Someone has to give in on the negotiations. I think either way it goes, this fight will favor Fedor in the long run. Only hardcore fans at best know of him, if he does sign a contract with the UFC then he gets the exposure he needs and the validation of his high salary requests.

I think the fight is nearly a dead issue, quite frankly. Randy is no match for Fedor, Fedor isn’t a draw and if it were a one-off, UFC would essentially be advertising for rival promotions. Signing Fedor to a long term deal is the real issue at the heart of this situation, not the fight with Randy. And signing Fedor is not about getting a big piece of pie, it’s about having the best fighters in the world in the UFC. And yes, it would deal a huge blow to WAMMA and Affliction (because even though Fedor has yet to be a huge draw in UFC-numbers, he is an integral part of a start up that has, thus far, bled out millions of dollars). Fedor under a long term deal would make the Couture fight a reality. And sure, it’d make a lot of money. But could it risk alienating the hundreds of thousands of people that spend 50 bucks to watch Randy get busted up in one minute? Or could it make Fedor the Mike Tyson of MMA?

Whoever thinks Randy VS Fedor will be a blockbuster PPV is delusional.

Randy was a big name a year ago. He’s been out of the lime light far too long.

Fedor is a chubby Russian who doesn’t speak English. Casual fans don’t know him nor care about him (proof: Affliction 1).

The hard core MMA fans are too small a group to sustain the asking price of Fedor’s delusional management team. The boxing fans don’t care about the boxing heavyweight king, so why would the even smaller contingent of MMA fans care? The casual fans couldn’t care less about Fedor. Fedor doesn’t have any value outside of a circle of MMA fans and the Sherdog forum. The heavyweight division isn’t even close to the popularity of the LHW, welterweight, or even lightweight.

Furthermore, the Russian’s trying to deal Fedor like he’s the equivalent of Michael Jordan, asking for crazy money with a non-exclusive deal. Fedor will never fight for the UFC. Count on it.

I’m honestly more pumped for a potential Fedor/winner of Barnett vs. AA fight than Fedor/Randy.

no way Randy actually wants to fight Fedor. Nobody really want to fight Fedor.
He is just looking to get paid for a big draw. Which it would be.

Rob Dib
http://www.break-your-face.com

Fedor would destroy him—Yes, probably he would. There is little question that Fedor is the top HW in the world, HOWEVER, no mma fighter is unbeatable.

Fedor isn’t a draw—Not a big one in the US right now, HOWEVER, he would become huge if he was in the UFC. How many of UFC’s big names were draws in the US before they went to the UFC??

Forget the counter programming, be reasonable, get Fedor in the UFC, and that would about finish Affliction off. I’m not saying that is or isn’t what I want to happen, only what the result would be.

Not only would they have the best HW, they would have a big lure to get the rest of the top HWs into the UFC.

Really, I should be the third party arbitrator, but not between Randy and Zuffa, as I am extremely biased against Randy on that one.

No, I should be the third party arbitrator between Zuffa and Finklestein. As long as each side is willing to give a little to get a lot, I can get a deal between the two parties done in a matter of a few small concessions, which I will address as they were mentioned in the topic article.

1. A UFC event in Russia
Ok, done. Now, under the guideline that the event is co-promoted by M-1, this becomes a much greater issue. However, I think that can be covered with…

2. The signing of Fedor’s whole team
Well, not quite. Zuffa agrees to sign Fedor and Aleksander (provided he earns a clean bill of health), Roman Zentsov (who can become fodder for up and coming heavyweights), Amar Suloev (another talented, boarder line top 20 Middleweight), and Gegard Moussasi should he become available from DREAM.

The rest of the team (aka the guys even the hardcores barely, if at all, recognize) will appear on the UFC event(s) in Russia, though not necessarily all on the same show. In this way, the management team (aka Fiklestein) will recoup additional monies as percentages of the contracts of fighters appearing on the event(s) that he manages, which is essentially a means of meeting half way on the issue of co-promoting in Russia (if that is, in fact, an issue).

Zuffa, of course, would be eligible to sign the remaining fighters to contracts with either of their fight promotions to compete in the US if Zuffa so chooses.

