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Fedor’s boss says he would meet with UFC…
By Zach Arnold | July 26, 2009
- He says that Affliction folded because… “The fact is that according to American laws, if you advertise the showing of an event on a paid television channel, you are obligated to deliver what has been advertised.” He’s never heard of “card subject to change” before, has he…
- Would Fedor fight Josh Barnett after everything that has happened? “There are many business meetings and negotiations planned with all the major promotions. We will explore the possibility of Fedor fighting Barnett and will even look into whether the fight can take place as soon as August (since Barnett has not been suspended).” You may as well book those plans for NYE in Japan for this fight given this statement.
- On working with UFC… “We want to talk to the UFC about having Fedor compete against some of their fighters, but only within the framework of co-promotional efforts with M-1 Global.” In other words, business as usual in the manner of which Fedor’s management has used with six promotions/events that have folded (RINGS, Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye, PRIDE, Bodogfight, Yarennoka, Affliction).
Topics: Affliction, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 51 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
M-1 Global Style Co-promotion:
Revenues and expenses are divided evently. M-1 Global gets all the revenues, the co-promoter gets all the expenses.
LOL at Fedor an his managers acting like their in a position of power. Sorry Fedor but you aren’t a draw so you have no leverage, thats why the 5 organizations you fought in are all out of business.
UFC will probably offer you another huge contract, either take it or just fade into oblivion.
Once Fedor retires or gets beaten, the gravy train ends for the M-1 guys.
We have seen how well co-promotions have worked with Bodog, Affliction, and various other companies…. Basically, they don’t.
Imagine a Japanese Baseball star like Ichiro saying: “Well, I will play in America, but only if my Japanese team gets a portion of your profits.
He would be laughed out of the building. And yet, Fedor’s management does the same thing and people want to make it seem like Zuffa is the bad guy here for not getting Fedor in the UFC.
Fedor’s next 4 highest ranked opponents are all in the UFC. That is where he should be fighting if he wants to fight the best. Not to mention the vast majority of the future prospects as well…
I don’t know about Fedor-Barnett being “fight of the century”. But that right there is “whopper of the century”. Wow, that is stunningly stupid. But on the plus side, since he isn’t burying Barnett I guess the fight still has a chance of happening in Japan.
A posting system, which is how Boston had to pay to get Daisuke Matsuzaka. Sometimes the posting fee is over $50 million…
Two very very very different things you are talking about.
1. There is no revenue sharing when a player comes over. The contract is the contract.
2. Fedor has never really competed for a purely M-1 show. His system is a leaching system.
3. The baseball agreement was put in place to protect poaching of players already signed to Japanese leagues and to protect the players from being traded from Japan to the US without any bargaining power.
4. When the Japanese player comes over, it is not a joint venture. That player now plays in the Major Leagues. That team gets no revenues from them.
It would be one thing if Fedor was actually competing on M-1 cards and the UFC bought out his contract. That is essentially what the posting system allows for. But Fedor isn’t competing on any purely M-1 cards, which means it’s basically using a dumby corporation as a way of extracting the most money out of the deal.
With the Japanese players… They are already competing in an established league.
So what I said stands true. If a baseball player’s manager demanded that his Japanese team get a portion of the profits, he would be laughed out of negotiations.
At this point if Fedor doesn’t sign with the UFC I think he should be removed from the number one ranking.
you cannot punish fedor for not wanting to sign an exclusive contract with UFC.
Is it not refreshing to see a fighter tell UFC he is not happy with the terms offered and will not bow down??
It’s getting old hearing M-1’s B.S. Tried to give Fedor’s management (Finkelchtein, etal.)the benefit of the doubt; but this pissing contest that they keep throwing in front of the UFC concerning co-promotion is laughable. M-1 is bouncing around, doing deals with failed promotion after failed promotion, while the UFC gets stronger and stronger. Who needs whom?
The revelation that Fedor was traveling recently with an entourage of 35 people was the clincher. They are likely bleeding Fedor for as much as they can get in order to pay all these handlers and hangers-on. Fedor only needs his family, 2 trainers, an assistant, and a manager. Everyone else should be paying for themselves and not hanging on his coattails. Why 35 people?
I would like to see Fedor in the UFC; but not with the ridiculous demands attached. A compromise so that Fedor can do Sambo is reasonable; but all of this garbage about co-promotion; or putting five Red Devil fighters in fights is bunk.
It would be great if Fedor could extricate himself from some of that.
