Could we actually see a super fight between Bellator Lightweight and Featherweight Champion Patricio Preire and UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski?
In reality, the chances of a cross promotion fight is unlikely to happen, even though there’s been rare occasions when Dana White has allowed his talent to fight for another company. UFC Hall of Famer Chuck Liddell went to Japan to fight Alistair Overeem in PRIDE over ten years ago and Ed Herman was sent to Strikeforce to fight Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza nearly eight years ago.
Still, the possibility is there as Dana White has not out right said no to sending fighters to different promotions and Scott Coker has stated in the past that he’s open to collaborating with the UFC. Maybe Patricio Preire vs. Alexander Volkanovski could change Dana White’s mind?
The reigning two-division Bellator MMA Champion called out Volkanovski following his win over Max Holloway at UFC 251 this past Saturday:
Thus far, neither Volkanovski or Dana White has responded to the challenge. Earlier this year, former referee Big John McCarthy gave insight as to why the UFC President has no interest in sending his talents to different promotions (Transcript courtesy of BJPenn.com):
“Dana got ripped, and I don’t blame him (for not doing cross-promotion). Dana got ripped when he was first president of the UFC by PRIDE in giving over Chuck Liddell to PRIDE and then didn’t get anything back. He said, ‘I’m never going to do that again.’ And unfortunately, he stuck to it.”
“Now he’s stuck to it to the point where he looks at it like, ‘Why am I going to damage my product if I put a fighter out of my stable up against a fighter from another stable and he loses, it just damages my product there’s no reason to do that.’ I don’t blame him.”