In an interview with USAToday.com, M-1 Global director of operations Joost Raimond indicated that a fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture could definitely happen. Raimond indicates that there is not contractual obligations on Fedor’s part that would prevent such a fight from happening.
The only thing I can say from our side is that we are open and willing to work with any organization to make that fight happen, and we’ve also expressed that to the UFC. Irrespective of who the organizaton is, we’re willing to work with anybody to do that.
The contracts that Fedor has at this point in time would allow for such a fight to take place, and specifically the Randy fight, so we’re free to make that happen if the opportunity presents itself.
Raimond was then asked the following:
UFC has said it wants to make this happen as well, but one of the things that Dana White kept saying on Thursday was “I don’t want to mess with anyone else’s contracts.” But it sounds like you’re saying that isn’t an issue because his contracts would let him fight in UFC.
to which he replied:
No, and the UFC knows that. That’s not a secret and we’ve always been very open that the Randy-Fedor fight is something special. It’s not your ordinary contract fight, as far as any fight can be ordinary.
But we’ve made provisions in any and all contracts that refer to Fedor to allow that fight to take place, with any organization in conjunction or in coooperation with whoever. Contractually there’s not an issue. … so I don’t know Dana would be calling that out, because the UFC is well aware that we have that contractual possibility.
When asked about the likelihood of Fedor signing an exclusive contract with the UFC, Raimond responded:
That could be entertained at some point, but at this point in time, that would not be a very feasible option.
Because we have a contract with Affliction. We also — M-1, as an organization, we have a partnership with Affliction to co-promote events. We value that relationship very much, so signing a contract for a longer period of time, for a multiple-fight deal for Fedor with the UFC, is just not in the picture right now.
So what is very interesting to me is that it appears Fedor’s contract with M-1 Global and Affliction has specific clauses in it that would allow him to fight Randy Couture. Regardless of his “US-exclusive” deal with Affliction, or his primary promotional contract with M-1; if a fight with Randy can happen, Fedor is free-and-clear to take the fight in any promotion if he wants to.
Of course, this still doesn’t fit in with the UFC’s way of doing business. They, most definitely, will not allow Randy to fight Fedor for a single one-time shot fight; at least not while Couture still holds a UFC title.
The rest of the article is a very interesting read and worth checking out.
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Of course the UFC won’t allow them to fight if Randy is the ufc champion. Because when/if Fedor beats him it will make the ufc belt meaningless. The ufc wants a total monopoly on the mma market. They (ufc) are hoping lesnar beats Randy and then they can have the Couture vs. Fedor fight