Former UFC commentator Jimmy Smith announces return to Bellator: “I am thrilled!”

Longtime MMA commentator Jimmy Smith is returning to Bellator.

The Donn Davis era of Bellator has been a mixed bag for most fight fans around the globe. The PFL bought out the company late last year, and many longtime faces such as Scott Coker left the brand. However, their roster of fighters such as Douglas Lima, Patricio Pitbull and more have largely stuck around.

However, Bellator has recently made a big non-fighter signing. As first reported by MMA Fighting, longtime color commentator Jimmy Smith has rejoined the brand. A former fighter himself, the broadcaster famously left the then-Viacom-owned brand to head to the UFC in 2018. However, he was let go after just one year.

Since then, Jimmy Smith has spent time with the WWE, Invicta FC, and more. However, seven years after leaving Bellator, the commentator will be returning to the company. Speaking with MMA Fighting about the news, Smith revealed that he was already cordial with most of the staff despite his exit from the MMA company years ago.

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Color commentator Jimmy Smith rejoins Bellator years after leaving the company

“I got a phone call,” Jimmy Smith stated when asked about rejoining Bellator. “‘Hey, do you want to come do some shows for us?’ I went, ‘Sure, yeah, great, no problem.’ People have this idea that I rekindled things, it’s not like I haven’t seen Scott Coker since then. It’s not like I haven’t been in touch with Bellator people since then. I called the directors and producers, we’re friends. So every now and then I’ll catch up, ‘How’s it going?’ It’s not like there was some titanic, horrible burned bridges incident that we had to overcome.” (h/t MMA Fighting)

He continued, “It was nothing like that at all. It was simply, ‘Hey, would you like to come do some shows for us?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I’d love to’… I am thrilled that there’s enough guys, Patricky Pitbull, Patricio [Pitbull] and all those people that I knew a while ago, and now there’s this new crop that I didn’t get a chance to necessarily call their fights, but I’ve been looking at them, and God, they’re amazing. It’s really an incredible crop.”

Jimmy Smith’s first card back with the company will be Bellator Champions Series 3 going down later this month in Dublin. That card will be headlined by a welterweight title bout between Jason Jackson and Ramazan Kuramagomedov.

What do you make of this Bellator news? Are you happy to see Jimmy Smith rejoin the company?