Gary Shaw: With proper management, Fedor could have been a big UFC star

Former head of the defunct and now resurrected EliteXC Gary Shaw was interviewed recently about what it was like to negotiate with Fedor Emelianenko’s management team.

“I did try on several times to get Fedor to come to EliteXC,” said Shaw. “But the numbers they were asking, just .. there’s no fighter who was worth that.

“I knew he was also moving up in age. This wasn’t a 22 year old phenom, so I knew it had to be a very short, compressed time.”

“It doesn’t shock me that he lost. I thought someone like Brett Rogers would beat him, to be honest.

“I thought M-1 was very difficult to deal with. It wasn’t only Fedor. They wanted to be the co-promoters and the managers and they wanted you to put on so many Russian fighters of theirs on every show.

Nobody’s worth that price.

“Maybe if Fedor would have had the right management from the beginning, he might have been in the UFC and been a huge star. And continued.

“As you can see, here in the united states, he was short lived.