After spending more than 5 months trying unsuccessfully to sign prized free agent Fedor Emelianenko to a UFC contract in 2007, it appears that 2008 is bringing Zuffa better luck.
According to UFC President Dana White, Zuffa and Emelianenko have agreed in principal to the terms of a new two-year, five-fight contract. As can be expected, Zuffa did not discuss the financial terms of the agreement.
“Late last night we came to a verbal agreement on the terms of a contract with Fedor and his managers”, said Dana White. “We are expecting Fedor to arrive in the US later this week to officially sign the contract.”
Last week, M-1 Global (now Adrenaline MMA) announced that Fedor was no longer under contract with their promotion and was once again the most sought after free agent on the market.
The assumption for many months has been that Fedor and former UFC Heavyweight champion Randy Couture would fight sometime this fall after Couture’s UFC contract expired. That fight was expected to most likely take place in Mark Cuban’s HDNet Fights promotion. Randy has recently stated that he would never again fight in the UFC, but with the signing of Fedor, could we see him back in the octagon?
Even though they knew he would refuse, the UFC offered Randy a title fight with Antonio Nogueria a few months ago, and Dana White has said they would be open to offering him other fights in the future.
It will be interesting to see the details of the new contract, specifically if the UFC backed off their stance on Fedor fighting in combat Sambo for his native Russia.
** UPDATE **
For those of you goons who haven’t figured it out yet, this was just an April Fool’s Day joke. Apparently it was a very good one though, and the site has had 6x the normal daily traffic. I figured the “April Fools” tag would give it away, but apparently not.
So thanks to all you who “believed” the story and linked to it. Especially all you Sherdog trolls who made about a dozen different threads about it. You guys made me some nice coin today. Hahaha.
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Poor Randy. If this is true Randy must be kicking himself right now. I think Dana went out of his way to sign Fedor so no other company would be able to promote the Randy vs Fedor fight. It will be interesting to see if the UFC can convince Randy to swallow some pride and still fight.
LOL Doc. You almost got me on that one.
ha… this is sweet….
agreed mad… randy needs to swallow that pride… the worst sin to commit
Happy April fools day!
what the crap.. doc is this an april fools joke?
Doc you sick demented *******, i nearly sh*t myself… till i remembered it was April 1st. happy April fools day everyone! good job man, that was just subtle enough to get me.
doc u *****….ugh
hahahaha
sorry guys
had to do it.
i like the pic you put up too it helps sell it lol nice burn.
HAHAHAHA! I totally bought it hook line and sinker! ahhh gosh my day was going so darn well… lol this would be awesome if true… course it could happen, you may be reposting this in 2 months you never know.. hehe
hehe.. doc deserves a little pink bag for that one.. hehe
hah
this is ****** up dude I ran around showing all my friends the link now I’m the village idiot
haha, sorry bro.
I did tag the post with “April Fools” though to at least give you guys a little hint, lol
lmfao man you got us all good Doc, i at least tried to confirm it before i told everyone i know lol i couldnt find the news anywhere else and when i came back here i noticed the April fools tag lol
lol its all good
no ****…. i told all my guys too. there like its not true u homo lol..
HAHAHA!!!
Hah! Doc, the picture is what got me. Good one :-)
matt hughes going up to 205? is thatanother april fools rumor?
haven’t heard or seen that one? where’d you find it?
I’d say its definitely an April Fools though considering he fights now at 170. 205 is a huge jump, 185 maybe. 205?? doubt it
http://www.matt-hughes.com/blog/2008/04/01/moving-up/
its on Matts personal website lol i love April fools day lol
I will never come to this site again.
hahahahaha
doc..
do you know what that website is with it takes a bunch of pictures during each fight bout….. and they even takes pic of afterparties… its all strickly mma events …i cant remember that site???
The site your looking for is called Combat Lifestyle. She (Tracy Lee) also has a good blog called Ms Tracy Lee.
Geezzus I can’t wait for this friggin day to be over….lmao. I was thinking about how much I hate the whole situation, I was thinking about how tortureously ironic it would be for the UFC to sign Fedor just when Randy has been quoted as saying he won’t fight in the UFC ever. That was good, I was buying it, luckily I always check to see what the peanut gallery has to say about things.
MAN THAT WAS A GOOD ONE DOC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Mitchell,
Thanks for leaving your address and phone number.
Maybe RJ, your fellow Canadian can give you a call sometime, lol
lol nah hes on the west coast im on the east and i dont have a good long distance plan lol. man Doc you really pissed some people off today lol the world has lost its sense of humor i guess :( bunch of fools… April fools that is lol
lol what a dumb ****
Doc, you realize guys are gonna discover this post like 6 months from now and get pissed off all over again lol.
i was thinking about that too, every time there is a new Fedor rumor people will stumble onto here and start with the b*tchin again lol.
hey, I got no problem with that, hah
yea way to go doc
That was cold man…that was cold…
Great news. I’ve been waiting for this to happen for long-*** time. Hopefully now they can get Randy back so our dream fight can happen. I’m so pumped; time to leave work early. Happy Hour!
lmao no f*ckin kidding this is wonderful news its so great, it would be a horrible shame if this turned out to be a joke lol
WHUT! THIS GUY IS NUCKIN FUTS! lol he is like not reading the posts evidently..
Wow doc you’re getting some distance out this one…lol
haha, sweet. some people are too much!
I dont think so. there will happen fight
with Couture and Fedor. enought?
cuz fedor has big strikeer.sumbission
I think He would make randy *** ArmbAR!!!
dont get me wrong He is THe BEST ever!!
POor Dana,RandY
Ok Heaton, i dont mean to poke fun, but that was the funniest post ive read in a while man lol.
im not even sure what this guy is saying. lol this could get dangerous, i’ll get the tranquilizer gun lol.
motherfuckers, you guys got me. I just watched an interview of dana white on youtube and he says this “if fedor wants to prove that he is the best in the world, he should fight in UFC” ha ha ha