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How the media is covering Fedor’s signing with Strikeforce
By Zach Arnold | August 3, 2009
- The New York Times: Man considered world’s top fighter rejects his sport’s top brand
- Steve Cofield: An irate Dana White responds from Abu Dhabi
- Josh Gross: Strikeforce establishes itself as major player with Fedor signing
- Bloody Elbow: The consequences of war – the UFC money drain will soon make Strikeforce its primary target
- Franklin McNeil: Fedor could make Strikeforce debut in November
- The Globe and Mail: The heavyweight roster is thin outside of UFC
- Jamie Penick: Strikeforce pairing with M-1 and DREAM is only good for the fans in the short run
On Tuesday morning’s ESPN SportsCenter program, anchor Josh Elliott said the #1 blogged-about story on the US sports blogs is Fedor signing with Strikeforce (29%), more than Plaxico Burress getting indicted in New York on gun charges. However, ESPN (when covering MMA stories in the blog buzz) never usually links to MMA sites. Instead, they go with more “general” sports blogs. Here’s the blog they chose to cover:
This is like turning down an NFL contract to sign with the CFL. The money is with the UFC, the fanbase is with the UFC, the more legit competition is with the UFC… I do not see any upside to Fedor’s decision. I am not saying that Strikeforce pays peanuts, has no viewers, and no good fighters, but it is inferior to the UFC in ALL of those categories.
Elliott went on to say that Fedor should have signed with UFC to fight Brock Lesnar and when asked by co-anchor John Buccigross who runs Strikeforce, Elliott had no clue.
On a slight side-note, Carmichael Dave of KTHK 1140 Hot Talk in Sacramento has responded to us in regards to the way the media covered the Fedor/UFC negotiations last week.
Dave Meltzer on Yahoo Sports:
Fair or not, part of what Emelianenko will be remembered by, is that in 2009, as the sport reaches uncharted popularity levels, he turned down a huge money offer to face the top competition. Whether it’s ludicrous to suggest he’s afraid of Lesnar, fans are asking that question in droves, so it will always be part of the story of his career.
Given what was said on ESPN on Tuesday morning, he’s probably right.
Topics: M-1, Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 77 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Remember a few months ago, when Strikeforce was being talked about as a sort of extension of the UFC, with people endlessly talking about how Coker probably got the thumbs up from Dana, and that they would never compete? Well, now you see what happens when that illusion is shattered.
Again, I don’t have a dog in the hunt. Strikeforce gave me Sapp/Nortje, and hell if I will forget that. Clearly, if this will force the UFC to up contracts, then its a good thing. Looks pretty clear to me that a second promoter is the easiest way to bring up fighter pay in a hurry, rather than this hilarious wait-and-see talk. And I doubt we’ll see worse matchups than before from the UFC. From that perspective, I don’t really care.
Meltzer in the WON: “The offer was $5 million per fight plus a cut of the PPV revenue.”
He then writes a whole article about the ramifications to the pay scale of a fighter being offered a $5 million guarantee.
He does say that the UFC is trying to “babyface” the fans, and adds that they’ve opened a Pandora’s Box by revealing this information. He doesn’t say that the numbers were false, unless he does so in a subsequent issue of the WON.
In his article for UFC PPV distributor Yahoo Sports, Meltzer reports additional false information, and this time it’s different false information.
“based on the UFC’s contract offer, Emelianenko would have received somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million for a Lesnar fight in the event the fight was an unlikely flop on PPV. If the fight did similar numbers to last month’s record-setting UFC 100, Emelianenko likely would have received $6 million when pay-per-view bonuses were factored in. He was also offered a similar range of figures for future fights in the organization.”
In the Yahoo Sports article, he doesn’t even discuss the fact that the information is coming from the UFC in an attempt to “babyface” the fans, or if he did, it was edited out.
That’s not out of the question, given the fact that in a post-UFC 100 article about Brock Lesnar’s pro wrestling antics and where he fits into the UFC, the full version of which was published in the WON and an edited version of which was published on Yahoo Sports, they just happened to edit out one of the most significant claims in the entire article: “Fighters are strongly encouraged to insult each other to hype the public for fights, and then encouraged to make up after fights.”
Another Meltzer article that was published in complete form in the WON and in edited form on Yahoo Sports was an article about the Dana White/John Hackleman feud and some of the inflammatory things that White said about Hackleman in an interview with Meltzer. One of the quotes from White to Meltzer was, “John Hackleman’s a douche.” It was the single most inflammatory, vulgar thing that White said about Hackleman during the whole public White/Hackleman feud, and it was nowhere to be found in the Yahoo Sports edited article (not even in the form of “John Hackleman’s a [expletive]”).
