Gracie Wants to Get Melendez in the UFC

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Cesar Gracie, on “Beatdown,” discussing why Gilbert Melendez fights for Strikeforce and not the UFC:

“I really think Showtime finally said, ‘Hey, you’re depleting our talent pool, and we want Gilbert Melendez.’ I think something like that happened, and Dana [White] ended up not bringing Gilbert over. At the time Gilbert signed with Strikeforce again, his contract was a very good contract. It was very lucrative for him. It was very fair. He actually got paid more than most UFC guys are making, and there was not talk of selling the company at that time either. I know because I was involved with a lot of the contractual stuff. Because people say, ‘Why did he sign with Strikeforce?’ Well, A) they were paying him more money, and B) Strikeforce was a pretty big company at the time and bringing in a lot of talent. All of a sudden they’re depleting the talent, and that’s when you hear stuff from me saying, ‘Let’s get Gilbert to the UFC.’ Because Strikeforce just doesn’t have it anymore, in my opinion. They’ve got a few really great fighters like Gilbert Melendez in there, but overall, it’s the B league at this point, as far as I’m concerned, because of what happened. We’re just waiting. He’s got some fights left, and hopefully we’ll get him [in the UFC] before his contract’s even up.”