Ben Saunders reveals Bellator and Bjorn Rebney almost made him retire

Ben Saunders was close to walking away from MMA in 2012 and 2013.

After Saunders’ first stint in the UFC, he signed with Bellator. The hope for Saunders was to win a Bellator tournament and become the face of the promotion or eventually get back to the UFC. However, throughout his time in the promotion, he realized Bellator and Bjorn Rebney had him in a horrible contract that nearly made him walk away from the sport.

“I’m aware of what happened between me and Bellator and Bjorn Rebney. There was a lot of confusion with my contract and Bellator had me in this weird contract as it was so vague with no amount of fights or end date,” Ben Saunders said to BJPENN.com. “That is the first time I really thought I was done. I flew out to talk to Bjorn about my contract and how unhappy I was. I told him if they didn’t let me go, I would do kickboxing and jiu-jitsu. I’m not a slave. I didn’t feel like I was being prima donna, I just wanted to know about my contract.

“The tournaments also extended your contracts, which I didn’t know about. There were a lot of weird situations,” Saunders continued. “It was nothing against Bellator, my issue was with I gave my life to fight for the UFC and they tried to keep me in a contract so I could never go back. I was able to fight myself out of the deal and they tried to force me to re-sign. I was able to go back to the UFC and make history. That was a dark time of my career. The world doesn’t know the amount of craziness I had to go through to get back to the UFC.”

Eventually, Ben Saunders got out of his contract and signed with the UFC. Although he recently ended up parting ways with the leading MMA promotion again, “Killa B” hopes to win a few fights and get back to the Las Vegas-based promotion.

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