I’m not sure. If he lost then 2 might have done it for his contract, but if he had fought 2 and won they might have been able to keep him for a fixed period after the 2nd one based on the last fight being for the championship. I’m not sure if their normal champion clause is based on when/if the championship is won or if it also counts successful defenses. Maybe somebody else has specifics on that.

–Darin

UFC blew it, and any organization that REALLY LOVED mma as Dana claims Zuffa does, I think would have made the fight happen when it should have happened. They let a historical match-up that we’ll probably argue about for years, go by the wayside, and if it happens now (which I doubt) it’s for the love of money, (which is what it was before) not love of mma, a sense of obligation to the fans , or even a desire to do the right thing.

Too little too late, Sam.

If their goal was to just pocket a few million dollars, they wouldn’t have taken out loans for $350 million dollars to help expand their business. Zuffa took out all of these loans to help expand to England, Mexico, the Philippines, etc.

A few million off of a show… not even worth a second thought to them.

This hyping of this fight is comical, really. Randy wants it for his final payday, he has everything to win and nothing to lose.

randy should just go fight and finish his contract.

if fedor really wants to fight randy, he can do so in the UFC. what is preventing him? probably the fact that there’s a good chance he will lose in a cage. if Randy gets Fedor against the cage, look out. Fedor has no experience there.

apparently Randy was angered about the amount of money offered to Fedor. it must have been a substantial amount. all Randy needs to do is ask for the same as Fedor gets. ufc would probably cough it up somehow.

With that added, we would get the fight, and the best HW and most popular UFC fighter, both in the UFC.

Of course Fedor has a 3 fight deal with Affliction in the US, so he would have to get FINKelstein to get him out of that as well.

Wouldn’t it be hilarious if that was agreed to and UFC vs Couture, became Affliction vs Fedor???

Of course I think Atencio may not be to upset to get rid of his agreement with Fedor.

I also want to add that it is 13 hours difference between Moscow and the west coasta and 10 hours difference between Moscow and the east coast

Randy you let your fame get to you, you are not worth 10 mil your not even worth 6 mil, now if randy said one to two mil then i could see that happening but 10 million are you kidding me

There are stocks with private companies (how else can you split ownership?). The only difference is that the stocks are privately owned and are not sold over the counter.

The UFC will never take the deal. Why? They don’t need to. Why help co-promote any competitor when you’re the dominant promotion? The UFC doesn’t need the money. They don’t want to promote an alternative fighter who may be better than a fighter on their roster. They don’t want to help promote M-1 who may become a competitor in the future. Co-promotion is the opposite of counter programming. If the UFC go for the short term gain (i highly doubt that the PPV will do blockbuster business like many people believe; Fedor can’t sell PPV…period, period, period!), they will only help a fledgling promotion like M-1 to gain exposure and financial capital. Furthermore, this deal would give exposure to a fighter like Fedor who they don’t control. This deal is one-side for M-1.

It’s a bad business proposition and the Fertittas will never bite.

In fact, whether people want to hear it or not, it’s in the UFC’s best interest if this fight never happens at all. Think about it. No matter who wins, it’s a lose-lose situation for the UFC, as whoever won would be considered the undisputed #1 heavyweight and the UFC wouldn’t have either under contract.

The only way it’d make any sense at all is if Fedor signed with the UFC and since it’s clear that’s not going to happen, the UFC will just do everything it can to prevent it from ever happening.

Time to wake up, guys…

First off, most everyone seems to start the discussion on this subject with the premise that the reason this fight still won’t happen is that the UFC won’t budge from their demands. Nobody seems to start off by saying, “Im not optimistic this will happen, because it isn’t clear whether Vadim Finklestein has changed his policies towards working with…”

I think this difference highlights the problems with making your plan happen. Why should the world leader in MMA decide to bend to the demands of a much smaller fish in the same pond? If your plan were even possible to be implemented, Zuffa would have a hard time promoting a fight in Russia to an American PPV audience. Time differences would make it very hard to plan for, and without the UFC branding for the promotion, it would be a stretch to think it would be a large PPV success. So even if it were a mild PPV success, the upside for the Zuffa would realistically be little more than a few million dollars, at best, once the profits were split 50/50. I’m not sure this upside is worth it for them to make such a drastic change in their policies for a single event that doesn’t really help them long-term. If the UFC is a billion dollar company, a million or two in profit just isn’t worth it for such massive concessions.

Outside of the lack of financial incentive on Zuffa’s part, there are also several other problems. First, I doubt M-1 has the ability to underwrite anything. M-1 (meaning Finklestein) has always sought partners to bankroll his efforts, from Bodog, to the investors behind M-1 Global and Monte Cox, to Affliction. Finklestein has never shown the ability on his own to promote a show of this size.

Another complication is the enforcement of contract laws in Russia. The problem being… there is no enforcement. They can write this contract however they want – that Zuffa retains the rights to such and such, and Finklestein has the rights to this or that, or it is prohibited to market as UFC vs. WAMMA – the reality is there isn’t much to ensure that is handled according to the contract outside of the United States.

This fight also gives the UFC little avenue for making future money off of either man. Win or lose, Couture will likely retire. Fedor will never work with the UFC again, unless these same circumstances are met. So really, this scenario only presents a way for the UFC to make a little money. I’m not sure they want to set a precedent like this just to pocket a couple million dollars. This is requiring the UFC to bend on 90% of their demands, and Finklestein to bend on 10% of his. For this fight to realistically happen, it is Finklestein who needs to give up the majority of concessions, since the UFC has little reason to budge.

Well all he has to do is make the fight happen in the Octagon and make it for the WAMMA belt only. So his HW belt isn’t in jeopardy.