UFC 78: Michael Bisping Vs. Rashad Evans / TUF: Team Hughes Vs. Team Serra

don't know if anyone else has been following the shady business going on with randy, fedor, M-1, and all the bullshit surrounding a randy vs. fedor match. personally i'm already tired of it. when politics and egos get involved it ruins it for me and i don't think i even care if i see these two fight anymore.

anyway, sounds like randy had some petty issues, some other legitimate problems, and a misunderstanding about what the ufc was trying to do to get the fedor match he wanted. he wanted to fight fedor and remain loyal to the ufc, but how does the ufc get fedor without offering him a large sum of money? even with a large sum of money offered, fedor has always had a bit of a rep as a prick when it comes to contract negotiations so talking to him and his people is useless.

personally, i couldn't care less about fedor. he used to be a great fighter. now, he jumps around from one criminally operated organization to another and has only fought one top ten HW (mark hunt) since his decision win over mirko cro cop over two years ago. i've always been a randy fan and it's tough to say it, but he's doing some whining here. both guys need a kick in their respective asses, as does dana white. all sides have some good points and all sides are being childish at the same time.

sorry...just had to vent a little...it gets so annoying when egos, contracts, and politics get involved in the sport. this one is definitely getting annoying. :mad:



WHY RANDY COUTURE LEFT THE UFC
Thursday, October 25, 2007
by Jeff Cain - MMAWeekly.com



Randy Couture held a press conference from his Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas on Thursday where he addressed his decision to resign from the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

"I'm saying I simply left the UFC," the current heavyweight champion said. "It would be silly for me to say I'm going to retire again. Nobody's going to buy that anyway."

Addressing whether or not he would fight again, Couture responded, "I don't have a crystal ball. I certainly have fights left in me. There's only really one fight that makes a lot of sense and would have hoped that could have happened in the UFC with Fedor (Emelianenko). I don't think that's going to happen.

"I believe I'm the best fighter I've ever been right now. I also don't operate under the impression that that's going to last forever. Whether or not I fight again is certainly up in the air at this point."

With the recent emergence of M-1 Global there has been speculation as to whether he would end up fighting Emelianenko under the new promotion's banner.

Couture answered that saying, "I'm under UFC contract for a minimum of nine more months. I signed an 18-month contract with the UFC, so unless that fight happens in the UFC, it's not going to happen anywhere else for at least nine more months."

Which leads to one of the hottest topics since his resignation: the parameters of his contract. Couture and his camp have argued the duration of nine months. UFC president Dana White has argued that Couture owes the UFC two fights. Therein lies the issue. Is the contract for the nine-month term or for two more fights?

"It's whatever the number of bouts are that you signed for and a term,” said Couture. “Those bouts have to occur in that term. That's my understanding and my lawyer's understanding of the contract. If it's an 18-month contract with four fights, then those four fights need to occur in that 18-month period. That's my understanding of the contract."

But his intent didn’t seem to be getting out of his contract so he can go and fight Emelianenko elsewhere as many believe.

"It's not really about leaving and going and fighting somewhere else. My loyalty has always been with the UFC. I was offered to fight Fedor over a year ago when I wanted to come out of retirement for thee million dollars in Bodog,” he stated. “It's more than I've ever been paid for a fight.

“What did I do? I went to Dana and Lorenzo and said, ‘hey this is what these guys are offering for me to fight Fedor in their show. I would be interested in fighting again.’ They said, ‘if you're fighting again, we need someone to Tim Sylvia. Fight for the heavyweight championship with us,’ and that's what I did."

Not pointing directly at one issue or another as the specific cause of his resignation, Couture did discuss a number of various factors. One of those factors was fighter bonuses handed out by Zuffa (the UFC’s parent company) to marquee fighters following pay-per-view bouts.

"The UFC has stated time and again that I'm the number two athlete on their books as far as my contract, what my base pay says on that bout agreement, but what happens is they pay you a visit in your locker room after your fight and give you a bonus check. It's not on the books anywhere," he revealed.