So, I’m certainly not dismissing the possibility that in the “Strikeforce rolls the dice” article on Yahoo Sports, Meltzer may have originally discussed the fact that the salary figures are UFC-leaked numbers designed to sway public opinion in their favor. It could have simply been edited out by Yahoo Sports.
Sad because this website is supposed to be the truth, and Zach IS the truth. But some of these comments are just TERRIBLE!
Also, as a follow-up note to Zach’s previous post, it looks like Fabricio Werdum will be fighting on the Strikeforce card after all, but it will probably be in an untelevised bout against Mike Kyle. This is a completely bone-headed move, just as it was to put Rafael Feijao vs. Mike Kyle in an untelevised prelim. Whether Werdum wins or loses, why on earth would you not save that fight for a main card?
Saying they “babyfaced” the fans indicates there is a work going on. If they were telling the truth he wouldn’t have used carny to describe it.
from the observer in question:
“Carmichael Dave, a Sacramento radio host who is close friends with Dana
White, laid out what he was told was the offer UFC made Emelianenko. For what it’s worth, and this is not verifying the story as much as confirming this is the story UFC wanted out, but what he said were the exact same things we had been told earlier in the week.
The offer was $5 million per fight plus a cut of the PPV revenue.”
and so on, and meltzer discusses whether or not signing fedor is worth it based on this type of payscale among other aspects of a potential deal. leave it for people to judge of thei rown accord whether this accoutns to meltzer propegating false information.
if youre more privy than us to fedor’s offer (perhaps theres something on the internet i missed?) please share the evidence. otherwise the money figures meltzer puts out that you quote are consistent with snowdens and others reports of the legitimate mold of the offer, and id ask for justification for calling them into question.
Meltzer’s got more credibility than any other MMA reporter. But that doesn’t mean he can’t sometimes report inaccurate stuff.
Of course, I’m still a little confused as to what the terms of the UFC offer to Fedor actually were, or how the terms were presented (i.e., verbally, a term sheet, numbers on a napkin, etc.). Unless there was something in writing, reports are going to differ. Did Snowden or Hunt get a hold of or see something in writing?
FF
And here’s the exact quote of Meltzer saying he isn’t treating this as fact yet:
Oops, Mike beat me to it when I was searching for the quote. Sorry.
Meltzer’s $3-6 million claim doesn’t sound too unbelievable when you read this post from Fightlinker: http://www.fightlinker.com/forums/topic.php?t=106058
UFC would just have to offer Fedor just a little more than they offered Couture in 2007 pre-walkout to hit the $3-6 million numbers.
Actually in re-reading the article, while Meltzer is clearly more in favor of the UFC than Fedor/M-1, he makes intelligent points that the knee-jerk “FEDOR SUX! UFC ROOLZ!” numbskulls on here do.
He makes a great point that likened Fedor to Anderson Silva, as a non-English speaking fighter who has awesome fights, has been pushed to the moon by the UFC marketing machine as “the best fighter in the world”, but who just cannot seem to connect with fans to be a draw on the level of Lesnar, GSP, Liddell or Penn. That’s an interesting point that has gotten lost in all of the ranting and raving of emotional internet posters on various sites who come off like wound up Fox News pundits.
I’ll add though that one thing holding Silva back is that outside of the first Franklin fight and to a lesser extent the Henderson fight, he has never had a compelling opponent. Big shows aren’t drawn by squash matches, they’re drawn by compelling match ups, with the exception of Ortiz-Shamrock that was a farce but a lot of newer fans didn’t know any better at the time. All of the other big fights Lesnar-Mir, Liddell-Jackson, Couture-Sylvia, GSP-Penn, Griffin-Jackson were all fights that could have gone either way.
So unless Fedor totally demolishes Lesnar so bad it becomes obvious that the younger challengers wouldn’t stand a chance against him, he’ll have a much more compelling talent pool than the Middleweight Division has ever been for Silva.
And as is typically the case, Meltzer is right on this one.
Even the UFC Marketing Machine hasn’t been able to make Anderson Silva into a star.
Some fighters don’t have the “IT” factor no matter how many wins they get. And some fighters have the “IT” factor no matter how many losses they have.
Tito Ortiz hasn’t finished a guy not named Ken Shamrock in a very long time. But he has that “IT” factor. People want to pay to see him fight.
People don’t want to pay to see Anderson Silva fight. With that said, I paid for a ticket to UFC 101 and watch Silva/Griffin…. So I guess I’m not the norm… hahaha
Fedor will never be a big money maker. Even if he was in the UFC. Of course the UFC would make the difference between 100,000 PPV Buys and 500,000 PPV Buys…. But he just will never be a huge star.
