Emelianenko’s manager: Agreement with UFC still possible
Here is the best bits from Vadim Finkelstein’s interview for the Russian magazine PRO?????, translated by yours truly (by the…
Here is the best bits from Vadim Finkelstein’s interview for the Russian magazine PRO?????, translated by yours truly (by the way of sports.ru).
Q. Strikeforce are talking now about the fight against Alistair Overeem, and then against Fabricio Werdum. Do you think it’s because of their intentions to keep Fedor at Strikeforce as long as possible?
Vadim Finkelstein: We are ready to fight against anyone, but everyone agrees that the most interesting fight right now is the rematch against Fabricio Werdum. We have one fight left on our contract, so if Strikeforce want to extend it – they should listen to our opinion. Fedor will fight again sometime between October and November. I’ll repeat that again: the only thing fans want to see is Fedor vs Werdum II. Fabricio himself said that he would like to rematch Fedor in Russia. It’s great, but this fight will not happen in Russia.
Q: Dana White reacted to Fedor’s loss with a simple 😀 sign in his Twitter account, and called Strikeforce’s agreement with Fedor a mistake. What do you think about that?
Vadim Finkelstein:I can really feel that the rating makers on the US websites really wanted Fedor Emelianenko to suffer from his first real defeat. They now have Fedor on the Third Place, and the first is Brock Lesnar. Question: Who’s Brock Lesnar? He has only five professional fights, and one defeat. He is a marketable fighter because of his WWE past. They sell-out 60,000 stadiums for that crap, which no one would even consider watching in Russia. That’s why Brock Lesnar is popular. As for Fedor, he is not a marketable fighter – he’s just the best. He destroyed everyone during 10 years. He has 31 victories.
Q. Will you ever be able to reach an agreement with the UFC?
Vadim Finkelstein: I think yes. But not on the same terms they offered us before. We will not let ourselves to get owned. Fedor became so popular not inside the Octagon. So, long story short: 1. We would like to receive guaranteed payments. I know that if we agree for percents, they will cheat us. 2. Maybe not a co-promotion (like we offered before), but at least co-branding. 3. They also will have to permit Fedor participating in Sambo competitions, and during our last negotiations UFC were ready for that term. Now we have a co-promotion with We go 50-50 with them on our co-promoted events, but there’s still some problematic issues. We want our fighters to fight on these events, but they tell us the crowd wants to see Americans.