Things didn’t go according to plan for Bellator CEO Scott Coker last night at Bellator 172, with Matt Mitrione being forced out of his headlining fight with Fedor Emelianenko due to a kidney stone only hours before the event took place.
Coker admitted that having to scrap the high-profile main event had been “disappointing” and there just simply wasn’t enough time to put together a replacement fight for Fedor before the show began.
“I got calls from Chael [Sonnen],” Coker told MMAJunkie. “Put me in coach.’ Tito Ortiz texted me. ‘Hey, put me in.’ I’m like, ‘We can’t just do that. It’s not that simple of a process.’ And then we just ran out of time.
“Doors were opening at 3 o’clock. We had to decide, ‘Are we going to pull it? Or are we just going to continue to try and wait another half-hour, which means all the fans are standing outside?’ We just ran out of time, and we said, ‘Look, we’d rather just pull it. The fight’s off.’”
Now Coker is looking to the future and hopes to reschedule Fedor to fight in a few months time.
“We’re going to reschedule it,” Coker said. “We’re going to try and work something out with the building here to reschedule it and have it here in San Jose sometime in the next couple of months. That’s not guaranteed, … (but) when we reschedule it, whether he fights Matt or not depending on Matt’s health, it will be special because anytime Fedor fights, it’s a big, big, big thing.”
