Entry 4

At this point in my internship, I am taking a more active role in negotiations (under supervision, of course).  One this week stuck out in my mind in particular because it reminded me of our Negotiation class where we discussed the importance of figuring out each party’s values.  This contract was for a Bellator fighter.  The fighter is a black belt in jiu jitsu and one detriment to fighting in Bellator is that he has been banned from any gi jiu jitsu competition (risk of injury).  However, jiu jitsu is very important to him and he misses competing.  His argument was that Bellator gives him a lot of time off between fights and he should be allowed to keep his skills sharp by competing in large tournaments.  He also mentioned that winning gold at the black belt level in these tournaments would look good for Bellator.  Bellator did not want to budge on this policy.  Under Jason’s guidance, we brought up a big issue Bellator has with this fighter: he tends to gain a lot of weight in the off season (he fights at 155; a few weeks after a fight he often weighs 200+ lbs).  When we presented Bellator with the idea that allowing this fighter to compete in jiu jitsu tournaments would help him keep his weight closer to competition level, they were willing to compromise.  This situation reminded me a lot of the scenarios in class and it was very neat to see it work out in real life!  Values are key to negotiation.