I’d love to actually see Fedor meet with Dana and Co. without those people around. It is sad but this is what happens to fighters.
@Fred. He was was most likely travelling with 35 people because of M-1´s show in Los Angeles next month. A lot of them are probably staff members of M-1 and fighters.
Would Fedor (and everyone else) not make more money by fighting in the UFC instead of with the UFC?
Zach,
To be fair, was Yarenokka really going to have more shows after their first show? It really was just a prototype/demo for DREAM. And was it really Fedor that killed off Bom-Ba-Ye and NOT Inoki being a retard, or at the very least Inoki just being Inoki? And he only fought ONCE for BODOGFight, and RINGS’ death was probably more attributed to Akira Maeda’s retirement and the fact that Kiyoshi Tamura couldn’t really carry the promotion on his back once PRIDE came around. Oh, and the death of UWFi pretty much killed off the worked-shoot craze in Japan.
I’m about sick of this whole”Fedor is the kiss of death” BS that has been floating around FO. Chuck has it right, Fedor was not the death of Rings, Bodog or any other org.
As to Brock being this huge draw and Fedor being a scrub, does anyone remember how many ppv’s Brocks first fight brought in? Oh yeah, like ten.
Brock is not a huge draw by him self. Nor is Tito, Chuck or any of the other “blue chip” PPV draws. Take away the UFC and those guys would be lucky to get 100K, just like Fedor.
Chuck, thats a whole lot of “it was really just…”
Maybe the question that should be asked isn’t, does Fedor drive promotions out of business. Maybe the question that should be asked, is why is it that no surviving promotion has ever gotten Fedor onto a card?
The answer ain’t rocket science; its that in the post-Pride era, only dumb organizations willing to overspend win the “pay Fedor” bidding wars. Good on him and Vadim for squeezing the dollars out, but they’re batshit insane if they think the UFC will do the same thing.
So far, Fedor has been able to make more money fighting “with UFC” than he would have made fighting “for UFC.”
The irony of the situation is that whether UFC gets Fedor to fight for them or not, they’re winning, at least so far. He commands so much money that anyone willing to pay what he’s asking is driving themselves out of business in an attempt to “compete with UFC.”
They aren’t “competing with the UFC” because even the UFC isn’t willing to pay that much money. Fedor’s not bringing these competing promotions the PPV buys and ticket sales that they need to break even, so they’re just digging deeper holes.
Eventually someone is going to learn that “go big or go home” is not the first rules of competing with UFC. The first rule is “make sure you aren’t burning cash so that you can at least reach your tenth event.”
People, how can anyone say with a straight face that Fedor had ANYTHING to do with the demise of Rings?
He was not their “Ace”, was not able to demand big money, and really was just one fighter among many. Might as well blame Arona for the fall of Pride and Rings, or Babalu, or Nog, or Hendo. I mean they fought for those orgs then those orgs went bust.
In the post Pride world of Bodog and Affliction you can make the argument that paying for Fedor and somehow hoping that that alone will put you over the top is stupid and leads to the death of the org. But again that is bad business not Fedor being a drain.
Given that most of us here have probably never seen a Rings show, I don’t think it’s a crime to not know why they are no longer around for us to see one of their shows.
In fact, I’d say it’s pretty much beside the point why they are or are not here. I gather that Fedor fought for them at some point?
I shouldn’t have phrased that as a question, I don’t actually care.
Brock brought an extra 300,000 viewers his first fight. The crowd was more electric for his fight than any I’ve ever seen.
Fedor’s people are asking for more money than anyone in the sport is paid. Fedor brings less ppv audience than Ken v Tito I. They are being ridiculous. If hey keep upthese demands it is the same as ducking the guys in UFC. Thus Fedor should be penalized in the rankings.
road, how many ppv did Brock bring in for his first fight? Did he magically become a mega star after that first fight?
His huge ppv numbers are as much a result of the UFC as they are of him and don’t really repreent some huge added value he brings.
Fedor in the UFC would trump any Brock ppv #s.
Comparing Fedors ppv numbers v. Ken Tito #1 is stupid because that fight happened in a popular, well run org. How many ppvs would Tito get in Affliction? Remember There are a lot of fighters who fought for Afflcition that drew well for the UFC but did squat for Afflcition.
Look at Big Tim, Vitor or AA all three of those guys pulled 500K + for the UFC but did not do shit out side of it.
