Strikeforce Fedor vs. Silva: Will Fedor vs. UFC's Brock Lesnar Ever Happen?

Nick CaronFeb 12, 2011

The term “super fight” sometimes gets thrown around too loosely, but it is completely appropriate when talking about a potential bout between the legendary Fedor Emelianenko and former UFC Heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar.

He has only had seven professional fights, but the former professional wrestler Lesnar is already the most popular fighter in mixed martial arts. According to MMApayout.com, the pay-per-view events he has headlined throughout his short career have been some of the most-purchased events in the sport’s history.

Since 2008, cards featuring Lesnar have averaged over one million buys. This number dwarfs any other UFC fighter, with only Georges St. Pierre even coming close to him at an average of 889,000 buys. No other fighter even breaks 750,000 views on average.

That professional wrestling background must be working, because people love to love—and love to hate—Brock Lesnar.

No fighter in the history of the sport has had such a difficult start to his career. Lesnar has already faced up-and-comers Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez, as well as former UFC champions Frank Mir and Randy Couture.

Although those fights have obviously been big pay-per-view draws, the biggest fight for Lesnar actually remains outside the UFC, in the form of the man who was the last PRIDE Heavyweight champion, “The Last Emperor” Fedor Emelianenko.

Fedor is widely regarded as the greatest heavyweight mixed martial artist of all time and held the crown of No. 1 heavyweight for years before a surprising submission loss to Fabricio Werdum back in June.

While the loss has him ranked as low as fourth among heavyweights in the rankings now, a convincing win over fellow top 10 heavyweight Antonio Silva could easily see Emelianenko back near the top of the worldwide rankings.

The UFC hype machine does an amazing job of promoting fights that no one would even care about if they happened outside of the organization, so just imagine the kind of buildup they could create for a heavyweight dream matchup between their biggest cash cow, Brock Lesnar, and the man who is so good that he is considered the best heavyweight ever, despite having never stepped foot inside of the UFC cage.

Fedor has had the problem of fighting outside of the UFC, so the big sports media outlets like ESPN don’t regularly show highlights of his fights. If he was signed by the UFC, this fight—and one against Randy Couture—would be what everyone wants to see. It would be all over ESPN and the hype would be bigger than any fight we have seen before.

The money this fight would make would be astronomical. If you think the potential fight between Anderson Silva and Georges St. Pierre is going to make a lot of money, just wait until you see what a Lesnar vs. Fedor fight would do.

So what are the real chances that we will see Fedor sign with the UFC?

In July of 2009, UFC President Dana White told MMAFighting’s Michael David Smith that he wanted Fedor in the UFC.

"This whole Fedor thing has been going on and on and on," White said. "I keep saying this and that about him and he keeps waiting. Eventually, Fedor's going to be here. I want Fedor. I want him to come to the UFC and everything else. We'll end up getting that deal done. And then we'll do Brock vs. Fedor, and it'll be a huge fight."

But over a year and a half later, we’re still waiting to see Fedor in the UFC.

In fact, Fedor just signed a four fight deal with Strikeforce in January, which will likely keep him locked up in the organization until around 2013, judging by his recent history of having only about two fights per year.

At that pace, we have to wonder if Fedor will still be willing to sign with the UFC, or if he’ll still have the physical ability to continue fighting at all.

Rumors about Emelianenko’s retirement have been floating around for some time now and they really picked up after his loss to Werdum last June. His manager, M-1 Global’s President Vadim Finkelchtein, dismissed these rumors when informing the public about Fedor’s newest contract, stating that Fedor wanted to continue fighting.

Still, two years from now is a long time away and things could definitely change between now and then, especially if Fedor loses again during that time frame. Judging by the talent he will be facing in this Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament, there’s a very good chance that he could be staring at another loss in the very near future, even as early as tonight against Antonio Silva. By then, Fedor may be looking at retirement.

So if the fight isn’t going to happen in the UFC, then how about outside the UFC? How likely is it that Strikeforce could bring in Brock Lesnar in order to put together this huge fight?

Well, the current outlook isn’t looking very good. Lesnar will be coaching the upcoming season of The Ultimate Fighter against Junior Dos Santos, whom he will meet in a fight following the show to determine the No. 1 contender for the UFC Heavyweight championship currently held by Cain Velasquez.

Word is that Lesnar only has one fight remaining on his UFC contract, but he is very likely to re-sign with the company that gave him his chance to be a star in mixed martial arts, which just so happens to be the biggest MMA organization in the world.

The bottom line for Lesnar is that fighting is about the money. Sure, he wants to prove himself as being the best or among the best in the world, but at the end of the day, he would rather fight Shane Carwin for $400,000 in the UFC than fight Fedor for what would likely amount to considerably less than that when all is said and done.

And who could really blame him? The UFC is the biggest MMA organization in the world, he’s going to make more money there than he could elsewhere and he’s going to get much more publicity there than he would fighting in Strikeforce or any other organization.

Brock Lesnar has really two options if the rumor that his contract with the UFC will be up after his fight with Dos Santos—resign or retire.

Unfortunately, all of these contract situations add up to the conclusion that it is very unlikely that we will ever see the dream fight between Brock Lesnar and Fedor Emelianenko that so many of us have been dreaming about and calling for.

It sucks for us as fans that the “business” of mixed martial arts has to get in the way of determining who the best fighters truly are, but that’s just the way it is.

For now, we’ll have to watch on as UFC President Dana White continues to bash the greatest heavyweight of all time in the media. In the back of our minds, we all know he’s doing it to help promote his own brand while playing down the competition—but we still want to see Fedor go in there and shut him up once and for all.