Strikeforce should have signed Tito Ortiz. That is the true gamechanger. The fact that they didn’t baffles me. He is worth a $2 Million payday. Not Fedor. Not all the high priced fighters for Affliction. Just Tito. And they couldn’t make that deal.
I personally can’t stand him, but he sells tickets and gets people to watch him fight.
I still don’t see where Meltzer was wrong? Your seeing what you want to see, and not what it is.
Without being presumptious, anyone here could make an argument that if Dana White wanted to do this deal for the fans, he would have done a one fight deal with Fedor period. If he had so much faith in his “top” fighter this Fedor discussion would be over. But I do recollect Dana having a bet back in 2003 with Pride that Chuck Liddell would win the Middleweight GP and any true fan knows the result of that. Dana, you openly talk the talk if the fans want this make it happen. If we the fans are into brand loyalty the UFC will not suffer any financial setback and this fight will grow the UFC more worldwide than the past 5 years combined. Make it happen for the WAMMA belt only, that way if your guy loses, he still holds the UFC belt. Dana, you claim to have the gonads, if you want to silence Fedor, call him out have a one off with Strikeforce or buy Strikeforce and force the issue.
* * * MEDIA TELECONFERENCE ALERT * * *
FEDOR “THE LAST EMPEROR’’ EMELIANENKO
SCOTT COKER & VADIM FINKELCHTEIN
To Hold Media Conference Call
Thursday, Aug. 6, at 2 P.M. ET/11 A.M. PT
WHO: MMA Superstar & World’s Universally Recognized No. 1 Heavyweight Fedor
STRIKEFORCE Founder & CEO Scott Coker
President of M-1 Global Vadim Finkelchtein
WHAT: Fedor and the executives will participate in a national media conference call to discuss the potentially game-changing announcement Monday that the fervently sought-after Emelianenko had signed a historic, multi-fight agreement that will see him headline mega-events co-promoted by STRIKEFORCE and M-1 Global.
Fedor will make his premium television debut during the fall when his first fight under the new agreement airs live on SHOWTIME®. Up until now, all his live fights had aired exclusively on pay-per-view in the United States.
ACCESS #: (888) 299-4099 (U.S. Toll Free), (866) 682-1172 (Canadian Toll Free), (302) 709-8337
(International Toll); Ask For SHOWTIME/Strikeforce/M-1 Global Conference Call
(Verbal Passcode: VB37030)
WHEN: Thursday, Aug, 6, 2009; 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT
I have to admit I haven’t read much of the above flame war.
I would like to add Dave Meltzer and Steve Sievert are the best print journalists covering MMA, hands down. Sometimes even very good journalists get something wrong. They’re used as pawns or fed misinformation from previously reliable sources.
I’m pretty sure none of you guys have ever worked in the media before. Having a blog doesn’t count. I have. You get things wrong sometimes. It happens.
Josh Gross on the other hand is clearly partisan and has a hatred for UFC. Saying “Fedor makes Strikeforce legitimate” is just stupid. Strikeforce has real fun divisions at 170 and 185. The fighters are a clearcut step down from UFC. They’d all be UFC midcard talent. Fedor in a division with no top ten talent does not make Strikeforce anymore relevant than they were two days ago. And I like Strikeforce. Don’t get me wrong on that. They have some real fun events. But it is NCAA football compared to the UFC’s NFL football.
Based on reports from writers who still have credibility (ie, writers who don’t have official “editorial content” partnerships with the UFC), the offer that was made to Fedor was not a $5 million per fight guarantee, nor was it a $3 million per fight guarantee. In the Yahoo Sports article, there is no cautioning that the salary information being presented could be false, nor is there even an acknowledgment that he was fed the salary information by the UFC. It’s simply stated as if it’s fact.
Josh Gross always talks about the best fighting the best. Fedor had a chance to fight the best and turned it down.
And now Josh Gross is defending Fedor going to Strikeforce.
I can’t stand Gross. He is a cheerleader for Fedor & Rampage. It’s like he has a mancrush on both of them. Doesn’t make for fair reporting….