If you insist on comparing orgs to orgs compare Fedor in Pride (and with the Japanese viewers) to the UFC and if I remember correctly Fedor did all right in Japan, millions of people watched him fight in Japan,
BTW none of this means I think UFC should fold and eat M1’s crap. M1 needs to let go of a few things and “settle” for the best contract the UFC has ever offered.
Zack, when did Fedor start working with his current managment and when did M1 start using Fedor asa promotion tool?
NVM, looks like M1 was formed in 2007 (after Rings and noki Bom-Ba-Ye both failed) and that Fedor had only just started working with Vlad at the time of the Bnoki Bom-Ba-Ye event.
So using logic here the fall of Rings and noki Bom-Ba-Ye can’t have anything to do with M-1, Fedor and their attempts at co-promotion.
And as Zack has written long and often about the fall of Pride but never mentioned the M-1 connection until now I would assume the fall of Pride had nothing to do with Fedor as well.
But don’t let facts get in the way of a good, dramatic story, or a new meme.
Fedor is a part owner of M-1 and is basically their only real fighter. M-1 wouldn’t exist without Fedor, basically.
Ken v Tito I did not happen in a popular org. You are rewriting history. UFC was dead back then. They were getting 40,000 buys per ppv. They had zero press. Ken and Tito got I terviewed on FOX Sports that was it. Brocks first UFC figh had a 300,000 viewer up tick. It is unlkely Brock Fedor would sell much more than Brock Mir. So you. Are wrong about Fedors drawing power.
Meh, there is no way to know how Fedor would draw until he is in the UFC. But I am not simply wrong about his drawing power. First, he did draw well in Pride. Second, the UFC has seen a steady rise in PPV #’s and I would say that this is due to their being well run and well managed and getting their sport into the public eye and growing each year. I would expect to see a continued rise and would expect to see Brocks numbers be broken. How many ppv’s did Bisping v. Leben draw? Does that mean Leben is a bigger star than Fedor and a bigger potential draw? Using your logic it does.
Again, why was Brock unable to draw outside of the UFC?
Why did AA’s numbers take a huge dive when he went to Affliction? I promise that if AA was in the main event of a UFC it would draw several hundred thousand more views than any Affliction show.
M-1 Global means gravy train in Russian
Spacedog, is this some kind of epic troll or do you really think Fedor will be a bigger draw than Brock? Not even Fink believes something that insane.
Fedor will come in and be a solid draw because they’ll promote the hell out of him and he’ll probably beat Brock in his first fight. But, if he came in and his first fight was Frank Mir, it would do an average buyrate.
Internally the UFC credits most of its PPV growth over the last year to new fans Lesnar brough in that stayed around after he beat Randy. Which fans is Fedor bringing with him? If anything, he is a huge liability to bring in, a boring looking guy with zero charisma that speaks no English. He could end up being Anderson Silva 2.0.
I’ve seen RINGS. I use to get RINGS tapes way back in the day. I also used to go to some Geocities fan website on RINGS as well. This was pre-2000. RINGS did not collapse due to Fedor. However, he was the Open-Weight & Heavyweight Champion at the time of the companies collapse. The company was already in trouble by the time the 2nd MMA King of Kings tournament. By the time Fedor competed in each of the title tournaments the company was already a shell of it’s former self. So really Fedor had nothing to do with it’s demise.
However, it is kind of interesting that he was the king of so many companies that have gone under. What it does show is that Fedor as a main event cannot stop the companies problems. Do you think the UFC would ever go under if Tito Ortiz or Brock Lesnar was headlining? I highly doubt it.
“you cannot punish fedor for not wanting to sign an exclusive contract with UFC.
Is it not refreshing to see a fighter tell UFC he is not happy with the terms offered and will not bow down??”
Basically every fighter has signed that UFC contract. Even fighters who could be big draws on their own. This includes Brock Lesnar, Tito Ortiz, Randy Couture, Quinton Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Matt Hughes, Georges St. Pierre, BJ Penn…. The list goes on and on.
If you really think this is about bowing down to the UFC, then I really don’t know what to tell you. The UFC contract has been signed by so many stars that to claim it is not an acceptable contract isn’t even a talking point.
“Again, why was Brock unable to draw outside of the UFC?”
Brock had one fight before he entered the UFC, and he wasn’t even on the poster of that horribly run show. So that has no meaning at all. Once Brock was given the chance, he carried a company to the next level. Fedor has been given that chance on 5 occassions, and everytime he could not bring in more business.
Is spacedog talking about Brock’s time in New Japan as he didnt draw at at all..
He killed business rather than bringing in new business.
