Quote:
Originally Posted by zacd
^^^
Both of the Affliction PPV's did less than 80k buys w/ Fedor and former UFC HW champs.
The internet isn't a good place to gauge how popular Fedor is in North America. Most of the UFC's audience won't know who he is or will have only heard of him briefly through some Affliction advertising or one of their friends who is "hardcore into MMA".
So that's why I don't think the UFC is ready to bend over for him yet. Right now Fedor and his team are the ones that have to be willing to negotiate.
And don't forget UFC 100 was a stacked event that was super-hyped and considered "historical" and all that. Brock brings in TONS of buys but that particular event had a lot more to offer than just one HW title fight.
the thing is, with a good hype machine behind fedor if they give it a month+joe rogan talking it up on PPVs+PRIDE footage= Fedor being extremely viable from a PPV buy-rate standpoint. Honestly, they'd just have to show the Randleman suplex several times and that'd be able to draw in some buys right from that
Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeyPatriot
I'd guess that most UFC casuals know who Fedor is, even if they haven't seen him fight. Fedor + UFC hype machine + Lesnar = PPV records, imo.
^^this. Rogan has mentioned fedor several times on PPV broadcasts in the past and you can be damn sure that he alone would be able to get a lot of casual UFC fans to know about Fedor just from him talking about it on PPV
Quote:
Originally Posted by caught_clean
Yea the result is true of the clause but its still not fair to the fighter. Its hard to get both I guess.
UFC is damned if they do, damned if they don't. While its not like there's a ton of options at this point for a top fighter, one has to look at UFCs POV for this. They are a massive promotion and would be foolish to even have the possibility of a belt holder leaving their promotion with the belt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gehrig
If the sport continues to grow, Fedor doesn't lose and Strikeforce starts making money selling PPVs, Fedor might be worth $15 million a fight in 3-4 years. So long as he didn't sign a contract in 2009 that never ended
strikeforce is a very long way away from being a real competitor to UFC on a national stage. Strikeforce would also be foolish to try to compete against UFC right now at this point, they are a major regional promotion and its in their best interest to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Strikeforce can't afford Fedor w/o some serious silent money coming in right now anyway