Fedor Emelianenko: The Baddest Man In the Whole Damn Town
A lot of people will call Fedor Emelianenko a wuss. A lot will call him a fool or a pawn or a coulda-been.
There are points to be made with each of those adjectives in describing the fighter known in many circles as the best pound-for-pound fighter in mixed martial arts. After week long negotiations that Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White said were extremely one-sided, Emelianenko simply would not sign to the fight promoter, host to about 90 of the sport’s top 100 fighters, largest paycheck and most mainstream exposure.
This is why he will be called every adjective in the book and why the one I choose to use is “badass.”
The backstory is simple: Emelianenko’s old employer went out of business. So who wants the 30-1 Russian’s contract? Everybody. The UFC especially. They’ve wanted this guy for a while. He’s a perfect match. So they offered him everything; more money than he’s ever made, the ability to fight in the style that he wants and the ability to advertise the Russian fight promotional company (M-1 Global) that acts as his agent. The UFC gave him everything the heavyweight asked for, except one thing …
M-1 Global treats Fedor much like a state-paid employee, so money is not really any object with him. Additionally, fighting sambo – his preferred combat style – wasn’t much of a concession. It’s mixed martial arts after all, keyword being mixed. And as far as the advertisements … Emelianenko’s people wanted more than their name on his shorts or a banner placed next to the cage. In exchange for the fighter, M-1 Global wanted to co-promote, which means M-1 Global, a Russian fight organization that had never promoted a fight even a third as popular as one of UFC’s fights and had promoted far fewer of them to boot, was now asking for 50 percent ownership of the company.
It’s the same as if in exchange for my brand new couch, you agreed to grant me 50 percent ownership of the house you planned to put it in.
And if you’re the type that doesn’t see anything wrong with that deal, my phone number is 1-800-URA-FOOL. Give me a call.
The Emelianenko deal never got done and he ended up signing with a smaller rival fight promoter who agreed to let M-1 Global absorb half of its company. There’s some pretty sweet sound bites from White articulating exactly how he feels about the whole debacle. (audio)
“My reaction is Fedor is a [expletive] joke,” White told the Yahoo! Cagewriter blog on Monday.”[Emelianenko] turns down a huge deal and the opportunity to face the best in the world to fight nobodies, for no money. Fedor is a [expletive].”
And yeah, White sounds like a guy saving face in front of his buddies after seeing his girlfriend with a new fling, but do you know what we call that new fling? We call him a badass. Even if we don’t say it out loud, we think it.The idea that White is setting up Emelianenko as a fool for not wanting to fight the best and turning his back on his fans is ludicrous when you look at it from Emelianenko’s point of view.
What’s Emelianenko’s point of view? I have no idea. Neither do you. Neither does White. Before last week’s contract negotiations, White had never spoken to Emelianenko and even in their conference call interactions last week, Fedor was on the line but said nothing.
In a text message to the Yahoo! Cagewriter blog, Dana White took this angle: “…It is VERY obvious Fedor doesn’t want to fight the best and doesn’t give a [expletive] about the fans.”
Fair enough. Perhaps “doesn’t need” is more appropriate there than “doesn’t want” but if the endgame of the fight business is to please fans, why didn’t White just sign over half of his billion-dollar organization? Dumb as it may have been to do, it would have pleased the fans.
If the Russian was interested in his fans, wouldn’t he act a little warmer toward them? The guy’s like Drago right up until Rocky patriotically pounds the Bolshevik out of him. Emelianenko has never presented himself as a guy who cared about his image or about being labeled the best. He’s never appeared to care about either. Randy Couture agrees with me. Tell ‘em, Randy:
“I don’t think it’s about money for [M-1]. It’s about continuing to build their brand of M-1 Global. To attach that to the UFC helps them tremendously. It wasn’t about the numbers that were on the table. It’s a brand he has a vested interest in so he’s going to stick with them.”
Emelianenko and his management identified power and respect as that which they most desired from a contract and they had the power to get what they wanted or walk. His people have said he cares about being respected, sure. But not by fans. Respect to Fedor, is getting his way.
Strikeforce gave M-1 what they wanted, UFC didn’t.
Now everybody better get out of Fedor’s way.
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Photos courtesy of Flickr
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