Brock Lesnar is a huge draw in the UFC because he was a huge draw in the WWE.
Another option for Fedor is potentially out the window….
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=9230&zoneid=13
DREAM 12 is going to only be in a 16,000 seat arena in Osaka. And DREAM 11 could be the last event on TBS.
This leaves Sengoku, Strikeforce, UFC, or some money mark left.
Fedor’s management continues to be the most delusional and out of their mind people i’ve ever known in mma. I can’t wait for Dana’s eventual f-bomb laiden reply to Finkie and his insane demands.
“The UFC contract has been signed by so many stars that to claim it is not an acceptable contract isn’t even a talking point.”
Then why did Randy Couture, Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski, BJ Penn, Tito Ortiz, etc. leave UFC at different points? And if the UFC is perfectly acceptable, then why did BJ Penn take UFC to court over a ridiculous no compete clause, of which he won? Things have gotten much better since, but just because many top stars signed with UFC that doesn’t mean there is nothing to contend against UFC contracts. Anytime people would like to say UFC contracts and their terms are fair I would ALWAYS bring up the court case with BJ Penn, and what happened with Jon Fitch and AKA.
Oh, and no way would Scott Coker of Strikeforce go by Fedor’s ridiculous demands. He would probably be less willing to go by them than Zuffa would be.
Vadim and company are truly stupid. Doesn’t he realize that the UFC have yet to do any co-promoting, nor do they plan to. Vadim seems to think that Fedor is of some significance to North American MMA, when in all actuality he’s completely unknown to the majority of MMA fans in North America. They have zero leverage in their negotiations. If they were smart they would take any deal Zuffa gives them because UFC is the very last promotion where Fedor can earn a major payday.
First off I’m not trolling. My initial point was that Fedor can’t be said to be the demise of orgs that he had little to no impact on or whom M-1 did not try to co-promote with. If the meme is that M-1+ Fedor = death than it makes no sense to apply that logic to pre M1 orgs such as Rings. Simple and not really logically disputable.
As to ppvs again not that hard. People keep pointing to the buy rates of Bodog, Affliction and even Pride’s last show in the US to somehow make the point that Fedor is not a draw. Then they compare to Brock in the UFC. But its apples to oranges. Brock would not draw for Affliction. Do you really think that if the second Afflcition had been Brock v. AA it wold have done any better or come any where close to what Brock v. Mir did?
Chuck,
All of those fighters still signed on the Zuffa dotted line more then once. Obviously nothing is perfect, but their contract isn’t so restrictive that fighters are crying foul right now. And Arlovski, Sylvia, Couture, and Ortiz all left for money reasons, nothing else. Couture tried to play it off like he didn’t, but as soon as he gets more money offered he signed real quick. And Penn has a history of being a cry baby when things don’t go his way. He was like that with Zuffa the first time around. Like that after the first Pulver fight. And after the second GSP fight.
If Fedor wants to fight the next best in the division, they are in the UFC. He needs to be there. And he will be making millions doin so. It’s his leach of a manager, who had over 30 people with him going to Affliction that is the ONLY problem here.
The only way to make a fair comparison is to look at fighters that have fought both in and out of the UFC. Brock has and the difference was night and day. Where were the 300,000 fans that he is supposed to have brought with him to the UFC?
Look at other fighters as well. As much as you might hate big Tim, AA, Vitor, and so on they were able to draw decent viewership in the UFC but fell totally flat outside.
How do you think Hendo v. Ace would have gone over if it had headlined a Affliction show?
Would Fedor be a bigger draw than Brock? who knows but pointing to buy rates for Affliction and comparing them to UFC buy rates and than using that as a basis for determining popularity is pointless. All it has proven is that even if you have a bunch of stars on a card it is not going to draw like a UFC event.
In America, right now, MMA=UFC. That is all those shows prove.
As for Fedor’s potential as a draw in the UFC I think it is a lot greater than people seem to think. He is more well known than people pretend and he straight fucks dudes up.. and he has a totally cool name and back story. You will neve see Silva style antics from Fedor. But thats all speculation.
Spacedog, considering how many new fans Brock brought to the UFC, if he was promoted right he could have gotten closer to 250,000 PPV buys on his first go as a true headliner on a non-UFC PPV. That is like 2.5 Fedors….
45, how do you know he brought that many new fans and why was he not able to bring them else where? I guess it is because he was not promoted correctly but I seriously doubt he could bring in any serious numbers outside the UFC, in an MMA event.