“Based on reports from writers who still have credibility (ie, writers who don’t have official “editorial content” partnerships with the UFC), the offer that was made to Fedor was not a $5 million per fight guarantee, nor was it a $3 million per fight guarantee.”
there is nothing said in the article about guaranteed money. he gave a range of money that fedor would have likely received based on PPV numbers — thats the part where he says “would have received somewhere in the neighborhood of $3 million for a Lesnar fight in the event the fight was an unlikely flop on PPV” — whatever his payday is plus very lowballed PPV bonus money obviously. and of course when he says “if the fight did similar numbers to last month’s record-setting UFC 100, Emelianenko likely would have received $6 million when pay-per-view bonuses were factored in” he is justifying a high end figure.
i dont know what youre on about here. im not saying meltzers a saint, but so far all youve displayed is a lack of reading comprehension. there is nothing in the article to substantiate that what dave syas is any different from what snowden says, and if you work out the numbers yourself you would see that youre searching for a way to discredit meltzer.
Zach, it looks like the troops have your address.
Objectivity is not welcome with the Zuffa groupies & Dana worshipers.
Prepare for continued attack.
“Based on reports from writers who still have credibility (ie, writers who don’t have official “editorial content” partnerships with the UFC), the offer that was made to Fedor was not a $5 million per fight guarantee, nor was it a $3 million per fight guarantee. In the Yahoo Sports article, there is no cautioning that the salary information being presented could be false, nor is there even an acknowledgment that he was fed the salary information by the UFC. It’s simply stated as if it’s fact.”
So Meltzer’s info should immediately be disregarded because he works for Yahoo? I guess all the news Chris Mortenson breaks on ESPN should be taken with a grain of salt since ESPN has a TV deal with the NFL. Same goes for Jay Glazer, since he works for FOX and they have a TV deal with the NFL that means Jay Glazer can not be trusted.
How bout we just end this discussion by you providing the the real facts about Fedors contract offer. Obviously since you know enough about the subject to say that all these reporters who talked about the UFC’s contract offers were lying, than you obviously must know the real terms to the contract that was offered.
I think Fedor made the wrong choice. I followed this sport since 1994 and never imagined it would get so popular. At this point, the fans really dislike Lesnar. I can only imagine the promo work the UFC could have done to build up Fedor with their video library from Pride and I assume Affliction now.
I think a win over over Lesnar would opened up numerous sponsorship opportunities beyond what we can even imagine. No MMA athelete has made it to the level of an NFL or NBA athelete yet in terms of sponsorhsip, maybe GSP will, but I think Fedor would have been an easy sell given his unassuming everday man like appearance. .
“I still don’t see where Meltzer was wrong? Your seeing what you want to see, and not what it is.”
What Meltzer did wrong was that he seemingly made little effort to verify the guaranteed money figures UFC gave him. At least he was open about the fact that he hadn’t verified them when he reported those figures and where he got them from, but from supposedly the best MMA reporter out there I expect better. As soon as Jonathan Snowden and Loretta Hunt reported their stories, he changed his tune on the Observer message boards and admitted that they were right and the $5,000,000 + PPV cut rumors were BS.
This follows a worrying trend that Meltzer only seems to report stories that UFC don’t want out in the public domain until someone else like Loretta Hunt reports them and then gives the Zuffa spin on the story.
45 Huddle Says:
Josh Gross always talks about the best fighting the best. Fedor had a chance to fight the best and turned it down.
And now Josh Gross is defending Fedor going to Strikeforce.
I can’t stand Gross. He is a cheerleader for Fedor & Rampage. It’s like he has a mancrush on both of them. Doesn’t make for fair reporting….
45 Huddle whats left to say, you obviously have no concept on business let alone reality. Fedor outside of the UFC is his own man. In the UFC he is a slave of Dana White. He has always fought the elite fighters, if White had any decency at all he would place his champion against Fedor and let the cards fall.
You mean airing the same fight footage of Fedor beating “hand picked non-top 10 heavyweights”? See, that’s the problem, Dana and all of his minions is on record burying everything Fedor has ever accomplished, but then they go and talk about how awesome the Countdown show would be showing a Fedor HL reel. In UFC’s current burial of Fedor if he comes in 18 months from now (or sooner) how are they going to pull a 360 and talk him up?
I don’t think Fedor-Lesnar would do the same numbers UFC 100 did. There’s no way to make a quiet Russian guy who doesn’t speak English compelling to get to that level of buys. Fighters popular for their fighting (ie Machida, Fitch, Anderson Silva) don’t do over 600,000 if they’re lucky and have someone with personality to carry them. It would probably do over a million, maybe 1.1 tops but it would not sell enough to get the $5 mil payoff.
Fedor doesn’t have a compelling story. He’s a stoic Russian nationalist who counts Putin as a friend, spends his free time painting and shuns the spotlight. How he could possibly be a MMA babyface to Lesnar to casual fans is going to be tough. If anything Brock might be seen as the babyface to a lot of people.
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