How could he lose, all he does is fight hacks.

yeah 'hacks'

If Fedor sticks to the M1 co-promotion thing I don't think he will ever be in the UFC. What does the UFC have to gain from co-promoting? They already do better buys than any fight Fedor has been in, so the only people who really care about him are the hardcore fans anyway. And they are buying the decent UFC cards with or without Fedor in the fold.

LOL. Frank Mir and Heath Herring are world-class too.

Edit: Might as well through a 46 year old man who struggles to make 225.

Looks like Strikeforce it is then.

would be interesting to see some international numbers for some fedor fights, how he did in japan, how much the pride fights sold etc... i seriously can not believe anyone could be so oblivious that they think a co-promotion is fair when ufc can sell 1.5mm PPVs headlining and affliction didnt break 80k headlining fedor. there has to be some massive japanese/european market they are counting on. although if there was such a massive international interest for watching fedor fight, why did affliction snap like a twig so fast?

ps. fedor makes EVERYONE look like hack.

btw guys, as i said before, i am super hoping Nogs terrible shape was temporary and that he is back in his old form by the Coutore fight. assuming my wishful thinking is true and he mauls Coutore, what would you set the line at for Lesnar vs Nog?

This is just so ridicoulus im not sure if i should laugh or cry. Are these guys for real?

M1 is the WNBA of MMA (video on YouTube, def worth the time)..... this whole thing is just stupid

lesnar -500

THIS ****ING EMOTIONAL ROLLERCOASTER NEEDS TO END NOW. DANA, THIS GODDAMN BETTER BE AN ELABORATE HYPE-BUILDING SCHEME COOKED UP BETWEEN YOU AND VADIM. I WANT GOOD NEWS ON FRIDAY #¤)=(%#"=%(#%

lol, ur all such dana white hypefish

Not all.

I probably don't need to respond to this but... really?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Serious question: could it be that Fedor/M-1 are more concerned with breaking the UFC's strangehold on MMA and growing their business than "cementing Fedor's legacy," which he has said repeatedly he doesn't care about? I know it's not really a question that can be answered, but if true, we may indeed never see Fedor in the UFC. And it doesn't look like he really cares.

I really, really don't ****ing understand this and I'm pretty angry honestly. M1/Fedor/Vadim could make far more money just signing with the UFC and giving up their ******ed promotion.

I am sure that the UFC is offering truckloads of money for Fedor to sign with them. Seriously, say he fights 4 times and wins all four times, he'd probably end up making 4-5 million a fight, and perhaps more. Whoever said 1-2 million per fight above is hilariously lowballing imo. They would make him the highest paid fighter in their organization and would have no problem doing it.

If the M1 people are so hungry to leech off of Fedor's success, just let him go to the goddamn UFC.

YOU WILL NEVER MAKE 15-20 MILLION DOLLARS PROMOTING YOUR OWN SHOWS YOU RUSSIAN ****TARDS. NEVER.

A PPV M1 card headlined by Fedor would laughably draw like 25K PPV buys and they'd lose a ****-ton of money just trying to put it on. How exactly is Fedor going to get paid fighting for M-1?

Strikeforce can't pay that kind of money for sure. Dream might be able to pay out for a big NYE fight once a year, but they are not financially well at the moment either. They really can't afford to pay Fedor near what he could get in the UFC. Sengoku? LOL.

Fedor could easily give up the co-promoting bull**** and just play hardball on the dollar amount and get 15-20 million guaranteed for four fights. Fedor already said that the UFC is offering the highest dollar amount before, and if M1 gives up some of their demands (such as co-promotion) they could ask for an even higher number in return.

M1 will never even get remotely close to sniffing 20 million dollars from Fedor's name on their own. They won't get close with Strikeforce or Dream or Sengoku. What else is there?

WHY WILL THEY NOT JUST TAKE THE UFC'S ****ING MONEY. WHY WHY WHY WHY?

Also, more news.

Paul Daley signs with the UFC.

http://mmajunkie.com/news/15673/repo...t-ufc-deal.mma

Ben Rothwell and Chase Gormley have both signed with the UFC and their scheduled fight will be at UFC 104.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/...64467&name=mma

Also,

UFC rumored to be signing up to 20 fighters from Affliction's roster.

http://www.mmaforreal.com/2009/7/29/...-absorb-twenty
http://insidefights.com/2009/07/28/u...acts/#comments

UFC rumored to have reached a deal with ESPN to air the UFC in the UK on ESPN's new UK channel.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...C-TV-deal.html

The natural speculation is that once this deal is done, ESPN will see how it goes as a 'test run' for putting the UFC on ESPN/ABC here in the states.

Honestly, I hate to ramble, but it's what I do sometimes so I'm going to ramble. What other options does Fedor have?

Scott Coker is very conservative with salaries and conservative getting into complex/bad business deals. He's extremely unlikely to splurge on Fedor with lots of cash. He's unlikely to co-promote with M-1 given that Strikeforce is his baby he built from the very bottom up. He knows that co-promoting with M1 would make him a Zuffa target (which he currently is not).

Dream has no viable HW contenders. They also don't have the financial resources of the UFC. They could sign Fedor for a decent pay-day once a year to fight a freakshow on NYE, but that would be less money, fewer fights, less exposure, and lower competition for Fedor than if he went to the UFC. DREAM also doesn't seem likely to co-promote, although they might. Co-promotion happened with Affliction because Affliction didn't have an established brand so they didn't care. DREAM has already put on a dozen shows and has already built a name. There's really not a single advantage to DREAM other than perhaps getting an M1 sticker on the ring floor.

Sengoku is simply not a credible alternative imo. They're the Japanese strikeforce (roughly) and can't afford Fedor.

M1 promoting their own shows? How will they make any money? They certainly can't afford to pay Fedor millions because there's zero chance of them making millions. This is perhaps the worst idea of all.

Where else could Fedor possibly go?

Well I also can't imagine M-1 doing their own shows w/ Fedor. They have a history of "co-promoting" and letting the other org foot all the bills while they just provide Fedor.

And you're also right on Strikeforce and Sengoku imo. Both use conservative spending strategies and Coker likes to play nice w/ Zuffa. He takes their scraps and unwanteds so making a play for Fedor would be too aggressive for him.

I expect Fedor to end up in Dream. He'll probably fight at this years NYE card (and maybe on one of their Oct cards as well?). Hopefully they'll make the Overeem fight, maybe Barnett, and then who knows. Gimmicks. Winner of Super Hulk? Minowaman? HMC II? I doubt he'll fight fellow Red Devil Mousasi.

Really it wouldn't be all that bad (at least in the beginning). Barnett and Overeem are arguably the best tests for Fedor apart from Lesnar.

I agree that Dream is the most likely non-UFC destination, but I really can't understand why they'd do it. Dream is not on very sound financial footing right now. There are rumors they are having trouble re-negotiating their TV deal, although they will probably get it done imo. But they haven't even come close to PRIDE level popularity and probably couldn't even pay 1/2 of what the UFC would be offering.

Maybe Fedor or Finklestein has a strong dislike for Dana.

Many fighters in the UFC dislike Dana, hes just one man in the organization, just the face man, the brothers (not gonna try to spell their last name, to lazy to look it up... but will write this sentence hmm)control alot more then he does AFAIK. I dont they would not sign just on the basis of spite, but probably make some interesting demands in case of it perhaps.

I think dana owns like 10% of the shares, and the other 90% is fertitta owned.

According to sherdog, Coker is willing to co-promote.