Scott Coker explains why Bellator did not get a last-second replacement to fight Fedor Emelianenko

Chael Sonnen was in the building and ready to fight. Tito Ortiz was there, too, making overtures on Twitter to come out of a short retirement. Muhammed Lawal was down to scrap.

There were some options available to fight Fedor Emelianenko at Bellator 172 on Saturday night in San Jose, Calif. Ultimately, Bellator could not make anything work in a small window of time and the card’s main event had to be scrapped.

On Saturday morning, Matt Mitrione, Emelianenko’s scheduled foe, had to go to the hospital due to a case of kidney stones. Things were up in the air until 3 p.m. local time, just minutes before fights started at the SAP Center. At that point, Coker said Bellator had no choice but to…