May - 2016
Scrapp! FIGHT MAGAZINE
8
a top twenty heavyweight in
a division that is spread thin
across the major promotions.
In any other division, the UFC’s
decision not to re-sign Jordan
might be understandable; at
heavyweight, it was a head
scratcher.
This past week, Jordan’s free
agent status came to an end.
After a rather interesting ex-
change of tweets with WSOF
head honcho Ray Sefo, in which
Jordan questioned whether he
could make a living with the
wages he was looking at, call-
ing them poverty level wages,
only to have Sefo counter with
the specifics of the deal, Jordan
posted the following:
The deal for Jordan in the
WSOF, apparently, is 15/15,
18/18, 21/21, and 24/24 based
on Sefo’s tweet. Obviously,
picking up those win bonuses
is huge, and it seemed to be
the 15/15 that was originally
the sticking point. As a point
of comparison, Jordan made
22/22 in his UFC 182 win over
Jared Cannonier (who himself
made a downright insulting
$8,000), but the most interest-
ing point came from comments
Jordan made to Bloody Elbow
prior to the signing:
If Jordan’s belief is correct,
then it seems the UFC might
be sending a message here:
test the free agent waters, as a
mid-card level fighter, and you
might just be out of a job.
The UFC’s loss is the WSOF’s
gain, and just where Bellator
MMA was in all of this remains
unclear. Having picked up Mi-
trione, Jordan would also seem
like a great fit for their division,
yet suddenly, the WSOF seems
to have stolen away not one,
but two fighters — the second
being Lorenzo Hood.
Hood, interestingly, was a hot
heavyweight prospect in Bella-
tor not too long ago. However,
just hours prior to his debut at
Bellator 141 in August 2015,
the former defensive lineman
in the IFL and MSFL leagues
suffered a knee injury, and
withdrew from the fight. That
ended his Bellator MMA ten-
ure effectively before it started,
and he was back on the region-
al scene in the fall, suffering a
loss at Global Proving Ground
22 in November.
That loss has not deterred the
WSOF from landing Hood,
whose record now stands at
9-3. Bellator’s decision to part
ways with Hood might be un-
derstandable in this case given
his last minute pull-out in Au-
gust; still, given the state of the
heavyweight division, you real-
ly expected them to give Hood
another go.
Whether either men succeed in
the WSOF remains to be seen.
Jordan, at least, seems like a
lock for a title shot against
champ Blagoy Ivanov, but a
tune-up against the likes of
Derrick Mehmen or Smealin-
ho Rama may come first. It
wouldn’t be surprising to see
the pair squaring off against
each other somewhere down
the line, either. The WSOF’s
heavyweight ranks are, after
all, precariously thin.
In the meantime, the WSOF
came out on top here — heavy-
weight sluggers will always be
a hot commodity, and these
two are a steal for Sefo’s pro-
motion.
Yes,
[the UFC]
did not re-
sign me. No real reason-
ing. Most likely because I
didn’t re-sign before the
loss. The division is shallow
and all my fights are good.
Yet they let me go.
