Fedor’s management accuse Zuffa of being dumb

September 17, 2007 – 11:18 am by fightlinker

Oh, the laughs and screams and fun continue on this rollercoaster ride we call ‘Fedor being signed’. The latest big dip is the surprising news that apparently the UFC and Fedor’s management came to an agreement last week, but when Zuffa sent a contract over the terms were completely different:

M-1 claims that the negotiations were a success and that the parties agreed to what the terms of the UFC contract would be. However, M-1 claims that when UFC sent the contract to their office, the terms of the deal were ‘absolutely different’ than what had been negotiated and that management did not agree on what was stated in the contract. This is why, according to M-1, Fedor has not signed a contract with UFC.

This is some pretty wacky shit, and if it was coming from anyone other than Zach Arnold I’d be tempted to say there’s no way it was true. Because if it is, there’s only a few different possibilities:

• The UFC is stupid and sent the wrong contract to Fedor. Of course, if this was the case it’s not like they couldn’t just send the right one immediately after.
• The UFC is stupid and thought they could pull a switcheroo on Fedor’s management. Just because you can switcheroo the will on your senile grandmother doesn’t mean it’s going to work on some cranky old Russian dudes.
• The UFC is stupid and are now using the Japanese way of negotiation: say yes yes yes but mean no no no. Maybe Dana picked up a few things other than hepatitis in Tokyo!

Overall, there’s no obvious reason why the UFC would do this that doesn’t make them look pretty stupid. Which is why I think Fedor’s management is making shit up. Which also means we are now officially in the part of negotiation where both sides start telling wild lies and stories about eachother. This is typically called the ‘hardball’ portion of negotiations. The UFC will start spreading rumors that Fedor was afraid of certain joke fighters like Tim Sylvia. Fedor’s people will counter with the idea that Zuffa are swindling amateurs. And so on and so on until someone breaks.

This may seem like a bad thing on the outside, but you’ll notice that in the past this is always the last stage of negotiations … either things are inches away from signing or both parties are going to say fuck it and walk away. And I don’t think I’m alone in saying this deal needs to be done or done, because we’re all sick of hearing about it.