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What are you making on your savings account?  Point-two-five percent?  Got an even one percent on that CD?  I laugh at your pitiful attempts at increasing your earning power.  Put your faith in Fedor, sir.

Ignorant bettors will scoff, thinking that you should never bet on a line this chalk heavy.  Don't listen to those chumps.  The fundamental theorem of gambling is this: when the expected win percentage of an event is greater than the odds presented, you profit. 

Even at the worst odds available (-625 at Bodog), Emelianenko still brings in tremendous value.  Conservatively (very conservatively), I have Fedor as a 90% favorite in this fight.  According to the Kelly Criterion, we should be betting approximately 27.5% of our bankroll given the odds and our expected win probability (using a more risk-averse, half-Kelly number yields 14.7%). 

And if you've been paying attention to my advice with regards to hitting lines early and often, you'll have noticed that Fedor sat between -400 and -450 for the past month.  This is such a tragically mispriced line that I would recommend the books fire whoever handles their MMA business.

Brett Rogers is a respectable heavyweight and deserving of his fringe top ten ranking.  Unfortunately for him, Fedor Emelianenko lands so far outside your normal distribution for talent that I have him as AT LEAST a -300 favorite against every other heavyweight not infected with mononucleosis (and I still have him as a substantial favorite against that guy, too). 

I know a lot of people get put off when they see their $6.25 investment only returns a measly $1.  Think of it this way though.  You're still making nearly 16% on every dollar.  If you can find me a more profitable place to put your money (and then one that doesn't require you to keep the money frozen for five years), more power to you.

Just a caveat.  Even with an aggressive 95% win probability, 5-10% still represents a very real risk of failure.  However, that projection, in my mind, covers the realistic paths to victory for Rogers - a Black Swan KO, fluke cut, or otherwise unforeseeable injury.  

Load up, folks.

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As always, Kevin Iole has what Dana White wants us to hear:

White said Wednesday, "I guarantee you 1,000 percent that Dan Henderson is signed by Strikeforce."

...

"Honestly, I got a call from Dan's management a couple of days ago telling me Dan had turned down the UFC's offer," Coker said. "I guess the UFC made an offer and put a deadline on it. They turned it down and were calling to talk to me, but I told him I have this huge fight and there's a tremendous amount going on and I couldn't really deal with it at this point."

...

White said he wanted to re-sign Henderson, but not at the price Henderson proposed. Henderson had been in the mix to fight UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva. White said he had no hard feelings toward Henderson.

"Dan and I have been friends and we will continue to be friends, but it just didn’t work out and he went to Strikeforce," White said.

Coker conceded he’d love to have Henderson under contract, but said White’s information is incorrect.

This is an interesting counter-point to the argument made in a BE diary that Dan Henderson was sitting in the catbird seat:

All of the turmoil leaves Henderson sitting pretty.  He is waiting at home for the UFC to call.  And if guys keep dropping like flies, they will have no choice but to give in to his demands.  Henderson has the added bonus of being able to fight in two weight classes competitively.  If you need to slot him in, for the right price, he is good to go.

But as I wrote a while back, Dana White is doing everything but wrapping a bow on Dan Henderson, setting him on fire and ringing Scott Coker's doorbell:

Hendo's not going to get the kind of guaranteed pay day he wants from the UFC and I doubt Strikeforce will want to pay him half a million dollars guaranteed either. He's got some value to Strikeforce as someone who could headline a Showtime against the winner of Mayhem Miller/Jake Shields or maybe against Gegard Mousasi. Maybe he could even fight Frank Shamrock or Cung Le in a match that would be booked for its promotional rather than competitive value. But I don't see that being worth $500,000 up front guaranteed to Strikeforce.

If Dan Henderson wants to start a bidding war for his services, Dana White has given notice that he won't be one of the competitors.

Dana White is clearly hoping that Scott Coker will be baited into paying huge money for Dan Henderson, much as Affliction paid a fortune for Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski and he's willing to push the story in the media.

Here's a news flash for any budding media analysts out there -- if Strikeforce signs Dan Henderson, the news will come from Scott Coker or Dan Henderson, not Dana White.

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Sergio Non gets Roy Nelson on the record re: his confrontation with Dana White on last night's TUF episode:

We've talked before about the dynamic between you and UFC President Dana White. In this episode specifically, he seemed annoyed that you wanted to go through every potential opponent's style, instead of just telling him who you want to fight? Do you think he had a point, that you should have just told him who you wanted to fight and left it at that? 

Not really. That's where the TV magic cut out (some context). When Dana asked me who I wanted to fight, I said, "I'll fight anybody."

And he's like, "No, you've got to pick."

And I'm like, "I'll fight anybody."

And then he's like, "Who do you want to fight?"

And I'm like, "Well, let's just go down the list. You pick who you think you want me to fight." And I went down the list (with) everybody's weaknesses, like how I beat that person or whatnot.

Then that's when he came back with the Kimbo comment, saying I wasn't that spectacular. And then I came back with, "Well, for the last nine seasons, that's what you've told every fighter on the show to do, is just get the 'W' and make sure you don't get hurt. I was doing what I was told the last nine seasons." So I was just being a good boy. 

And it just made sense. You could even see it on Dana's face afterwards, where when I explained myself, I just made sense. You can't argue with sense. 

Why do you think he gets bugged by you so much? 

I really don't know. That's something you'd have to talk to Dana about.

Poor Roy. Let's refesh our memory, how does Dana feel about Roy?

Roy Nelson is a moron. Interview him sometime, you'll find out. Roy Nelson is an idiot, he's a complete jackass.

Dana's reasons are probably business-oriented. Here's a speculative list:

• Roy's hard to market. He just doesn't look impressive. It would take a massive investment in marketing just to explain to people no really, this slobby looking fat guy is actually a very skilled and well-conditioned athlete. I saw Roy's CBS fight against Andrei Arlovski in a sports bar filled with casual fans. They were not impressed and he made Arlovski look bad too.
• Roy beat the extremely marketable super-star Kimbo Slice before a huge Spike TV audience in a miserably boring fight. The entire mass audience left saying "Damn, that fat white guy just held Kimbo down, what bulls**t."
• Roy's a dangerous fighter who really is a threat to beat all but the very elite of the heavyweight division. And even in a loss, he could damage the brand equity of any fighter who has trouble beating him. And most will.
  
• The huge new audience that tuned in to TUF 10 to watch Kimbo will not transfer to Roy Nelson. If he lives up to expectations and wins the Ulimate Fighter contract, expect the weakest push a TUF winner has received since Travis Lutter won season 4.
• Roy thinks he's all that. Roy's ego is commensurate with his accomplishments in MMA and since he's been frozen out of the UFC far longer than virtually any comparably talented fighter would have been (except Ben Rothwell) and hasn't fought in Japan, he's been feasting on weak competition and his ego has ballooned. Unfortunately for Roy, this really grates on Dana's nerves.
• Personally I like Roy Nelson and enjoy watching him fight, but I'm come to realize that short of a major, very well-funded PR effort propelled by a series of dramatic victories over several scary monsters, he'll never be marketable to casual fans and needs to carry himself accordingly or face the wrath of Dana and have a foreshortened UFC career.