In any case I do agree that in a sense Brock brought in some novel eyes that Fedor would not. Just about everyone that Feodr would bring are already watching the UFC.
But that does not mean that Fedor is not a draw, or that it is fair to compare the ppv rates of non UFC cards with UFC cards and then blame it on the fighters. Again, Leben headlined a show that brought in hundreds of thousands of buys but nobody is seriously going to say that he is a bigger draw than Fedor.
Spacedog,
I hate to call people trolls. Some real pieces of garbage on this site have called me a troll and it pisses me off. First of all I have been on this site longer than them. Second, I have done more for MMA than they ever have. I like having a rational debate about the sport and the business of MMA.
Fedor is the Emporer of hardcore fans. Fans like myself, yourself and a lot of people on this site. But that doesn’t ranslate into big time PPV buys. Fedor has about a 100-150,000 PPV Audience. A half assed UFC card draws 500.000 fans. A good UFC card draws 800.000 fans. A card with Brock and St. Pierre can draw 1.5 million fans. UFC doesn’t need Fedor. Plain and simple. If Fedor won’t come to UFC he can fight mediocre talent in Japan. His next three fights can be Barnett, Yoshida, Satoshi Ishii, Overeer, Brett Rogers, Ben Rothwell, etc. If he wants to do that I think he should be ranked outside the top 10.
If Fedor wants to be taken seriouslyl now he needs to come to UFC. UFC has all of the meaningful fighters in MMA.
PS: Anyone who wants to say Brock couldn’t draw outside of UFC is being an assh?le. He had one fight before joining UFC. It was in the horribly promoted K-1 USA card. Get a life. You are just being retarded making that argument.
“The only way to make a fair comparison is to look at fighters that have fought both in and out of the UFC. Brock has and the difference was night and day. Where were the 300,000 fans that he is supposed to have brought with him to the UFC?
Look at other fighters as well. As much as you might hate big Tim, AA, Vitor, and so on they were able to draw decent viewership in the UFC but fell totally flat outside.
How do you think Hendo v. Ace would have gone over if it had headlined a Affliction show? ”
This is, well, a craptacular way of assessing relative drawing power. The only way it would work is if drawing power wasn’t in any way contingent on venue. That simply is not the case.
Fedor will draw significant interest wherever he goes, because the majority of his fans, the hardcores, do not need to be told where to buy his events, they educate themselves and follow him around.
Lesnar, on the other hand, was purely a WWE draw at the time of his fight at K-1. UFC fans were not interested in him, hardcores were not interested in him, and so forth.
Lets say Affliction did Ace vs. Hendo. That would not have drawn anywhere near what Fedor/Arlovski drew, because the hardcore fanbase does not follow Ace or Hendo with the obsession with which they follow Fedor. Put Ace and Hendo in the UFC, and the UFC’s general fanbase is pretty aware of them, and will buy the PPV accordingly. However, were Fedor to come to the UFC, he would not be known to the regulars. He would bring with him the hardcore fanbase that already buys UFC ppvs, and then start to develop a following among the UFC fanbase. He certainly would not come anywhere near Lesnar ppv buy rates at the start, and probably not ever.
The factors that make Fedor so popular with the hardcore fanbase are his career-long dominance, his history in Pride, and his position as #1 HW in the world. The UFC fanbase doesn’t care very much about what you do except in the UFC, and will take their time in agreeing that he is number one in the world. Should he lose early in his career in the UFC, he would probably settle in as a good, not great, draw.
“But that does not mean that Fedor is not a draw”
Fedor is not a draw. Plain and simple.
The UFC could not go out of business with Brock Lesnar as their Champion. Why? Because he brings too many eyeballs to their promotion.
Fedor was the man in RINGS, Pride (in Japan & USA), Bodog, Yarennoka, & Affliction. And each promotion with his name at the top of the card could not hold up.
If he was a draw, he could have saved each company.
The fact is that despite the internet fanboys crying to anybody who will listen that he is the best in the world (which he is) and not the UFC Champion…. Nobody is really listening. And 4 to 5 promotions are proof of this.
And the fact that Fedor & his management demand 7 figures for him to fight… despite the fact that he is a non-factor in Japan, Russia, and the USA…. Makes the companies go out of business even quicker then they should have.
I don’t think that Lesnar would have put a quarter million PPV buys in Affliction’s pocket.
There’s a feedback effect with Lesnar and UFC. People are interested in what Lesnar’s up to, and they’re interested in UFC. Perhaps they aren’t interested enough in either one alone to check it out, but when you combine the two, they’re going to give it a shot. UFC and Lesnar both lucked out when they liked the taste.
