Earlier today Fedor Emelianenko signed with California based MMA promotion Strikeforce. For the most part Strikeforce has been a good promotion putting on good fights and able to get bigger names at decent prices for one fight deals. This signifies a deal saying we want to go head to head with the big name of MMA, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). Strikeforce has always been seen as a thrifty company saving money everywhere they can without hurting the product that takes place in their ring. Signing Fedor takes a huge step in the other direction as it is probably a six figure deal and he is once again not fighting the best fighters in the world with the exception of Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem.
If your asking, "Why didn't Fedor sign with the UFC?" it is actually quite simple. Fedor's management company, M-1 Global wanted a co-promote the show and take home a good deal of the profit for them selves. The UFC was unwilling to co-promote an event but were willing to give Fedor everything else he wanted, and if the money numbers are accurate Emelianenko would have earned five million dollars per fight which would be absolutely insane considering the fact that Brock Lesnar and Georges St. Pierre both earned only $400,000 at UFC 100 from the UFC (These were the top disclosed payouts excluding bonuses payed out for UFC 100) not including money from their respective sponsors. UFC right now is the top MMA organization in the world and is one of few MMA organization that is making profits and is able to pay fighters in the six figure range to the best fighters of their organization even though the low end guys are known for only getting paid $6,000 and that is if they win ($3,000 if they just fight and lose).
So why do I say that Strikeforce will be going into the grave. The companies that Fedor has worked for have all gone under, RINGS, Pride FC, and Affliction have all gone belly up due to various reasons. This is not to say Fedor is at fault for these companies going under. Where the fault lies for these promotions going under actually has various reasons. RINGS was in a tough Japanese market having to compete with big organizations such as Pride and kickboxing promotion K-1. Pride FC was owned by Yakuza and when information of this went public it literally was taken off all channels in Japan and the UFC bought them out with the intention of having Pride continue to run in Japan and UFC running in North America bringing them together once or twice a year for super fights however ZUFFA (UFC's parent company) could not get a foothold in Japan due to the business tactics the Japanese took against ZUFFA. Affliction was doomed almost before it began, the clothing company decided it was going to start running MMA shows and go head to head with the UFC. Affliction mostly known for their T-shirts that support MMA fighters such as Georges St. Pierre, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell and various other top end fighters decided to pay amounts for fighters that made some people shake their heads in disbelief. Andrei Arlovski who fought Fedor in January of 2009 was given a base salary of 1.5 million dollars was KO'ed in the first round with a devastating right hand. Affliction's final straw came when Fedor's next scheduled opponent tested positive for steroids, combined with a slow gate for the show the card was eventually cancelled and Affliction went back to it's role of the shirt promoter of UFC. However these are not the problems facing Strikeforce. There problem is that they have already given up some ownership to CBS who owns the channel Showtime which shows the Strikeforce events live, but also that Fedor's management group, M-1 Global is wanting to co-promote which means they will be taking home some of the profits. The exact percentage number is unknown to me at this time but if it is in the area of 25% then Strikeforce could be in major trouble. In order for any company to stay in the MMA game they want to be making profits after a while and Strikeforce has been doing that. However they are now not getting approximately 45% of the profits if the number that I have for M-1 Global is accurate (CBS has a 20% ownership of Strikeforce). Strikeforce will be put into a corner into which they might not be able to escape from since the UFC has pretty much every other marketable name and familiar name to the casual MMA viewer who will only tune in when Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture for example is on the fight card (They even have popular street thug Kimbo Slice on the upcoming of The Ultimate Fighter).
With all this having been said I hope Strikeforce survives but I don't see how they can since they have pretty much said were going head to head with the UFC, everybody else who has didn't come off so well.
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