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<h3><a href="/go=news.detail&gid=449844" target="_blank">
Coker: There's no fighter out of our price range
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<a href="/go=news.detail&gid=449844" ><img class="photo" src="http://img.mixedmartialarts.com/method=get&rs=60&q=75&x=39&y=107&w=310&h=165&ro=0&s=fedor-emelianenko-scott-coker.jpg" /></a>
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<p>Bellator MMA CEO Scott Coker recently appeared on Ariel Helwani's The MMA Hour for a wide ranging interview. As transcribed by <a href="http://SBNLukeThomas" target="_blank">Luke Thomas</a> for <a href="http://www.mmafighting.com/2015/1/21/7862067/scott-coker-opens-up-about-japanese-mma-cm-punk-brooks-vs-aoki-mma" target="_blank">MMA Fighting</a>.</p>
Coker went to Japan over the New Year, and said JMMA isn't dead, it's only sleeping.
"To see K-1 in its heyday, to see PRIDE in its heyday, I think the new fans today are really missing out because it was something special, something spectacular," he said. "They just had that 'wow' factor."
"It was a great time and I'm glad I did it because as dominant as Japan was in the past, there's a place for them in the world of mixed martial arts to make a resurgence and I think that what Sakakibara is working on over there is very special. He's going to come out with a big bang before the end of the year."
"Here's a country that's, the word I would use is sleeping. They're waiting for the next resurgence of a Japanese MMA promotion."
Coker spoke with Fedor Emelianenko too, and his fighting career appears to be over.
"He made it very clear. 'Right now, I'm not interested in fighting,'" said Coker. "He definitely wants to stay involved in Russia and that's his primary goal right now. Whether he changes his mind or not later, that's going to be up to him, but it doesn't hurt to ask."
"We talked about the temperature of doing a Bellator show in Russia. He's very politically connected there. I think he works for Vladimir Putin running the Russian MMA program, mostly as an amateur ambassador."
The fighter free agent market isn't dead, and Coker intends to heat it up.
"It's not just us going after them," he said. "Believe me, they're calling us. This is not a one-way street where we're just going after fighters. We're going to win some. We're going to lose some. That's just how the nature of this beast is going to be."
"If you're a free agent out there or you're going to become a free agent, you're going to talk to everybody. You're going to want to use your leverage to get the best deal you can. We're in a position now with the Viacom ownership group, there's not going to be any fighter that's out of the price range."
The promotion recently signed Kimbo Slice, to considerable fanfare, and said be would make his league debut in the Summer.
"Spike guys came up and said, 'What about Kimbo?' Let's say as far as a ratings deliverer, he's bigger than anybody else whether it's was on CBS or whether it was Spike TV. The guy can deliver superstar ratings."
"We don't have an opponent yet, but I've had 200 people emailing me saying, 'Please let me fight Kimbo Slice.'"
Bellator is also bringing back WMMA, which founder Bjorn Rebney had shelved.
"We're going to keep growing the 145-pound weight class and don't be surprised by the end of the year if we add another division," he said. "This is something we're going to get behind. That excitement level has not gone away. We're going to continue signing to the 145-pound weight class and we're in dialogue with a couple that we should probably have something to announce in the next couple of weeks."
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