HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – Bellator president Scott Coker met Kayla Harrison face to face Friday, as he said he would.
The biggest MMA free agent on the market right now, Harrison (12-0) was in attendance for women’s featherweight champion Cris Cyborg’s first-round knockout of Sinead Kavanagh at Bellator 271.
The performance from the defending champ, paired with Harrison’s front row presence, intersected during commentator “Big” John McCarthy’s post-fight interview when he asked Cyborg for her thoughts on a potential showdown between the two.
“Kayla, thank you for coming to the fights,” Cyborg said. “I really appreciate you here. I’m here if you want to fight me one day. It’s going to be a great fight, but Ali (Abdelaziz) has to talk to all the promotions to make this happens.”
In Coker’s estimation, his champion’s nonchalant attitude about the matchup stems from a simple, unarguable fact: Harrison is not on the Bellator roster. If that changes, Coker has no doubt Cyborg will sign on the dotted line immediately.
“Look, this is something that she’s fine with,” Coker said. “She said, ‘If you get her on the roster, then let’s get it on.’ That’s her attitude. If (Harrison) is not on the roster, then there’s nothing to talk about. Like, why even talk about her? If we put it together, I think you’ll hear a lot more chatter between the two girls.”
According to Coker, he let the two-time Olympic gold medalist know he’d be reaching out to her representation in the coming days. From what he’s seen and heard, Coker has been impressed and is interested in negotiating a deal for her services.
“She’s an accomplished athlete,” Coker said. “She’s fought some good competition. I think she’s a hard worker. I watched her train about eight months ago, maybe six months ago in the gym. This girl is a force to be reckoned with. But I just wanted to let her know that we’re going to start talking to Ali, and we’re serious. We’ll do our best to put a deal together to have her come over here so she can fight Cyborg and some of the other girls we have on the roster.”
Regardless of whether or not Harrison signs, Coker thinks the promotion has options for Cyborg, a champion who has been so dominant thus far in her tenure with the company.
“Everybody is talking about Kayla Harrison, but Kayla Harrison is not signed with Bellator,” Coker said. “… We have a couple (other) girls in mind. But I think Cat Zingano is definitely one of them. You know, we’ll decide that as we circle back. We’ll start talking to the fight team in the next week, and we’ll probably have something. We want her to fight again as early as maybe February (or) March of next year. We want to turn her around as soon as she wants to. We’ll have some opponents for her.”
Cyborg vs. Kayla Harrison? Scott Coker ‘serious’ about pursuing ‘force to be reckoned with’