I have fighters that I like more than others, but whenever I sit down to watch a fight card, I just want to see good fights. I really don’t care who wins

I may be one of the few people that don’t think that Randy lost because of age. I think that he lost because of size and weight. I look forward to him dropping down to 205 and kicking some ass.

Fedor.

Lesnar needs a whole lot more experience then. If he went straight into a match with Fedor and lost, it would do nothing for Fedor in a historical sense. When Brock beats Noguiera (and I don’t see it happening unless he develops an “injury” that gives him a year to prepare), then we can talk about Fedor needing to fight these guys. Not a second before.

And this is where I don’t mind the “one-offs”, because you take your calculated risks on both sides of the equation – rather than one side have ALL of the bargaining power to either cut you outright or make you renegotiate much lower terms.

Sylvia could have won and then went back to the UFC or another promotion with excellent leverage for a contract or renegotiating another fight(s) with Affliction. And equally Affliction was able to have the contracted fight and be done with him or ink him to another deal on different or similar terms.

Yeah, I know that Sylvia is a part of Adrenaline and was on loan. But I think it’s fair to say that Sylvia is fully accessible for Affliction (where else he fought since?) and would be used if he was better value.

I didn’t realize that Werdum had 2 #1 contender wins. You could be right as I haven’t paid too attention to him, but I don’t ever remember hearing of him being all that close to a title shot aside from recently. He is only 2-2 (previously 2-1) in the UFC with wins over Gonzaga and Vera. Not sure that losing to Arlovski then beating Gonzaga really puts you ahead of where you were in your debut, or beating Vera controversially does much. And Vera has been exposed pretty badly recently.

The extent of his overpayment is much different than with Tim, agreed. But I think it’s fairly accurate to say that both the UFC and Affliction have cut ties with top 10 HWs because of overpayment concerns and negative momentum with no clear road to a title shot for either. Unsurprisingly, neither fighter is very popular.

I’m not arguing that Arlovski didn’t do extremely well for himself. But I don’t see the relevance of his situation to that of any other fighter. In bringing him into this, you are saying that fighters can try and negotiate for more money, get turned down, and then get a staggering offer from another company. This only worked in Arlovski’s case because Affliction has s—- for brains.

Arlovski’s UFC/post UFC earnings cannot be made as a straight up comparison when you consider 1) the market for MMA fighters pre-08/08+ and 2) Affliction’s (short-lived?) free-spending ways. I wish Werdum well on following the Arlovski model of success of leaving the UFC for greener pastures but seriously doubt his chances at finding similar success.

Back to what we were talking about in the first place, in Werdum’s case, he chose not to counter-offer the UFC when they asked him to take a pay cut. If your choice is between holding firm at 80k and going to find a job with a new promotion or seeing 40k to fight (keeping in mind the UFC’s stability/sponsorhip $$$), maybe you would be best served to take the pay cut and keep your spot.

Look at how well leaving turned out for Sylvia. He could probably use some fights right about now instead of being stuck in no-man’s land with a high price tag.