Dan White's UFC Checkbook May Not Be Enough To Buy Fedor Emelianenko's Loyalties

What does Fedor Emelianenko want?

Now that Affliction Entertainment has collapsed, it's time to once again consider the negotiations between Fedor Emelianenko and the UFC.

If you talk to MMA fans who haven't taken the time to look into the Fedor/UFC situation, they'll tell you some pretty incorrect things about what Fedor wants.

According to many people like this, the problem is simply that the dollar gap in contract talks is simply too big.  The UFC just needs to suck it up, and pay Fedor what he deserves.  Because, according to them, the UFC's failure to sign Fedor due to nothing more than Dana White's greed.

Yet while business considerations are behind the disagreement's between the UFC and Fedor, the matter is actually fairly complex, and to understand it you must understand some more things about Fedor Emelianenko.

Fedor makes his business decisions not just as a fighter, but also as a Russian, a shareholder of M-1 Global, a Sambo practitioner, and a Red Devil Sport Club member.  His various contract demands have reflected these different associations.

One of the demands apparently made by the Emelianenko camp, is that other Red Devil fighters be signed to fight at UFC events.  This seems like something that could actually be achieved, but certainly provides some complication to the problem.

Fedor also feels responsible to compete for Russia in Sambo tournaments.  The UFC has stated that they would not allow Fedor to compete in them, were he to sign with the UFC.

Fedor has seemed to show some patriotic tendencies.  Yet even if his desire to compete in Sambo was not due to patriotism, there are other aspects of being Russian to consider.

Fedor's biggest fan and cheerleader, Steve Cofield, has suggested that it might be the case that the Russian government is paying Fedor unmatchable amounts of money, and that the Russian government demands Fedor to compete in Sambo in return.

But the biggest likely problem, is Fedor's relationship with M-1 Global.

M-1 is another kickboxing and MMA promotion, not unlike the UFC.  M-1 has demanded that Fedor's events be co-promoted with M-1 Global.

Furthermore, M-1 wants to have non-exclusive fight contracts.

In other words, they want to be able to fight for the UFC title against Brock Lesnar, and then immediately be able to fight in another organization.

This is the biggest stumbling block for the UFC.

If Fedor were to leave the UFC after beating Lesnar, it would be a massive coup.  Fan interest in Fedor would be at an all-time high, and the UFC would lose the legitimacy of it's heavyweight title.

While the UFC would reap a massive payday from the potential Lesnar/Fedor match, the potential cost of losing their champion to another fight promotion is too big for the UFC to risk.

It simply doesn't make any business sense.  The only thing that might make them think about it, is if they are so confident in Lesnar's ability to beat Fedor that they don't think a non-exclusive contract will matter.

The UFC was once confident that Chuck Liddell could beat Rampage Jackson in Pride FC.  I don't think they will make the same mistake again.

The UFC is willing to offer Fedor one of the richest contracts in the history of MMA.  But the only reason they can do this, is because they have spent so much effort building their reputation and brand.

In the end, Fedor needs the UFC more than the UFC needs Fedor.  At UFC 100, we saw that the UFC simply doesn't need Fedor to sell PPV while the Affliction debacle clearly shows that as good as he is, Fedor needs marketable adversaries to do the same.

We recently witnessed the trouble that Affliction endured in trying to find a replacement for Josh Barnett.  When injury forced Frank Mir out of his fight with Brock Lesnar, the UFC countered by throwing in Evans vs Machida on short notice.

Only the UFC can do such things.

Furthermore, the UFC owns the entire Pride FC video library, which would allow them to promote a potential Fedor fight with nearly limitless archived footage of previous Fedor fights.

The video library will probably get bigger if Affliction and the UFC can come to a deal on footage from the two Affliction cards.

In conclusion, while apparently M-1 Global once demanded that the UFC build a stadium in Russia, I don't believe that M-1 will make that demand in particular.

The question, however, is not whether the UFC will drop it's demands for exclusive contracts and a Champion's clause. They won't.

Nor is the question simply a matter of money. The UFC is willing to spend a lot of money, as long as it makes business sense.

The question is this: Can the UFC's offer be big enough for Fedor's camp to drop its demand for non-exclusive contracts?