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Report: Fedor not locked to a PRIDE contract
By Zach Arnold | April 5, 2007
By Zach Arnold
On March 24th, Yomiuri Hochi (Shimbun) reported that PRIDE Heavyweight champion (Emelianenko) Fedor was not under lock-and-key with PRIDE (DSE) and that he was going to fight in BodogFight long-term. Today, the estimable Sam Caplan at CBS Sportsline is reporting that a contract extension to stay in PRIDE was not ‘officially completed.’
Emelianenko’s comment to CBS SportsLine contradicted what UFC president Dana White said at a press conference last Tuesday. White, when asked about Emelianenko, indicated that he was locked in with Pride.
“He is signed with Pride,” White said.
Rumors recently circulated that a long-term deal with Bodog Fight could be on the horizon, sending Emelianenko’s status into a state of confusion. Emelianenko has a one-fight contract with Bodog Fight for a bout that was believed to have been negotiated soon after his last Pride deal expired.
On an interesting side note, Sherdog says that Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira is at tonight’s UFC Fight Night event.
Topics: All Topics, BoDog, MMA, Media, PRIDE, Zach Arnold | | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
I hope that we can see him in Pride…I do not see him getting the good matchups in Bodog.
Dana White can be such a silly sausage
So much for the Fertittas due diligence. Despite paying $12m for PRIDEs assets, Dana and Lorenzo dont even get Fedor or Josh Barnett (on the bright side, they did pick up DSEs video library)
Wonder what theyll do when they find out that none of the Japanese fighters come with the deal either
And Jonathan - theres a saying the fight game, “money talks, bullshit walks” and Im afraid as far as fighters are concerned, things like “good matchups” and “amazing production quality” take a back seat to more material concerns
“”When somebody buys a company for 65 million dollars, that tells you it’s pretty mainstream,” said Mike Goldberg, the play-by-play announcer for the UFC. “You’re bringing together the two main entities of the sport. This obviously opens a lot of doors for huge fight opportunities all over the world. … It’s huge. It’s just huge.”"
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=buckheit/070405
I guess the $65 million is more than just a rumor.
My guess is that Mike Goldberg may not know how much Zuffa paid and doesn’t mind pushing the high figure to make the company sound more impressive. Kind of like Hulk Hogan saying he drew 80,000 people at the 16,000-seat Nippon Budokan.
If this is true it will be quite a blow. I don’t think Fedor wants to work with Zuffa / UFC. I also don’t think Fedor cares about his level of competition. Everything I’ve read leads me to believe that Fedor is concerned with the money and only the money. He could care less about the level of his competition.
“Kind of like Hulk Hogan saying he drew 80,000 people at the 16,000-seat Nippon Budokan.”
Surely there are other just as irrelevant precedents where people actually tell the truth, wouldnt you say?
Let Fedor fight nobodies because UFC will find a new fedor
If this is true it will be quite a blow. I don’t think Fedor wants to work with Zuffa / UFC. I also don’t think Fedor cares about his level of competition. Everything I’ve read leads me to believe that Fedor is concerned with the money and only the money. He could care less about the level of his competition.
Good. He’s smart then. If Zuffa wants the best heavyweight in the world, they’ll have to pay for him.
Letting Fedor stay in Bodog is like throwing the Hope Diamond into a swamp.
It just isn’t right.
I have no doubt Fedor is ’signed’ with Pride as Dana White says. But i bet the contract is a peice of junk that just says Fedor agrees to fight for Pride, and each fight is a single contract deal as he always says.
It’s fedor’s loss if he doesn’t want to fight in the big leagues any more. His win vs Hunt was pretty unimpressive and i bet he won’t look great against Lindland either (although i’m sure he will still win). If he’s not willing to step up and fight CroCop then he’s gonna be labeled as dodging.
[...] Fedor Not Locked Into Pride [...]
fedor is the best in the world!
if the ufc want´s hem, pay for hem. impresive or not? nobody has beat hem. i have not seen a fighther that has had a good fight every time they steped in the ring, after all, hes human, hes has beat every good heavy weight out there, show some respect ! the ufc or zufa are known for not paying the big bucks or respect to people that help make this mma product profitable, dana white is an egomaniac, whoo feells hes more of an atraction than the fighthers theme selves. so i say fedor has the right to go any where he want´s and has nothing to prove, he all ready did that by beating all the great fighthers the worldhas to ofer.