Fedor Not Under M-1 Contract; More Details on Golden Boy/Affliction Promotion
March 19, 2008
Today Sherdog.com confirmed a story that has been circulating since last December: Fedor Emelianenko was never under contract to M-1 Global. In fact, despite a public announcement to the contrary in October, Emelianenko’s only tie to the company was a letter of intent and a $1.5 million signing bonus. According to Sherdog.com, the highly regarded heavyweight will be completely free of the agreement once his signing bonus is returned to M-1.
Sherdog.com also reported that the leading candidate for Emelianenko’s services is promotional partnership involving Affliction and Oscar de La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions.
Adding more intrigue to the story, Kevin Iole of Yahoo! confirmed with Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer that the company, along with Affliction, will promote MMA events later this year. Schaefer told Iole that he is speaking with a “very well known, very well-connected individual” whom Iole speculated was Mark Cuban.
Schaefer said that the new company will offer equity stakes to a handful of established fighters, following Golden Boy’s boxing model.
Consolidation is key if the UFC’s industry dominance is to be challenged. A partnership between Affliction, Golden Boy, and Mark Cuban’s HDNet Fights would be hard for Dana White to dismiss, especially with an HBO and/or ESPN television deal. Such a promotion has the potential to completely shake up an already turbulent, to use Schaefer’s word, industry.
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[...] by Golden Boy and will air on HBO PPV. Affliction and Golden Boy had exploratory talks on possibly working together when Affliction was formulating it’s plans to enter MMA in early [...]