Fedor Emelianenko Won't Be Featured on Spike TV's "Best of PRIDE"

Creating these shows from old fights is a marketing tool and a way to utilize footage that was bought. Nothing more. Marketing Fedor might be a dumb move. I don’t get how all the other stuff is relevant to this.

Fedor Emelianenko is the greatest heavyweight fighter in the history of the sport.

fixed.

This makes perfect business sense

Should have ended the article here.

Hendo rejected the fight silly goose!

And don’t worry about the UFC ignoring Fedor – it’s actually building Fedor’s mystique!

By not promoting Fedor, they’re really dropping the ball on two things: repairing a perceived destroyed bridge by Dana by showing that he grew up a little (very little) and also do we really think Fedor is going to stay out of the UFC forever?! Get the marketing going so the average fan trying to get into the sport has at least seen a Fedor fight or two…

Kid Nate you can say it is Dana’s terrible habit for bashing fighters but its not it comes down to money.

If Dana would’ve met Hendo’s contact demands he easily would still be in the UFC but he chose not too. Same with Fedor, can anyone honestly tell me that if Dana had agreed to co-promotion with Fedor, Fedor would have said no because Dana bashed him?

As for Marquardt-Hendo being a better match up there is no way to argue that its’s not true but it wouldnt have sold better. So all it really would have done is appease the hardcore fans.

Hendo, reportedly, wanted money like he has been loyal to the UFC when he hasn’t. First and foremost they value loyalty. That is kinda good, but as you say on twitter it is also Stalinist. They are grabbing all the power and the fighters that don’t trust them to do the right thing go to SF. Dana is brash and it’s a problem, a big one, but keeping Fedor from being on the Pride show is the only thing you can do. He was on the original list and still might be in the show and they don’t want to put that info out there.

The problem with your argument about Hendo is that you are assuming that paying Hendo what he wanted would be the right move long term.

Dan Henderson walked — after being offered UFC 109 at the last minute — and Fedor didn’t sign with UFC because they felt disrespected by Dana. In the end, Dana’s mouth and attitude hurt him more than it hurt Fedor and Henderson.

Dan wanted more money than the UFC wanted to pay. By all reported, he was asking for a seven figure signing bonus in addition to a large raise.

I don’t blame him for asking for it, but I also don’t blame the UFC for not paying it. Had the money been offered, Dan would have fought.

If they would once in a while take the long term view and do the right thing instead of the right now thing

Letting Hendo walk and not signing Fedor are short-term problems, not long-term problems. Long-term problems are wrestling with issues that will effect the sport 10 years from now. The UFC has done a very good job of looking towards the long-term, sometimes at the expense of hurting themselves in the short-term.

I sort of agree, but I disagree with the idea that they’re doing the wrong thing here. I don’t see it as a wrong/right choice, but more just making the choice that makes the most sense for the UFC.
THe UFC got to where it is today through the love of MMA first, and then looking out for their own interests second. Looking out for their own interests, it turns out, seems to be helping the sport more than hurting it, but there might be individual things in that philosophy that aren’t the absolute best for the fans, it’s still necessary that they follow this principle for the overall health of the company, and thus the sport. I see so many problems with the structure of Strikeforce it’s not even funny. But surely you can’t expect UFC to spend money and resources on other organizations fighters. It would be great if they did, and I’d love it if they did, but they’re not wrong in refusing to do so.

I do think they’re remarkably petty though in their refusal to acknowledge former fighters in their own organization that are no longer with them (ie: Frank Shamrock etc) but whatever, their choice.

However, I don’t think it would materially hurt Zuffa to show some Fedor fights. That said, the UFC should really feature their current fighters, and perhaps those they have a good chance of signing, more than fighters like Fedor. Maybe, Dana did some stuff to hinder the negotiations, but Fedor’s clique is so unreasonable that I wouldn’t be surprised if the UFC were never able to sign Fedor, Dana aside.

Really, I think the UFC enhances the so-called “purity” of the sport of MMA more than any other reasonably large organization. Yes, they do make some fights that have little impact on the pecking orders for the different divisions, but it’s hard for me to fault them for this since it doesn’t dominate their matchmaking. I suppose these fights are what many want to see. I will defer to the masses.

If the UFC did feature Fedor Emelianenko on multiple shows, then we would be having posts from Kid Nate talking about how it is bad for the UFC to be heavily promoting the competition’s poster boy.

No matter what Dana White did here, it’s a lose-lose situation.

The fact is, this version of “losing” is much better then promoting Fedor.

I hope if Fedor ever gets shown on these Pride shows that we get a correction to this article.

I agree with the premise of this article, if, and only if, Zuffa chooses not to show a single Fedor fight, then in that case we are dealing with revisionism. However, this is never going to be pure history, this is purely business. I would love to see those fights though. Fingers crossed.

Have you lost your freaking mind? Yeah ok lets copromote with m1 and give them half of the earnings. No one in their right mind would do some stupid shit like this. What gives those crazy russians the right to even consider this crazy shit and you are wrong for thinking that dana screwed up the negotiations

A couple of minor points, stylistically. What I don’t get is the argument where is says “This makes perfect business sense” and then goes on to talk about the Hendo fight falling through and not inking Fedor. So in a way you’re arguing it DOESN’T make perfect sense. I think if you argued it from a purely business standpoint, saying its bad for business, as opposed to saying it makes “perfect sense” and then arguing it doesn’t, the piece would be stronger.

Secondly, I’m not 100% sold that is bad business sense. The more egregious thing was reasing Tito Ortiz from the UFC’s history, and yet they managed to resign him.

That being said, i do think treating Fedor better might help, but its something Dana has clued in on. If you look at the way he used to talk, it was much worse…now he calls his management “kooky” and stuff, but that’s allright. And he recently said Fedor was the only guy who could come over and go straight into a title shot.

But yeah, I thought the way Hendo was handled sucked. The basic point that Dana’s personality and Zuffa’s heavy handed tactics occasionally do have negative side effects is valid, but I’m not sure its warranted in this case.

Nate has seriously lost it, there are so many insane thoughts running around in that post that it’s hard to ge to them all but i’ll try…

1. Who cares if Fedor isn’t featured on Spike’s best of Pride, these fights were already shown on FSN. The UFC as always has the right to do whatever they want with the footage they paid for put down the Fedor kool-aid and enjoy the fights I will.

2. Dan Henderson wasn’t worth the money he was asking for period, Nate vs. Hendo main event would draw less than Randy vs. Coleman once again stop living in the hardcore dream land and wake up to the real world here.

3. The only reason neither Fedor nor Hendo are in the UFC is because of money M1 wanted more money to line their pockest by exploiding their golden goose and Hendo wanted to get paid like a big draw somethin he isn’t. If the UFC would have bent over and agreed to the deals they wanted they would have damanged their business and opened up the floodgates to more problems.

Like i’ve always said the UFC knows what they are doing, they’ve proven they won’t sacrifice long term growth for short term gain that’s why they are number 1 and everyone else who challenged them is out of business.