Dave Meltzer: The Russians may force Fedor to fight
Wrestling Observer Radio last night featured Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez discussing Fedor and Strikeforce: Bryan Alvarez: I read last…
Wrestling Observer Radio last night featured Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez discussing Fedor and Strikeforce:
Bryan Alvarez: I read last night Coker and Vadim Finkelchtein, both of them, talking about ‘oh, no he’s not retiring, he’s going to come back,’ and Coker just seems like he completely blew off the idea that Fedor was retiring, and Vadim seemed to be strongly suggesting that this poor guy was going to coming back.
Dave Meltzer: What’s Vadim without Fedor?
Bryan Alvarez: Well, that’s the point. And then today I read in the update that people who actually spoke Russian, when they heard what Fedor said, and then what Roseanne translated, it was completely different or at least different in the sense…
Dave Meltzer: It wasn’t completely different, but she lightened it. He was saying that he retired and she was saying that he was thinking of retiring.
Bryan Alvarez: Yeah, let this poor damn guy retire! If he wants to retire, let him go.
Dave Meltzer: I think there’s too many people relying on him, you know, I mean he’s going to go out kicking and screaming, they’re not going to accept it.
Bryan Alvarez: This, right here, is a tragedy if it happens.
Dave Meltzer: It feels really sad in a lot of ways. If he doesn’t want to fight, you know, let him not fight.
Bryan Alvarez: All three of them really annoyed me. Coker is not taking it seriously at all.
Dave Meltzer: Coker’s probably been watching too much wrestling and seeing all these guys retire and they never do so he just doesn’t take it so seriously.
Bryan Alvarez: Every quote was like, ‘oh, no, he’ll be back, in fact he may be an alternate’ and this and that. The guy made it clear he really doesn’t want to do this now, and why would you throw a guy back in there?.
Dave Meltzer: Well, they’re not going to force him … at the end of the day, he can not fight.
Bryan Alvarez: The Russians may force him.
Dave Meltzer: The Russians may force him. That’s true. That’s true, which is really quite sad.
OK, here’s the other thing. With the amount of money that it costs to get this guy … he has to draw and we don’t even know if he drew for this one. Even going forward is he going to draw? I don’t know. It’s almost like they’re better off without him.
Now he’s lost twice, he doesn’t have leverage, he can’t hold you up, he can’t renegotiate after every show. They can’t make you say M-1 Global is the promotion on your show and things like that. So it’s like, okay he’s served his purpose and if he wants to come back and fight… but he shouldn’t be able to dictate anything because he’s got no power any more.
“If he wants to fight, fine, that’s cool. If he doesn’t want to fight, that’s cool, move on. Don’t like act like it’s still two fights ago where … people are believing he’s number one in the world so there’s some sort of a value in having number one in the world, even though, again, he still wasn’t a big enough draw.”
“But now he’s just another Heavyweight fighter who was once great, you know, just like he’s a step above Nogueira. What’s Nogueira now? He’s just a guy on the roster. That’s Fedor. Fedor’s a former Living Legend and all that, but… if he’s not there, I don’t think that Strikeforce goes down the tubes if Fedor isn’t there, at all.