.’ Loser pays event production costs. PFL is IN, Kayla is IN. What about Bellator and ‘Cyborg’?”
Coker, who will be running Bellator 276 on Saturday evening, has yet to respond to the public challenge. Should this come to fruition, it would not be the first time that a Coker-helmed league has co-promoted with another organization. When running Strikeforce, he partnered with EliteXC and Dream as well as M-1 Global to put on events. As the president of Bellator, he has teamed up with Rizin Fighting Federation to stage fight cards in Japan and share fighters between the promotions.
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