Roger Huerta Signs With Bellator, Deal Expected to be Announced at Monday Press Conference
Bellator will make a “major announcement” tomorrow, Monday March 15, at a press conference that will stream live on Bellator.com at 3pm ET, with the upstart promotion expected to announce the signing of lightweight UFC veteran Roger Huerta, who will compete in it’s upcoming, season two 155-pound tournament.
According to MMAjunkie, which first reported the signing earlier today, Huerta was formally released by the UFC this week, clearing way for his quick signing by Bellator.
Huerta (21-3-1) emerged as a lightweight contender with six-straight UFC victories over the likes of Leonard Garcia and Clay Guida, but after dropping a decision to Kenny Florian in August 2008, “El Matador” declined a new contract with the UFC and took a break from fighting to pursue an acting career. He returned to action in September, completing his UFC contract with a split decision loss to Gray Maynard.
The back-to-back losses snapped Huerta’s 16-fight win streak.
Huerta, who was notably the first mixed martial artist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated in 2007, was also in talks with Strikeforce before signing with Bellator, where he joins Toby Imada, Carey Vanier, Ferrid Kheder, Mike Ricci, Janne Tulirinta and Chad Hinton in the lightweight tourney, which kicks off in April and airs live on Fox Sports Net.
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Tags: Roger Huerta
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Major loss for the UFC. I don’t think I’ve seen a Huerta fight that was boring. Well, best of luck to you Roger!
ya this really does suck i liked roger huerta. i personally think hes a top ten lightweight
i liked this fighter when he was using the big screens to line up elbows for the guy behind him, but then came the ” im too good for the UFC im gonna act ” BS and i lost it all for him…
i think when he made the cover of SI it went to his head
Is this the same MMAjunkie.com that confirmed Chuck vs Franklin was in the works for UFC 115? ;)
Lets assume that this info is solid, which as eldiablo points out is a concession in and of itself, considering the source.
Working under the premise that Roger Huerta will indeed be fighting for Bellator, I think that speaks a lot more to what is going on within Bellator, and to a lesser extent Strikeforce, than the UFC.
Lets be honest here, its not like the UFC needs Roger Huerta.
Sure, it would have been nice to have him, but if Huerta is only half-heartedly pursuing MMA, and can’t get past Gray Maynard, then what sort of wicked beating would he catch from BJ Penn even if he could in fact leverage his 15 minutes of fame into a title shot?
Small wonder he opted for smoother sailing.
What will make this signing more interesting as more info is shared, is what led to Huerta opting for Bellator instead of the current number 2 MMA org in North America?
If the reasons are something like “more money and more competition in Bellator”, then my friends Strikeforce has a serious problem, if they are going to move forward with promoting MMA on a larger scale.
A lot of people like to kick around the imaginary head-to-head battle between Strikeforce and the UFC.
Lets be clear here, there is no battle.
The UFC is at the top of the MMA food chain, and by a wide margin, and looks to stay there for the foreseeable future, no matter how often SF tries to sell us on Fedor’s myth and guys like Brett Rogers on CBS.
If SF and the UFC were cage fighters, the fight would have been stopped already, even if they could have found a sanctioning body to sign off on such a mismatch.
What actually matters here is that Bellator is snapping up talent that SF needs and could use to grow and thrive in a boom time for our sport.
Almost every Bellator signing means less options for SF to stage great events.
IMO this Roger Huerta signing should be a wake-up call.
Not for Dana White, but for Scott Coker.
If Coker can’t sign Roger Huerta, and I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to add a young, popular, and talented UFC-level 155er to his thin talent roster, then what does that say for SF’s outlook in terms of competing with other regional orgs for much-needed talent?
Of course this Huerta signing could be totally false, but if it is true, then I think we as fans maybe need to start re-thinking the MMA org hierarchy, especially once Bellator season 2 drops…
I think it may be simpler than that. Huerta has long said he wants to promote MMA in Mexico, and what better way to do that than possibly fight Eddie Alvarez on a Spanish broadcast, possibly south of the US border?
dang, that was longer than the original article.
I agree with all your points though.
I like when he fights but he doesn’t seem to WANT the more challenging fights the UFC LW.
@jcohl
It’s very risky to sign Al Matador for the SF. What if the guy get the title, then a lot of people can say the guy who couldn’t make it in a top 5 in UFC is SF LW champion
I’m not saying that you’re wrong, but at some point Strikeforce is going to need to sign marketable talent, and I can’t think of too many other “free agent” 155ers that would make the waves that Roger Huerta will, when you consider his UFC tenure and Sports Illustrated cover-boy status.
Also, SF is going to run into the problem you mention when Hendo lifts the 185 belt from Jake Shields.
And I’m not trying to disrespect Shields here, but he’s simply too small to hang with Hendo at 185 for 5 rounds, and his stand-up is still to raw too avoid getting KTFO’ed if he can’t drag Hendo to the mat, which seems unlikely.
“A lot of people” are going to say that Hendo couldn’t beat Silva, let alone last more than 2 rounds with him, yet here he is as the SF 185 goldholder.
Compounding the problem will be if Hendo “Bisping’s” Shields within 10 minutes or less, if you follow…
I do agree with you that SF needs much more talented guys like Al Matador and I hope they will pick up some guy after Bellator season over, I’m just saying it’s to dangerous to get the guy like Huerta, I was thinking you could put Hendo’s example , but it’s differ from one with Huerta. Hendo is a legend and he was #1 contender and top 3 fighters in his div. and top 10 in LHW and his only losses come from UFC champions and it’s nothing wrong legend like Hendo is SF’s champion, where with Huerta, he was colorful fighter in UFC , but never close to be as big as Hendo and now to be a champion in SF will show how far behind SF is when you compare them to UFC. What I want to say is: Yes SF need (like a fish needs a water), to get some new talented guys specially good as Al Matador, but this guy is too dangerous to be signed , guy like Aoki it’s good example who do they need and here is why: nobody knows how good he is vs UFC LW but he is #2 or #3 in LW and would be nothing wrong if he will be SF champion.
Hdnet= bellator and dream, right? and showtime= SF. well i can get one of these on top of my recent versus package and all the ppvs i already get. im leanin towards showtime but im really diggin dream as well. man this mma stuff is turnin into a richmans game.
Huerta is a good fighter but not great. He needs to find another fighting league just to be a champ! He can’t do it in the UFC…
I think Huerta going to Bellator is actually kind of cool. That might be what Bellatoro needs, a big name! Bring more atttention to such a small organization. Good job.
Eddie Alvarez isn’t big enough?
Huerta brings that “UFC veteran” tag, regardless of how many UFC fights people think you need to have to get that tag.
Plus he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Alvarez was not. Alvarez is a great fighter, and certainly is well known among hardcore fans, but Huerta is more likely to be known among casual fans.
@ dbiz – I really like your thinking on the whole MMA/Mexico thing, and I think its definitely on-point, which leads me to wonder whatever happened to that south of the border push Dana spoke of in interviews back in [I think] mid 2009?
Or maybe Zuffa thinks that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans are too enamored of baseball and boxing to buy into MMA on a scale large enough to drop a card on them?
I would have thought that if Dana was serious about running events in Mexico City or wherever, he would have signed Huerta, and started working to organize an event featuring Huerta, Velasquez, and maybe even some of the WEC Mexican-American talent on the undercard and/or prelims.
Not sure I see the smart in promoting MMA in places like Australia and Germany when you haven’t even dropped a card in a country that a lot of us have DRIVEN to for a liquid lunch, or done an overnight with their female for El dia de los Muertos…