And again, this whole “getting things straight” title appears to be completely misleadig. As if it isn’t apparent enough to the casual eye and as mentioned earlier here, Meltzer is now also reporting(in this week’s newsletter) that most of the deals are indeed valid under new PRIDE ownership, but the hang up is renegotiating from non-exclusive to exclusive deals.

Personal service contracts tend to be non-exclusive, or at least if you try to enforce one in court.

Dana’s comments as proven by Ken and Tito and Sherdog shouldn’t hold much water. He is just talking to hear him self talk. No one holds him accountable for what he says. Its comical that much of the BS MMA Media takes what he says at face value.

Dana’s comments as proven by Ken and Tito and Sherdog shouldn’t hold much water. He is just talking. No one holds him accountable for what he says and much of the BS MMA Media takes what he says at face value.

As someone else said, fighters most likely had contracts between themselves and DSE, as Pride never seemed to be it’s own separate company. In those contracts, there was likely a provision regarding assignment that said either DSE may freely assign the contract or DSE may only assign the contract with the fighter’s consent. Assuming that the assignment provision required the fighter’s consent, that fighter would have had to consent to the assignment of the contract from DSE to Pride Worldwide. Pride Worldwide did not inherit any contracts by matter of law because they did not actually buy DSE; only certain of its assets.

Now, as for Dana’s comment, I could see it very likely that many fighters (whose contracts included a consent right with respect to assignment) consented to the assignment of their contracts to Pride Worldwide, comforted by the idea that they would still be fighting for the Pride brand once it was up and running again. In order for the contracts to require fighters to fight in the UFC, however, they would either need to be freely assignable without any consent right or fighter X would have to consent to a second assignment of the contract from Pride Worldwide to Zuffa. Here’s the rub; how many fighters would have consented to the assignment of their contracts from DSE to Pride Worldwide (believing they would still be fighting for “Pride”) but are now reluctant to consent to a second assignment of their contracts from Pride Worldwide to Zuffa (forcing them to fight in the UFC)? I think many.

Any blame for PRIDE fighters being in limbo should go to DSE. They made a mess out of the PRIDE brand, and that’s why they had to sell PRIDE in the first place. The Fertittas probably want to scavenge the best PRIDE talent and let PRIDE die. They probably don’t want to re-establish that brand. But either way, that org. was a complete fiasco at the end (in terms of its finances and mgmt.) and it will take a long time to sort it out. Can’t blame the Fertittas/Dana for that.

and a few have joked the lions share will go to ed fishman,

The Fertitas paid a LOT LESS than 65 million for the company.

The way it was put to me, by somebody I trust, was that upon looking at the books, it was clear there was more debt than perviously thought.

As a result, the Fertitas came back with a much lower offer since they determined the value to be less than was previous thought.

As far as contracts go, DSE signed fighters to a ton of different contracts. Josh Barnett has a personal contract with DSE and is waiting until it expires so he can get away from the former Pride owners.

But the bottom line is that the Pride assests were purchased for a relatively small amount of money.