“I think it's an organizational decision to distribute money that way because it is at their discretion, because then there is monetary value that's put out there that other people don't know about and other organizations don't know about. If somebody wants to go buy Matt Hughes out of his contract, they don't really know what he's being compensated to make that happen. They look at what the public record says, so they make an offer there, but he's being paid a lot more than that."

Couture provided a laundry list of reasons why he resigned from the UFC, but the final straw for him was the offer made to Emelianenko.

"They offered him more in a signing bonus than I had ever been paid in a fight. That was like the final slap in the face.

"I handed in my resignation after having a meeting with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta where I laid all this out in person two-and-a-half weeks before I left for South Africa.

"They were given every opportunity. I expressed fact-to-face how I felt with them. And it's not about bashing. I'm not going to get into a war of words with Dana. He said some other things, 'he controls me' and everything else. It doesn't really matter. It's not about that.

"I have no hard feelings towards Lorenzo and Frank (Fertitta), certainly not. They've done a masterful job of using their connections and their influence to build this sport back up. Dana, although he's misunderstood and I don't agree with some of the things that he does, I don't think he's a bad guy. I think he wields a lot of power and a big stick, and he doesn't do that with objective conscience all the time. But it's not about bashing Dana.

“It's just about how I feel as an athlete that's represented this organization for eleven years and done my very best to represent this sport and feeling unappreciated for that."


http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=4948&zoneid=13

here is part 1 of randy's press conference. he sounds, for the first time i have heard, a little arrogant and contradictory.

http://www.rawvegas.tv/watch.php?vID=f8cdb7efd450c833d54fb4f07b0c52

the fight network just aired the entire randy couture press conference from thursday, so i just wanted to say that the two parts i posted before are not the entire press conference. some parts are missing.

after watching this version of the press conference, i feel like i was a little quick to jump to conclusions about randy's intentions. i'm still not quite sure what they are, but he seemed sincere in most of the Q & A portion with the reporters.

the main point for me that doesn't make sense is that in order for the ufc to get the match that randy wanted with fedor they had to offer him a lot of money. most of us knew he would turn it down because he and his management team are impossible to deal with. randy says he felt slighted by the fact that fedor was offered a signing bonus larger than any amount he'd been paid for a fight. what does he expect them to do, though, to try their best to get this match signed? it's a bit of a contradiction that he wants the fight and in order to make that happen a large sum had to be offered. it was offered, and not surprisingly, it was turned down. i also get the feeling that randy is not telling the truth about his own signing bonus, and that's unfortunate. :(

money kept coming up and randy expressed again that it was not about the money, but the respect that the money represents. he also said that he's not looking for anyone's sympathy for a guy (himself) who is making 3/4 of a million dollars a fight. right now, as the organization's top guy, he should be getting the highest pay and he is not, so this part i can understand.

points were also brought up about a fighter's union and fighters still making under 10,000 for their fights, sometimes still making as low as 3,000. i get the impression from the way randy responded to these questions that he may be trying to get a ball rolling for more change in fighter's pay as well as medical coverage for injuries that occur outside of the octagon that hinder a fighter's ability to compete. he said that his resignation was not a way to achieve the goal of getting more money and better treatment for other fighters. i have to say that i get the impression that he is making a sacrifice to do just that and i commend him for it.

it seems as though reasonable conversations are taking place between randy and the ufc, despite the dispute, and i wouldn't be surprised to see this getting resolved. if dana white can keep his mouth fairly clean publicly, then i hope randy will come back and fulfill his contract.

if privately, he felt underappreciated, well that certainly is not the case publicly. he was inducted into the HOF immediately, given the opportunity to come out of retirement to fight for a title immediately (unheard of!), and the amount of exposure for his extreme couture franchise and other business ventures were at the forefront of a lot of ufc promotion. he also gets PPV percentage, which most fighters don't get, so i feel there are some things he is being petty about.

he said that in some ways he felt slighted by dana and other members of the ufc organization for doubting him against rizzo, tito, sylvia, chuck, etc. but this has always been part of randy's appeal. on one hand he says he enjoys the underdog role and thrives in it, but on the other hand he says he feels slighted by it. doesn't make much sense to me, nor does him saying that he didn't think his resignation would be a big deal. come on, randy....

