Bjorn Rebney, You're Kinda Creeping Me Out Here

Earlier today I wrote about the recent Scott Coker/Bjorn Rebney media tiff involving possible co-promotion of fights between Strikeforce and Bellator. In the piece, I wrote about how Scott Coker is acting a little punkish and letting Bjorn bully him in the media. This time, I address it from the other side and look at how Bjorn is acting.

Bjorn Rebney, what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to do business or are you trying to win a pissing contest? Is this some egotistical BS or are you really trying to make money here? I don't even think you WANT to do co-promotion. I just think you're having fun with Scott Coker in the media. Because if you WERE trying to do business with Scott Coker, you wouldn't be going about it like this. YOU are in the recessive position, YOU are on a network getting regularly pre-empted by local sports, and YOU are the promotion without a fighter in the top ten in any division. Coker has hand. You don't. What did Seinfeld tell us about hand?

George: No everything is *not* going good. I'm very uncomfortable. I have no power. I mean, why should she have the upper hand. *Once* in my life I would like the upper hand. I have no hand-- no hand at all. She has the hand; I have *no* hand...

George: How do I get the hand?

Jerry: We all want the hand. Hand is tough to get. You gotta get the hand right from the opening.

And what was George's crazy plan?

GEORGE: I have no power Do you understand? I need hand. I have no hand.

KRAMER: Break up with her

GEORGE: What?

KRAMER: You break up with her. You reverse everything that way.

JERRY: A preemptive breakup.

GEORGE: A preemptive breakup. This is an incredible idea. I got nothing to lose. We either break up which she would do anyway but at least I go out with some dignity. Completely turn the tables. It's absolutely brilliant.

Did it work? Sure, I mean temporarily George had "hand", but it ended up:

NOEL: You lied to me George, you lied to me.

GEORGE: No, I, uh, um, wa, wa, What did I do? ... Where are you going?

NOEL: I ... am breaking up ... with you!

GEORGE: You can't break up with me. I've got hand.

NOEL: And you're going to need it.

Now how does this relate to the Rebney/Coker situation? Can I squeeze another Wire analogy out of it? We'll see after the jump

In this situation, Coker's got hand and as Kramer said "A man without hand is not a man". You want hand, so how do you go about getting it? The correct answer? I don't know, but what I do know is...you're doing it wrong. While your media guerrilla tactics may temporarily work, you'll end up losing the one thing you want. I like analogies. Let me use one here. Scott Coker and Strikeforce are the guy in high school you want to go out with to prom. Not because he's good-looking. Not because he's an athlete. Not even because he's super smart. You simply want to go out with him because his daddy is on the admissions board to Local University. You figure you get in good with the son, give him a couple BJs to keep him happy and look good in front of dear old dad who gives you the green light at Local U. Daddy, in this case, is Showtime.

Here's the thing, you don't ask the guy out by going crazy, sending texts and bad mouthing him in the school newspaper. There's a right way and a wrong way. Let's say you and the guy talked on the phone, maybe even had a little "romantic" conversation. Now if you go to the newspaper and blab that and he comes around and denies it, you don't exacerbate the situation by releasing the taped conversations or making a Facebook page saying "Fuck Scott Coker". That's exactly what you did by releasing those text screenshots. You're basically making Scott Coker out to be a liar in public. Do you think that makes co-promotion MORE likely or LESS likely?

There's a right way to do business and there's a wrong way to do business. You (and your history shows it) choose to do things the wrong way. If Scott Coker says "If he wants to do business, call me or fly out here, come sit down with me. If there's a deal to be made, we'll try to make it, but I'm not going to do it in the media", that doesn't mean KEEP GOING OUT AND TALKING IN THE MEDIA. Why so talkative about this? You certainly were not flapping your gums when it came to Dana White or even the "PeeWee" Herman situation. (I'll grant there was pending legal matters). My belief is that you see a soft-buttered biscuit in Scott Coker and you think you can just run over him and goad him in the media into doing what you want, but that's not always the case (this is where I tie in The Wire).

Chester "Ziggy" Sobotka was the pushover of Season 2 on The Wire. Local drug dealer "Frog" punked him when it came to paying off the package they split. Maui, the big strong union guy, would punk Ziggy on the regular too. When he came up short on a package from Cheese Wagstaff, Cheese stole his Camaro and summarily burned it in the streets. His own cousin Nick punked him and treated him like a kid when it came to interacting with the Greeks and also the selling of drugs. And finally, in the scene shown above, "Double G" George Glekas punked Ziggy on a deal they had to steal high-end cars from the docks. It was then that Ziggy could take no more. I think he said "I got tired of being the punchline to every joke."

How does this tie into Scott Coker and Bjorn? Well, Coker (like Ziggy) is consistently on the wrong end of being punked. Be it Dana White, CBS, Showtime, Fedor Emelianenko and M-1, Alistair Overeem, even Jake Shields got one over on him. There's going to come a point (hopefully *crosses fingers*) where Scott Coker gets tired of being pushed around by people. While he may not pick up a gun and shoot someone, he could "kill" the possibility of co-promoting. Face it, you NEED him. Piss him off enough and you're be chasing after him like Clarence Royce was chasing after Odell Watkins after pissing HIM off and then realize he needed HIM to win the mayoral election.

Not to mention how crazy this makes you look to Showtime. Then again, they deal with boxing scum on a daily basis, so to them, you're probably something like a born-again promoter.

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