The two sides failed to come to terms.

That’s exactly my opinion. If I were the head of the UFC, would I do a co-promotion with M-1 Global? Probably not. If I were Fedor, would I chose the UFC? Probably not.

That was a business decision for both parties and it’s pretty stupid to blame Dana/UFC or Fedor/M-1 Global. They simply failed to come to terms, no big deal – happens all the time.

BUT, if we were pointing fingers, the UFC would have to take the blame, simply because there is only one Fedor and many MMA organizations, and NOT vice versa.

An example. I want to buy a car and I get two proposals from two different car dealers. I look at these proposals, choose the one I feel is the best, and buy from that car dealer. The dealer who lost, can say all he wants about me “failing to buy a car from him”, but the reality is that it’s the dealer’s fault for not being able to convince me to buy a car from him.

You forget one tiny thing: it was the UFC who was acting stupid by not signing Fedor in 2007. The UFC basically gave an agreement and said to sign it. When Vadim and Fedor tried to ask for some tiny adjustments (like Sambo-competetions), they were told “Screw you guys, we don’t even want to listen to you – sign the contract as it is or GTFO”. That’s when the whole M-1 Global co-promotion and Affliction things started. If not the UFC’s unreasonable demands (the demands, that the UFC gladly and easily dropped – only a few years too late), and unwillingness to listen – non of the current MMA history would happen – Fedor would have been in the UFC for a long time already, we would have seen our Fedor vs Randy dream bout years ago, we wouldn’t see any Affliction fightcards, the Strikeforce would still be a small regional promotion, M-1 would have still been an European promotion, etc etc etc…

Zuffa conceded on everything that was the original problem

The original problem = two years ago. Fedor and Vadim said, that if the proposed terms (we are not talking about money!) would have been the same two years ago – they would have signed the contract. The UFC didn’t even want to listen to the suggestions, so this whole M-1 Global thing started. And they have been successfully working on it for two years now (M-1 Challenge, M-1 Selection, co-promoting big shows etc). It’s pretty natural, that the two-years-old contract was too little, too late.

he made excuses and illustrated why those fights made more "sense".

I am not 100% sure to what kind of articles you are referring, but my understanding is a little different. Fedor chose the best proposal (Strikeforce’s). The UFC may have a different opinion, but it’s a fact – Fedor chose the proposal, which was the best in his opinion. “Best proposal” is not the same as “the biggest money”. It contains a lot of different things (dealing with a cursing Dana was probably a huge disadvantage of the UFC proposal). And my understanding is that Gross simply tried to explain to his readers why the Strikeforce was a better option than the UFC.

As for the topic of the journalism: there is such a huge amount of UFC/Dana nuthuggers among the journalists, that having a few Dana-critical journalists is actually a little bless. :)

An analogy: American Fox tells us that the republicans’ have “a balanced opinion”, and that democrats are pretty much left-wing socialistic communists. But looking from the Europe, both American republicans and democracts pretty clearly look like the ultra right-wing fanatics. I hope my analogy was understood. :)

That is not outside of the realm of possibilities. However, the fact that local news starts at 11 says a lot. But you are even saying that they would leave the TV on until he fought. Therefore, the numbers starting at 10:30 should be going up because of Fedor. This is why those numbers are the most important.

You seem to be getting really worked up about nothing.

Does it take that much brain power to figure out that if someone tuned in at 9, 10 or 10:30 to watch Fedor and left the show on until he fought that it won’t create some giant ratings jump when he actually fought?