all in all, i still find this situation annoying, but i felt like another little rant about it because when it comes right down to it i'd just like to see randy compete and do well until he does decide it's truly time for him to let it go. if something comes from all this that gets better compensation for the fighters and better treatment overall, then kudos to randy for taking a stand. i just can't quite figure out if that's what he's doing.

feckin' damn egos, money, and politics!

an ad on the fight network site just reminded me that there's another eliteXC event coming up...and very soon. the last couple of shows have been very good, but this card is only half filled, with the event only two weeks away. it doesn't look very good so far. i guess they are hoping people will tune in just for jake sheilds, nick diaz and to see kimbo slice. there's a rumoured bout between robbie lawler and vitor belfort, but with only two weeks before the event i would guess that's not happening if they haven't announced it yet.

EliteXC, November 10, 2007 - Showtime / Fight Network

Jake Sheilds Vs. Mike Pyle
Nick Diaz Vs. KJ Noons
Antonio Silva Vs. Jonathan Wiezorek
Kevin Ferguson (Kimbo Slice) Vs. Bo Cantrell
Seth Kleinbeck Vs. Kyle Noke

hey, releash, i guess the term "relax" sometimes doesn't have much meaning the field you're in, eh?

you're right that joe silve isn't putting georges in any more fights until the title fight against the winner of the hughes / serra match (it will be serra ). it's a long layoff, but i think this is good for georges really. this sport is so fickle sometimes, and with one loss you can go from having an aura of being undefeatable, which is ridiculous because everyone can be defeated on any given day, to being considered one of the best again after a good performance. with georges' performance against josh koscheck and with him answering the question definitively who was the better wrestler and fighter that night, i can only see georges getting hungrier, more confident and refining his gameplan more and more until the fight happens, as you said, probably in march.

this is why i think fitch will have another fight before he gets his title shot. the question is who will be his opponent? i doubt we'll ever see koscheck vs. fitch unless the title was on the line and even then it would be a tough decision for them to make. fitch would win, in my opinion, as his striking is light yers ahead of koscheck's, his submissions are far batter, and i'm probabaly one of the few who thinks he could out grapple him as well. fitch has to be the number two guy behind georges in terms of talent in the WW division. this is why i'm hoping that all goes to plan and fitch and georges meet up for a title fight this coming summer. it would be outstanding!

i'm going on the assumption that georges will get his title back, of course.

i'd agree with you that fitch would beat karo at this point in their respective careers. georges already has a definitive decision win over karo in georges' first fight in the ufc, so i would guess more people would like to see fitch vs. st-pierre. to be honest, i don't think karo is going to beat chonan, so it may all become a moot point. fitch will be the favourite no matter who his next opponent is and rightfully so.

as far as nick diaz is concerned, i seem to remember that it was a bit of an ugly mutual split. nick hates the ufc now, and because nick had lost those three close decisions i think the ufc kind of put him on the back burner. i really don't like the way they do that because as far as i'm concerned if you're going out there and giving it your all to put on a good fight and perform to the best of your ability you should still be there in the mix, despite close decision losses. nick had grievances about the judging, about guys like diego making more money than him (he definitely had a point there), and where he stood in the WW division. he did come back for two those fights, after one win outside the ufc, and finished them both so it was weird that suddenly he was gone.

he left either when his contract was done or with one fight left...i can't recall. then he signed with pride, but only had one fight due to their demise. he beat gomi with a gogoplata! :eek: ...then tested positive for marijuana and was stripped of his win over the pride "champ". once his suspension was up, he signed with elite xc and beat mike aina in a great fight at their most recent show in hawaii. it was really close and diaz's ring rust showed. (many thought aina won the fight) he should have a relatively easy time next show against kj noons, who is primarily a boxer with a ground game that isn't even close to nick's level.

i'd like to see him back in the ufc at some point, but unless the relationship starts fresh, i don't see it happening. who knows, though? maybe if nate has a good experience with them it might persuade nick to come back.