Bring on Fedor now

Now that Brock Lesnar is the undisputed UFC heavyweight champ UFC president Dana White has no choice but to bring Fedor Emelianenko into the organization.

Emelianenko, who fights for Affliction, is widely considered the best heavyweight and one of the two or three best pound-for-pound fighters on the planet. He’s a former PRIDE heavyweight champion, has a 30-1 record and carries back-to-back Affliction wins over two former UFC champions (Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski) into his Aug. 1 battle with another former UFC champ, Josh Barnett.

If White wants to capitalize on Lesnar’s success, wants to keep pushing him as the best heavyweight in the world, he has to set up a fight with Fedor. The fans want it, and I’m pretty sure Lesnar wants it, given his ego. Hell, even Time freakin’ Magazine wants it. And now White himself is saying he wants it, too.

“Eventually, Fedor’s going to be here. I want Fedor. I want him to come to the UFC and everything else. [Lesnar] just became the heavyweight champion. We’ll end up getting that deal done. And then we’ll do Brock vs. Fedor, and it’ll be a huge fight,” White said during the UFC 100 post-fight press conference.

White has tried to land Fedor before but it’s never come together. White usually blames Fedor’s managers for demanding too much money or too many concessions (like a one-fight deal or an ability to also fight outside the UFC). As a result, White has often criticized the fighter, going so far as saying Emelianenko “sucks” while mocking past opponents such as giant kickboxer Hong Man Choi and Matt Lindland, who normally fights at middleweight.

Still, on Saturday, UFC principle owner Lorenzo Fertitta addressed the signing Fedor with the L.A. Times.

“Right now, Fedor’s completely irrelevant to the public,” Fertitta said. “His pay-per-view numbers have been 12,000, 30,000, and now Affliction is saying he’ll get 100,000 [against Josh Barnett]. I’ll take the under-70,000. We average 500,000 buys and we expect 1 million for this one. Fedor wants to use UFC for a fight to be relevant, and then leave and do his own thing. That’s not our business model.”

“We spend more money for marketing than anyone has ever spent on Fedor,” Fertitta said. “If I bring in Fedor, we’ll make him the most recognizable face in MMA, but we also want to recoup on our investment. You wouldn’t sign Tom Brady for one game. So why do I want to sign this guy for one fight?”

Good point. So bringing Fedor into the UFC is far from a done deal no matter how badly the fans, Lesnar or White want it to happen.

And what if Barnett somehow manages to dethrone the Last Emperor at Affliction on Aug. 1? Does that mean we’ll see him back in the UFC? White says not a chance. The reason? “No one’s beating down my door to get Barnett,” White said.