HW champ Randy Couture quits UFC, wants more money and Fedor

[Julius Seeker]

"On October 11, 2007, Couture announced that he was severing all ties with the UFC, leaving two contracted fights, a position as an on-air analyst, and his heavyweight championship behind.[6] Randy cited the UFC's failure to sign #1 ranked heavyweight fighter Fedor Emelianenko, as well as disputes with UFC management, as contributing factors in his decision to walk away. [7]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Cout ... _the_title


If you check out Sherdog and other sits there is a lot of information up on it. Fighting Fedor Emelianenko would be the biggest fight in the history of the sport, earlier this fall UFC was outbidded by an organization called M1 (which also is involved with Bodogfight, another organization run by billionaires) where Fedor was reported by Frank Trigg to have signed a $10,000,000 3 year contract (WAY more than what Randy makes). In about 9-10 months time it can be expected that Randy Couture will be fighting Fedor. So we'll get to see the fight we've all wanted to see, just not on UFC.

[Ishamael]

Wow, had no idea Randy was this pissed about the Fedor thing behind the scenes. Can't blame him. I and probably everyone else was *very* disappointed by UFC's failure to get Fedor.

Never did get the story on this, but I guess money was the root of it (big surprise, right?). I find it hard to believe that UFC couldn't come up with $10 million for a superstar like Fedor. My best guess is that Dana White figured if Fedor got $10 million, then it'd drive prices up for all the top fighters, resulting in pissed off people if their contract demands were refused.

[RentCavalier]

According to a few professional fighters I've spoken to recently, you get paid SHIT for these sorts of UFC fights, all things considered. Some of the lower tier people get 1500 dollars IF they win.

[Julius Seeker]

I would love to see another company come up. I really don't like UFC, even though I am a huge fan of a lot of the fighters they currently have (Nog and Rampage have been favourites of mine for the better part of a decade, then there is BJ Penn, Anderson Silva, GSP, Mark Hunt (recently signed, I've been a fan since before his MMA days, though I always cheered Jerome LeBanner over him in their K1 battles), and a number of others. I have been a fan of Couture for quite a long time as well, since his first fight with Belfort which is still one of the best fights I have ever seen (They've fought 3 times in UFC now).

Most of my favourite fighters are not currently signed with UFC however. What I really want to see is another company come up and bring in MMA tournaments; I really miss the PRIDE GP.

[Julius Seeker]

According to a few professional fighters I've spoken to recently, you get paid SHIT for these sorts of UFC fights, all things considered. Some of the lower tier people get 1500 dollars IF they win.

Yeah, for such a popular thing right now, UFC really does not pay its athletes very much money.


They're still running the company like it is a mid-range brand; though now it is a popular sport. The thing is, it is not so bad, if UFC does not get its act together then there will be other leagues who pick up all their top fighters like PRIDE did back in the day (It was kind of tragic to see PRIDE go under, though it was because of a major Yakuza scandal which got them blacklisted in Japan a year and a half ago or so, otherwise they would still be #1). Though I do think UFC will adapt; they will pretty much have to with all sorts of billionairs cashing in now and starting up promotions in the last little while.

[Kupek]

I think the real money for the UFC is to move away from pay-per-view events. I think they realize this, as they've now had two numbered UFCs on Spike. (Not counting UFC Fight Night.) The number of viewers they can have is just an order of magnitude more, and if they have the critical mass of viewers, the revenue they can get from advertising is also an order of magnitude more than subscriptions.

[Julius Seeker]

Hard to say, the non-PPV UFC events are largely due to laws dealing with European countries. They can't broadcast a UFC PPV from the UK. I do think that that changes will need to be made to their formula, and their president position. Dana White's unprofessionalism prevented UFC from gaining all the top fighters when they had the chance. That window of opportunity seems to be at its end now considering all the other Casino Magnates and billionaires getting into the business now; not only that, their contracts seem to be much less restrictive than UFCs have become in the last few years.