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Fedor’s Manager Says He Wants into the UFC, Questions Dana White’s Integrity

Vadim Finkelstein is an interesting character.He’s best known as the manager of Fedor Emelianenko. This used to mean something, but these days it’s far less prestigious than it used to be. Not according to Finkelstein, however. This guy is still l…

Vadim Finkelstein is an interesting character.

He’s best known as the manager of Fedor Emelianenko. This used to mean something, but these days it’s far less prestigious than it used to be.

Not according to Finkelstein, however. This guy is still living in 2007. It’s as though Emelianenko’s losses never happened.

Witness:

UFC President Dana White recently said that he has zero interest in signing Fedor…

VF: You need to know Dana. If he says he has no interest in signing Fedor, then in fact, he really wants to. He says one thing, and doing another. How can you not want a fighter who can bring millions? Any fight with Fedor could break all the rating records in the UFC.

The only time Emelianenko would’ve brought “millions” to the UFC would have been potential fights with Randy Couture and Brock Lesnar. But that was back before he lost three fights in a row, and his true value has significantly declined since those days.

Maybe you should make the first step?

VF: We are open for dialogue. It’s just that Dana White thinks that we will come to him, kneel down and say: “We are ready for any conditions to sign a contract.” Of course, this will never happen. Fedor deserves nothing but respect. But like I said, there’s still a high demand for Fedor. We are ready to have Fedor fighting in the UFC, it’s just that we need a normal offer. And the fact that White is always saying that offered us everything “on a silver platter” is a lie.

We’ll never know exactly what the UFC offered Fedor’s camp during those long-ago negotiations. It’ll be a game of he-said, she-said until the end of time.

What we do know, however, is that Finkelstein is still holding on to the notion that he can get some type of special contract from the UFC, even with Emelianenko suffering three losses. He’s no longer the fighter he once was. He’s no longer the minimal pay per view draw he once was.

Finkelstein says they need “a normal offer.” No, you don’t need a normal offer. If all they needed was a normal offer, we would’ve seen Emelianenko vs. Brock Lesnar at Cowboys Stadium several years ago, like the UFC wanted.

A “normal offer” is what every fighter in the UFC gets, and that’s not what Finkelstein is after. He’s still looking for co-promotion and other special treatment, and that’s never going to fly.

We’re never going to see Fedor Emelianenko in the UFC, and Vadim Finkelstein is to blame.

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UFC 146: Mayhem Miller Says He’ll Quit If He Doesn’t Beat C.B. Dolloway

It’s no secret that Jason “Mayhem” Miller came dangerously close to being fired after his poor effort against Michael Bisping in December. I was the camera operator when Dana White told Heavy’s Megan Olivi that he wasn’t sure if Miller would get anothe…

It was apparent to us, standing there in White’s suite at the Palms Casino Resort, that Miller was on the cusp of losing his job after one fight back in the company and a great season of The Ultimate Fighter.

Thankfully, Miller has been given a reprieve. But he’ll still find his back up against the wall when he faces C.B. Dolloway at UFC 146. A loss by either man will likely send them packing from the company. According to Miller, who appeared last night on Spike TV’s MMA Uncensored Live, the UFC won’t even need to fire him if he loses to Dolloway. He’ll quit.

I’m on my own chopping block. If I lose to him, I’m quitting. I don’t even deserve to be in there. There’s not an easy fight in the UFC. He doesn’t deserve to be in there with me, and I’ll prove it. I’ll prove it in under a round, because…I tend to get tired in the second round. We’re both in a similar spot in our career I guess. We’re both on the chopping block. That’s fine. I’m really happy with that.

It’d be quite unfortunate to see Miller released from the UFC after just two fights. But if he puts on the kind of stinker performance he did against Bisping, it would be warranted.

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Adding Miguel Torres vs. Michael McDonald to UFC 146 Was the Right Call

The fact that the bantamweight bout between Miguel Torres and Michael McDonald was ever included on the preliminary card at UFC 145 is ridiculous.Yes, I understand the reasoning behind it. The UFC wants strong fights on their FX telecast. They want bou…

The fact that the bantamweight bout between Miguel Torres and Michael McDonald was ever included on the preliminary card at UFC 145 is ridiculous.

Yes, I understand the reasoning behind it. The UFC wants strong fights on their FX telecast. They want bouts that will entice the fans to order the pay-per-view event, and so they have historically loaded up that show with great fights. It’s a good business deal.

But Torres vs. McDonald is an exception, not the rule. It’s a fight with real title implications. The winner of this fight is either going to get an immediate title shot (if it’s Torres) or find himself very close to it (if it’s McDonald).

On top of that, it’s a fight featuring the crafty veteran against the kid who many believe could be the future of his division.

Basically, it’s a hell of a fight, and I obviously support the UFC’s decision to move Torres vs. McDonald to the UFC 145 pay-per-view, which will now feature six fights instead of the usual five.

“Fighting on Pay-Per-View is special to me,” said Torres. “I would watch the big boxing cards with my father as a kid, and my father would well up with pride and emotion when guys like Julio Cesar Chavez fought. I’d never seen my father show so much emotion and I am proud to become an extension of that great Mexican fighting legacy in the UFC.”

