The One Man Who Can Beat Brock?

Yahoo - It’s easy to paint Vadim Finkelchtein as the villain in this mess between heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Emelianenko is the free agent heavyweight with the gaudy 30-1 record and small but passionate fan base. The UFC is the world’s finest mixed martial arts promotional company and has roughly 90 percent of the top 100 fighters in the world under contract.

Emelianenko was looking for a place to fight and the UFC wanted to put on what it believed could have become a massive pay-per-view show with a big push by pitting Emelianenko against Brock Lesnar, its silo-sized heavyweight champion.

But no deal was reached despite a lucrative offer from the UFC. Though UFC president Dana White wouldn’t rule it out, chances of it happening in the future are remote.

Finkelchtein is the Russian heavyweight’s manager and, more significantly, the president and co-owner of what purports to be a major MMA promotional company, M-1 Global. Finkelchtein clearly used Emelianenko as a pawn in an attempt to force the UFC to accept M-1 as a partner. All M-1 Global brought to the table was one fighter, even if he is a very good one, which would have made White a moron had he acquiesced to that demand.

If the UFC was in the business of giving 50 percent of its company away every time it tried to sign an elite fighter, it would have been in worse shape a lot sooner than Chrysler.

The reason the deal didn’t get done is simple: Fedor Emelianenko

Emelianenko’s supporters are going to point the finger at White as the reason a deal did not get done. White, though, agreed to essentially every demand Emelianenko made. He offered to pay him more than he’s ever made. He agreed to allow Emelianenko to fight in combat sambo. He agreed to allow Emelianenko to advertise M-1 on his fight shorts, on the apparel he wore and on banners his cornermen brought with them to the cage.

What White wouldn’t do, though, is give half of his company to Finkelchtein in return for the, ahem, privilege, of promoting Emelianenko’s next few fights.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=ki-fedorufc073109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Unfortunately it looks like we will never get to see the Fedor -Lesner bout of the century. There is much hype over Fedor's skills. Apparently he has bought into his own hype during negotiations. Some say that pound for pound Fedor is the most dominant MMA fighter out right now. While others insist he has been padding his wins and highlight reel by fighting against less superior fighters then there are in UFC. Either way, a Fedor-Lesner fight would give us an answer one way or the other. Not to mention it would most likely be the single most grossing PPV fight in the history of UFC. While it seems there is no compromise in sight, let us all hope that, for our pure entertainment (not to mention the growth of the sport), that White and Fedor can work out a contract together.