Emelianenko Ready to Seize Marquee (HL's from Sherdog & MMA Weekly articles)

Link to Sherdog's article

NEW YORK, Oct. 22 -- During his 34 years working in the entertainment industry, Mitchell Maxwell has seen many contracts. So Vadim Finkelchtein, the Russian manager of Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures), listened to the Broadway show producer when it came time to discuss a deal that was designed to deliver the heavyweight star to the UFC.

"I said, as an entertainment guy, you can't have anybody sign this," Maxwell told Sherdog.com following Monday's press conference to officially announce the M-1 Global mixed martial arts organization, for which he now sits as chairman. "It's too one-sided. You can't exploit somebody like this."


Link to MMA Weekly's article

Highlights from the two articles:
- Understand there will be hurdles in marketing Fedor in the US
- Wants to fight Randy, but respects him a great deal and wants to be friends with him
- Offered to send Fedor to the UFC to fight whoever is champ
- Offered UFC champ to fight Fedor for $1 MIL over his UFC deal plus $1MIL win bonus
- Expects UFC fighters to jump ship to M-1 when their contracts expire (isn't AA in contract negotiations?)

It seems to me that the UFC didn't lose Fedor in negotiations, Dana lost him through pure arrogance. Dana wants to protect his brand and what he built, and that's understandable. He doesn't believe in non-exclusivity or even likeness rights.

But it seems calling him (and/or his managers) "crazy russians" really pissed him off. to Fedor for sticking up for himself and not bending over for anyone!

a lot of people really didnt seem to understand how stupid that crazy comment was, assuming that dana really wanted to sign him. you dont have to be some expert on the soviet psyche to know thats not smart. what if he was trying to sign a black fighter and he said the problem with the negotiations were because blacks were crazy, or a jewish fighter and he said it was because jews are cheapskates? if he said that sort of thing about my heritage i wouldnt want to fight for him.

Wow, I just read MMA Weekly's article on the conference and it mentioned this:

“We’re not going to reserve our fighters to work just for us,” said Cox. “If the UFC gets Randy back and they call and want Fedor to fight, we’ll send him to the UFC."

Maxwell backed that up saying, “In Fedor’s contract with M-1 Global, we have a clause to offer the UFC champion $1,000,000 over and above what the UFC would offer their champion to fight Fedor, and $1,000,000 to the winner of that fight over the general purse for that fight.”

I like Josh Gross at Sherdog, but how could he miss this in his coverage??? THIS IS HUGE. Puts a lot of pressure on Dana.

LINK

I hope this shut's up the "Fedor is afraid" crowd. He put a clause in his contract that they have to offer fights to the UFC champ (for big $$) and will go to the UFC to fight if necessary.

Dana's head has gotten way too big for the UFC, IMO he is doing more damage that good right now. If the UFC lost Fedor in negotiations, then fine, but talking sh** about fighter and there camps is going too far, I am glad to see other organizations stepping up to chalange the UFC.

Hopefully this will give us some choice.

I hate giving money to Zuffa and Dana White. I feel like they are stealing from me.

If nothing else it might wake Dana up and let him know that we don't care about the UFC, just the fighters.

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Posted by Manfred

Wow, I just read MMA Weekly's article on the conference and it mentioned this:

“We’re not going to reserve our fighters to work just for us,” said Cox. “If the UFC gets Randy back and they call and want Fedor to fight, we’ll send him to the UFC."

Maxwell backed that up saying, “In Fedor’s contract with M-1 Global, we have a clause to offer the UFC champion $1,000,000 over and above what the UFC would offer their champion to fight Fedor, and $1,000,000 to the winner of that fight over the general purse for that fight.”

I like Josh Gross at Sherdog, but how could he miss this in his coverage??? THIS IS HUGE. Puts a lot of pressure on Dana.

LINK

I hope this shut's up the "Fedor is afraid" crowd. He put a clause in his contract that they have to offer fights to the UFC champ (for big $$) and will go to the UFC to fight if necessary.

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whoa...this company is gonna be big one from the looks of things...the ufc better watch out seriously...1 million over the ufc!! man ...huge I TOLD U SO from me to whoever was arguing with me on how fedor was "scared" of the ufc ..ha come on

So how long before they get Sobral ??, Kang, Filho, Sokodjou, Diaz, Arona, AA, Lindland, etc etc etc shall I continue

I think this is great for the sport and I cant wait for Babalu to be back game

IMO

some of those guys are already signed, but I'd love to see AA walk too

Im pretty srue they'll get barnett as well.

I think one reason why Maxwell is so out to freely let all this happen is also due to the fact he's no a face in MMA.He's not Dana White.Their's no ego for him to lose.He stated in one of those articles he had never even knew what MMA was up until this whole deal with M-1.He believes MMA is the future of sports so he jumped into it.


I can't wait to see how this turns out.If they let Fedor fight in UFC,Dana White will either have to swollow his Pride (no pun intended),and let it happen,or look like he backed out of letting possibly the greatest fight of the century happen.(fedor/couture).

Looks like he wants to crush the UFC by using them to expose M-1 fighters...Great plan lol.