While I don’t find the 205 pound division to be the most interesting (I’m a huge fan of their 155 pound division), I do find that when I talk with my friends, who are casual MMA fans, that seems to be where most of the conversations happen.

They could’ve lured Fedor from Pride a long time ago, probably before he was a huge phenomenon in Russia, and they probably could have gotten that exclusive contract. (I doubt that his management would have been as hard about it if he wasn’t so dominant or if his rank wasn’t so undisputed) The real problem (and this is what people seem to forget) is that the UFC didn’t have the guys Fedor wanted to compete with. I mean, they had Sylvia and Arlovski, but Nogueira and CroCop made him much more marketable.

So, yes, for the right amount of money (not necessarily the most, but more than what Pride paid), the UFC could have had Fedor. Would he be the Fedor we know today? Probably not.

In fact, I don’t think he would be ranked #1 had he not fought in Pride, because people would care so much about Nogueira and CroCop and one of them (probably Nog) would have emerged as the #1 ranked fighter without losses to Fedor.

Of course, this is all speculation.

B.W., you admit in your comment that Fedor’s management doesn’t care primarily about money. They care about his independence and about his ability to keep his Russian fanbase happy.

Tim is good for a few more fighters, and I do see a fight with Ricco Rodriguez or Hidehiko Yoshida or (my personal choice) Mark Hunt in his near future, all of which would be great matchups for Affliction to push a new, upcoming fighter against Sylvia and offer us hardcore fans a good fight.

Lesnar may not care about the money, but my problem with him isn’t with his motivations for competing in the sport. My problem is that the guy doesn’t know how to train for this sport, and he doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass about learning.

The UFC didn’t even have to contend with EXC or Affliction or Bodog or anyone for these contracts 12 months ago, and they still let their division go all to hell. There are plenty of free market contracts that the UFC is ignoring. Why? Because they don’t care about the division, and that’s a mistake.

There’s no two ways around it, it’s just kinda inherent in the fight game. Which is why what Zuffa let happen to their heavyweight weight class is absolutely ridiculous.

A good question that arises from that is if they had kept the best heavyweight competition, could they have potentially lured Fedor from Pride years ago and had his record run in their own promotion? They could’ve potentially missed the biggest boat in the sport had they not had their heads up their asses for so long. IMO, its one of their biggest promotional blunders to date.

The overall quality of their organization suffers for not having a heavyweight division, and regardless of how they try to market their fighters, it gives other organizations a huge opportunity to upstage them when they don’t have a solid heavyweight division. That’s what we’ve seen happen with Affliction.

And I hate to pile on but I haven’t been impressed with Brock either. And I don’t think he’ll ever be a “great” in MMA. Mostly because he has no real desire for the sport, no real passion for it. He plain and simple got into it for the cash, so there’s no motive for him aside from that. Which IMO, means he’s only ever gonna do just enough to get paid. He could lay his way to a championship with his size, but that isn’t gonna ever make him go down as a great.

IMO, MMA skill wise I haven’t seen anything impressive out of Brock so far. He’s an impressive wrestler, he’s an impressive size. But MMA skill wise he’s nothing impressive.

I think Lesnar sucks, but I’m not going to say he doesn’t have potential.

The UFC has three prospects, all of whom are one style fighters (Carwin might be more than that, but it remains to be seen). I like Velasquez, and I’ve talked to him and seen him train in San Jose. He’s got a future, but he’s not as good as any of the serious guys in the top ten.

It’s not a matter of long term. There are plenty of great prospects on the open market, and the UFC is too stupid to sign them. That aside, if you look at the top five rankings, how many guys does the UFC have? I count 1. (Nog)

It’s an embarrasment for an organization run like that to call themselves the best while they only have 1 top heavyweight. Boxing promoters do that and its stupid.

You think that Herring was a top 15 fight? He was two of his last 4, with one of those losses coming to a nobody, Jake O’Brien. He was not a top 15 fighter.

We’ll see how Lesnar does against Kongo. It’s supposed to be a perfect matchup for Lesnar, but I think there are alot of people underestimating the improvement in Kongo’s groundgame. We’ll see how that goes.

I do agree that he’s better than Kimbo. I won’t argue with that. But they both suck.