Ben Saunders: Bjorn Rebney Knew His Time Was Up Long Before It Was
The MMA world received a bit of a shock last week when news broke that Bellator founder and CEO Bjorn Rebney had been ousted from his lofty position by the promotion’s owners, multimedia giant Viacom.
Former Strikeforce head Scott Coker was tapped to replace Rebney, and immediately dissolved Rebney’s beloved tournament format, which had come to exhibit a healthy amount of flaws that Rebney seemed to circumvent at will, especially in recent months.
But interestingly enough, not many have come to Rebney’s aid to speak out against his firing. There are those that have applauded the decision, however, and none more than former Bellator welterweight Ben Saunders, who had a well-documented spat with Rebney that ultimately lead to him leaving the Bellator cage.
Saunders spoke up on The Underground to give a detailed assessment of the situation, noting that he saw the writing on the wall:
“He knew exactly what he was doing… who to lie to, who to screw over, along with calculating precisely when and where to be shady. He probably tried to please who he thought he needed to please. Two-facing like a fake ass motherf—er…
Though he clearly failed to do enough pleasing or he would still have his job.
At least I did what I could to let the people in charge at Viacom know that piece of s— had to go! This was way before it actually happened. Yes! I did everything in my power to get his ass fired while still fighting for them.
Hate is a strong word but when someone f—s with your livelihood and in turn your family, your passion, your dreams, and everything you stand for. That means f—ng WARFARE! All the blood, sweat, and tears I have put into my career and throughout my life. I’ll be dammed if I let this motherf—er try to play me without retaliation!
I feel I was a pretty big figure for their organization, & I had a ton of fighters that had my back in full support, employees too. But no one had any power or weight to do anything about it. I just personally didn’t give a f— and did what I could anyways. He wanted play games I couldn’t win, but in the end I feel Victorious!
That motherf—er is GONE!!!
Though truth be told… I honestly have no doubt in my mind that he knew his time was up, long before it was. He seemed very good at taking advantage of people and situations with his position of power.
Saunders offers a very poignant, emotional, and even biased opinion about Rebney, but you have to wonder what was really going on behind closed doors if a fighter hated Rebney that much and was then fired for not “being in line” with the promotion’s vision for the future.
Regardless, he’s gone, and many feel that Coker is the man to take the world’s No. 2 MMA promotion in a much better direction. Do you put weight in Saunders’ words here, or is it a case of a scorned fighter beating a dead horse?