In the sports world, excluding the fight game, the best players demand the best salaries. When you are the best, you get the most money. It is based almost exclusively on talent and production, not on the television ratings for the team in question. The fight game is obviously different….and extremely screwed up. Only in this business does PPV buys somehow define how good of a fighter you are. I have said it before….so what if Fedor is not a draw? Don’t you want to see the best fighter perform? If the UFC claims to have the best, and want the best fighters, why aren’t they breaking their backs to make it happen? If you wanted your tennis tournament to be the best it could be, you make sure you have Roger Federer signed up. If you say “screw Roger Federer, he is not relevant,” you are a fool.
ajz123: Take a business course. Any business course. Please.
Everything you say makes sense in a perfect world. This is not a perfect world, and only fools pretend that it is. Affliction pretended the world was perfect.
I myself much prefer a company that does the best it can in an imperfect world, and produces top-quality mma events every month, than a damn fool company that pretends the world is perfect and dies a whimpering death after only two events.
ajz123,
Zuffa was the highest bidder to Fedor before he signed with Affliction. So Zuffa is paying (or at least offering) the best the best money. The problem is that Fedor’s management is the one who wanted more control and more of the money to flow to them instead of directly to the fighter. Hence why he signed with Affliction.
“If the UFC claims to have the best, and want the best fighters, why aren’t they breaking their backs to make it happen?”
What do you expect the UFC to do?
1. Co-promote with M-1?
2. Sign Fedor to a 1 fight deal?
These are two MAJOR sticking points, and if Zuffa bent for these requests, they would be running a stupid business. No major sports league would do revenue sharing with a competing company. Most major sports teams would not invest only 1 year into an athlete like this. Yes, older players get one year deals near the end of their careers, but not in their prime. They are typically tied up for 3+ years.
So your post really makes zero sense at all.
The M-1 stuff Vadim is demanding is bogus. But I think it’s perfectly legitimate for Fedor to insist that the UFC allow him to compete in Sambo tournaments. UFC Fighters who want to compete in the ADCC, BJJ tournaments and the Olympics should also have that options open to them. This kind of thing can only be good for MMA and benefit the sport’s image.
The Champion’s Clause is also damn right unfair (to any fighter) and should be illegal. That clause would allow the UFC to extend Fedor’s contract for as long as he remains champ at the same pay (effectively not allowing Fedor’s management to renegotiate for a better deal as long as he has the belt). That clause is ridiculous and shouldn’t hold up in any US court.
M the B.
You pretty much said the same thing I did. Let me try to make my point another way. You point out that Lesnar was not a draw in K1. Ok great what changed between his two fights? Hte answer is the UFC was added to the mix. So what makes anyone think that adding the UFC to the Fedor mix would not have the same effect on his drawing power as it did on Lesnars?
Again I think that nobody can draw even 500k buys outside of the UFC right now. Not if you had Randy and Tito fight Brock and Chuck in a four way death match.
I remember before the first Affliction show people were predicting as low as 20k buys. I seem to remember them doing a lot better than that so who knows, maybe Fedor is a draw.
Now clearly he is not enough of a draw on his own to bring in 500k to a 1000k in ppv, but than again NOBODY is. Not chuck, not Brock nobody can bring in those numbers in MMA right now without the UFC. So to hold it against Fedor that he does not is fucking retarded.
orgs that over pay fighters and count on huge buyrates will fail. Remembe,r paying Big Tim 800,000 to lose has as much to do with Afflictions fall as does paying Fedor.
Finally I will say it again, I think Fedor is a much wider known fighter and I think he would draw more interest than people here seem to think. people follow greatness and Fedor is great. If he went to the UFC and went on a run that, coupled with the video library and the UFC hype machine, would have people speaking about him in Woods, Jordan, terms.
A common misconception is that the championship clause goes on forever. It does not. It last an additional 3 fights or one year.
Michael: I wasn’t referring to Affliction at all. It had nothing to do with my post, but I do agree their business model sucked. I am not claiming otherwise. Also, my description was about the present, REAL, sports world…not a perfect fantasy world. The best players demand the best terms on the contracts (money and incentives).
45: Short-term deals happend quite often with high level talent. And money is not the only thing that makes a contract the best offer.
If Fedor is part owner of M-1 as I have read in a couple places, then obviously wherever Fedor goes, M-1 goes. They benefit financially even if there is no “co-promotion.”