Moving this card to the pay per view was the right call. It should’ve been one of the featured attractions from the very beginning, but I’ll take what I can get.

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Dan Hardy Would Love to Trade Punches with Nick Diaz, and I Hope They Do

A fight between Dan Hardy and Nick Diaz seems like something that would be considered way off in the distance, at least in 2012. Diaz is serving a suspension, and even if he is magically able to get that suspension reduced at his hearing next mont…

A fight between Dan Hardy and Nick Diaz seems like something that would be considered way off in the distance, at least in 2012.

Diaz is serving a suspension, and even if he is magically able to get that suspension reduced at his hearing next month, he’ll still be fighting guys near the top of the division.

Hardy is not one of those guys at the top of the division. He’s lost four in a row, and his next fight—against Duane Ludwig at UFC 146 in May—will be his first bout since 2008 to appear on the preliminary portion of the broadcast. Hardy would need to string together four or more wins in order to even reach Diaz’s territory.

That’s not stopping Hardy from talking about the potential bout, however:

I would love to fight him, I’m a huge fan of his. He’s a very entertaining guy and he comes to fight and nobody really does that anymore. I respect that and by all means I would trade some punches with him.

I believe Hardy when he says he’d stand and trade punches with Diaz, mostly because he’s like that. It’s his opponents who promise to do the same—like Anthony Johnson did a year ago this week—and then wrestle him to death. You can’t fault them for the strategy, because it’s a winning one, but it’s still a disappointment.

Nick Diaz vs. Dan Hardy would be all kinds of awesome.

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Dana White Happy with TUF Brazil Ratings, Discusses Spoilers Being Revealed

It’s been an interesting week for the UFC’s operations in Brazil.The debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil, which aired Sunday night on Globo TV across the country, pulled in a strong 12 million viewers. That number underscores the extreme popu…

It’s been an interesting week for the UFC’s operations in Brazil.

The debut episode of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil, which aired Sunday night on Globo TV across the country, pulled in a strong 12 million viewers. That number underscores the extreme popularity of the sport and the promotion in the South American country, and it firmly cements Brazil as the current mecca of mixed martial arts.

It’s not all roses, however. The R7 Network is a major competitor for Globo TV in Brazil, and they weren’t happy when the UFC decided to sign a deal with Globo. In response, they released the names of what are alleged to be the finalists for the entire season of The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil.

That’s the kind of thing that would get a major network in a lot of trouble in the United States. Imagine if The Ultimate Fighter on FX were still a taped show. What would happen if Spike TV released the finalists for the show on their own website?

I used to visit the Ultimate Fighter gym on a regular basis when the show was on Spike, mostly in the early days of filming the show. Before I ever stepped foot in the place, I was required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that said I wouldn’t reveal anything I learned until after the broadcast of the show.

If I broke that non-disclosure agreement? I’d be sued for a lot more money than I’ll likely ever be worth.

But White says Brazil is not like the United States when it comes to things like this (via MMAWeekly.com):

I don’t know if you saw this but another channel, another channel we were talking to, then went out and said these are the finalists in The Ultimate Fighter, and tried to like sabotage the whole show. The crazy thing is if you went out and did that, you think you’re hurting the UFC? You think you’re hurting Globo? Globo’s the top network in the country. You’re hurting the kids, the contestants of the show. That’s who you’re hurting, the guys in the competition.

Wanderlei Silva tweeted that the spoilers for the show were inaccurate. But regardless, White has a point: the only thing R7 did by revealing the finalists is lessen interest in the actual show itself, and that hurts the fighters on the show.

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UFC Heavyweight Cain Velasquez Knew He Wouldn’t Stay Undefeated Forever

Despite his one-minute loss to Junior dos Santos last November, Cain Velasquez remains one of the best heavyweights in the world.Actually, I’d say he’s the best overall heavyweight in the world, despite no longer holding the title. After all, anybody c…

Despite his one-minute loss to Junior dos Santos last November, Cain Velasquez remains one of the best heavyweights in the world.

Actually, I’d say he’s the best overall heavyweight in the world, despite no longer holding the title. After all, anybody can get clipped with the kind of punch Velasquez did. The loss doesn’t diminish his skills in the slightest.

Velasquez told Yahoo’s Kevin Iole that he knew he wouldn’t stay undefeated forever:

I’m a realist. I knew I wasn’t going to go through my career undefeated. That’s how this sport is. People lose. Even the best guys lose. I knew as soon as it was over, I had to pick myself back up and keep going forward. I do have some extra motivation now, for sure, but I wish that for that night things had gone differently and that the fans had gotten the fight they came to see.

That’s a smart line of thinking for any fighter in the game. The level of talent in the game today far surpasses, at least from an overall sense, the kind of heavyweight talent that existed back when Fedor Emelianenko was running up his undefeated record. You can be a dominant heavyweight and still run into someone with the power to put you on your back with an errant punch behind your ear.

Velasquez still has the best wrestling pedigree in the UFC’s heavyweight division, at least until Daniel Cormier makes his way over from Strikeforce. He also has brutal punching power, speed and a gas tank that will enable him to fight forever without getting tired.

I have a feeling Frank Mir‘s going to find this out the hard way when he faces off with Velasquez at UFC 146 in May.

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