After four-and-a-half years as their matchmaker, Bellator decided to part ways with Sam Caplan during the regime change that brought in former Strikeforce heads Scott Coker and Rich Chou. In an interview with Sherdog, Caplan spoke about his time with the world's number 2 promotion, and among the interesting stories that he shared was an anecdote on 'the one that got away'.

According to him, Bellator came very close to picking up the current UFC middleweight champion, Chris Weidman back in 2010, who at the time was a highly touted 3-0 prospect:

"Chris Weidman. I thought we had that deal done. I put a lot of time into that, and we had Chris come out to the Huerta-Alvarez show [Bellator 33] as our guest and we got him a hotel room. It was a big recruiting visit. We took him backstage, spoke with Bjorn and shook his hand. Chris was really excited walking out of that meeting about fighting for us. I was told by his managers that the deal was done." "I think Chris took the contract to a lawyer who was also a relative, and I think the relative had some questions about the nature of the contract. I think Chris felt like we had misled him. I read an interview where we had said that. It took me by surprise, but I think what had happened was, the guy that was working with him was trying to get other fighters into Bellator and had spoken to Bjorn about possibly working for the company. I think he felt like whether or not he was going to be able to do business with us outside of Chris Weidman, he felt like that was going to be dependent on if he could get Chris to sign with us. I think he might’ve misled Chris on a few things to get Chris to sign a 36-page document. I can tell you from my end, I don’t know anything that Bellator did to mislead him. I wonder where the disconnect was." "I thought that was a done deal. Bjorn was like, "How good do you think he can be?" And I say, "If we sign him, he’s going to be our middleweight champion." When Chris won the title from Anderson Silva, I was like, "Well, I was wrong. He’s not our champion, he’s the UFC middleweight champion."

As well all know, things didn't pan out for them. Weidman won his 4th bout shortly after those negotiations, then signed and debuted with the UFC just 3 months after that. The rest, as they say, is history.

Had Weidman signed with Bellator instead of the UFC though, how different do you think the MMA landscape would've been? Would Anderson Silva still be dominant and unbeaten in the UFC? Would Weidman have developed into the same champion caliber fighter and became a dominant star in Bellator? If he did, would they have been able to hold on to him, or even manage to prevent a need for a regime change?

Who knows, maybe in another world, there's a Chris Weidman talking smack to Dana White while stuck in a ONE FC contract.