3. The elimination of UFC’s right to cut Fedor if he loses.
If Fedor loses in a title match, whether he is the champion or the challenger, he will not be cut. If he loses in a non-title match, he is eligible to be cut.

4. Sambo
That is, the Russian national combat sambo tournament. First of all, there is no inclination that anyone has any hope of competing, let alone defeating Fedor in the competition, so I think this is not as great an issue as it was made out to be by Zuffa. However, there is a very real possibility that Fedor could end up injured during competition. I say let Fedor compete in his national combat sambo tournament, and should he be defeated (unlikely) or be injured (more likely), the UFC will have the opportunity to bring in the fighter who beat/injured Fedor for an MMA (re)match, which given their track record, could be promoted to do a good buyrate. And they could have the rematch on the Russian show to add that additional element to it.

4. Extensive control over who Fedor fights.
My initial thought is to give Fedor several choices for non-title fights and no choice for title fights, but realistically there will be very few of the former and very many of the latter, so that won’t quite work. I believe a system in which Joe Silva (and Dana, if he so chooses) determine a list of eligible challengers from which Finklestein (and Fedor, if he even has a say) can choose. The number of fighters on the list would be determined by Silva/White with no fewer than two fighters being presented as challengers to Fedor. However, in the case of an interim champion being available or UFC purchases a rival promotion with a heavyweight champion that they’d like to have fight Fedor immediately, Fedor would be required to face the opponent Silva/White assign to him.

An example of this would be:
Champion: Fedor
Interim Champion: Nogueira
IFL Champion: Roy Nelson

For the sake of argument, let’s assume Fedor has beaten Randy to become the UFC Heavyweight champion. Now, Nogueira is still out there, having held the interim title for about a year. Under my proposal, if Silva/White present Fedor with a fight against Nogueira, Fedor and co. must accept. Likewise, if Roy Nelson, the IFL Heavyweight champion is signed to the UFC and for some ridiculous reason Silva/White wish to feed him to Fedor, Fedor must accept the fight.

Let’s look at another example.

Champion: Fedor
Fedor beats Nogueira (again)
Fedor beats Nelson

Therefore, there are no outstanding “champions” for Fedor to face. In this scenario, Silva/White would present two or more challengers to Fedor’s title to Fedor/Finklestein. Fedor/Finkelstein would then determine which challenger they wish to face. However, they must choose a challenger from the list (i.e. they may not veto the entire list).

Problems would arise if a Lyoto Machida-type fighter worked his way to be a challenger and Silva/White wish to put a fight together with Fedor, but a more attractive opponent is available. However, there would be a rematch clause in which Zuffa would select any rematches for Fedor. In this way, though an opponent may have to wait a few months longer than they’d care to, they will ultimately be assured of a title shot against Fedor, assuming both the challenger and Fedor continue to win all of their fights leading up to their match.

Well, that’s the general idea, anyhow. I recognize that I lack a certain understanding of the finer points of contract legalities and other scenarios which I didn’t cover here. But at least these are some talking points worth considering, and probably worth accepting or calling me a dope for suggesting. Either way, it should be fun.

The UFC does not need this fight at all. Sure it would be a great cherry on the the top but thats all. The only way this fight happens is if they can Sign Fedor to a exclusive Contract for a large number of fights, And buy the sounds of Vadim Finkelstein that is still not going to happen he him self says in the interview he wants the UFC to promote this fight with M-1 Global together. Come on Vlad you must be smoking Crack Why the hell would the UFC ever do that and give another organization press and exposur. It just makes no sence what so ever for them in a business sence they don’t need this fight at all. It comes down to one thing and that is eather Fedor gives into the demands or we will never see this fight it’s that simple.The UFC will never ever ever co promote with M-! or any other organization so please people just get that idea out of your mind. If Fedor was smart he would sign a huge exclusive contract with the UFC becasue when Affliction,Dreams and Elite Go under like we all know they are and its looks like alot sooner then later from the info out this week about all 3 of those orgs the UFC will be the only big show around and the only place for him to fight unless he just wants to keep jumping form start up Org to start up Org.