– Dana White said during the UFC press conference on Friday that he offered Fedor Emelianenko everything he could and Fedor still turned the deal down. White described the offer as “the most amazing deal” but added that Fedor’s camp turned it down because UFC wouldn’t agree to co-promote with M-1.
“How are they going to help us co-promote?” White said. “They’re going to help us? That [expletive] might work in Russia (but) not here.”
White added that if M-1 dropped the co-promotion requirement, a deal would be done.
“We did everything possible for this deal,” White said. “We didn’t hold back. It’s crazy to turn down a deal like this.”
“I was so confident we were going to get this done. I went in (to the negotiations) with the mindset that we were going to get this done.”
“I’m ready to make a deal. If they want to make a deal, they can call me right now.”
M-1 President Vadim Finkelchtein said today that some of the reports surfacing on the internet about how much UFC offered Fedor aren’t true.
“It is unfortunate that so much incorrect information has been leaked to the public,” Finkelchtein stated. “It is M-1’s preference not to negotiate in public, and we are unsure why people claim that Fedor and M-1 turned down a six-fight, $30 million contract to fight in the UFC when no such offer was ever made. All we are asking is that there is give-and-take in the negotiations and that they are not one-sided.”
