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USATSI

Just days after Bellator CEO Scott Coker said the promotion had taken a pass on signing recent UFC castoff Yoel Romero, the promotion has reversed course.

Sources told CBS Sports on Monday that the promotion has come to terms with Romero, 43, the former Olympic medalist and multi-time UFC title challenger. Many were surprised when the UFC cut Romero loose in early December, but UFC president Dana White explained that Romero was the first of many fighters who would be released by the promotion.

"It's not just Yoel," White said at the UFC on ESPN 19 post-fight press conference. "We're going to go through some serious cuts here at the end of the year. We're probably going to have 60 cuts before the first of the year. Yoel has lost four of his last five. He's 44 years old. Our roster is very inflated right now. We're going to have some big cuts coming before the end of the year. You're going to see a lot of names going here in the next several weeks."

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While Bellator had spent years scooping up big-name fighters who were released by the UFC, the company has shifted focus to developing younger talent and establishing a new identity. That, Coker said, was the reasoning behind initially passing on signing Romero the first time.

"If you look at our roster, and how many fighters we have, how many fights we're gonna do, there's only so many TV spots," Coker told MMAjunkie.com on Dec. 9. "And we've kind of gotten away from signing the OGs that we used to sign back in the day. And that's because guys like AJ [McKee] are coming up. Ilima [Lei Macfarlane] is developing into a main event fighter. We've basically built from the bottom up, and we have a lot of great fighters that are on the roster that we built over the last four to five years, and we were kind of heading in a different direction.

"I'm happy with the way the roster is right now, not adding anybody. It's just when you get a fighter like Corey [Anderson] that's available, we grabbed him. A fighter like [Anthony Johnson] is available, we grabbed him. So we're gonna pick and choose and be very picky because I really am very happy with the way the roster sits right now."

The opportunity to sign Romero may have come down to the weight class in which he will be competing. The initial report of the signing by ESPN's Ariel Helwani detailed that Romero will fight in the light heavyweight division. He had spent his UFC career as a middleweight after fighting at light heavyweight in the first five fights of his pro career.

Romero challenged for the UFC championship -- either undisputed or interim -- four times in his last five fights. One of those fights, an interim title fight with Luke Rockhold, was won by Romero, but a failure to make weight made him ineligible to win the championship.