Tim Leidecker of Sherdog has the rundown. Sounds like an overall odd event.
The meat of the article:
To do so, he had to step on the mats only once. The 220-plus-pound representative from Uzbekistan did not show in Prague, thus giving Fedor a bye to the semifinals. There he quickly took out a Bulgarian fighter via choke to set up a meeting with a Ukrainian competitor in the finals.
Much to Fedor’s chagrin, the Ukrainian fighter, who had defeated UFC veteran Kristof Midoux (Pictures) in the other semifinal, did not turn up either, handing Fedor the victory.
In other news, the Chicago Sun-Times has an update on Andrei Arlovski.
At the very least, White will want Arlovski to sell pay-per-view units before the contract expires. But in the meantime, Arlovski doesn’t have an income. He still trains at JABB gym, and trainers aren’t free. He’s also losing sponsorship opportunities.
Arlovski’s camp didn’t contact me. They don’t want to make this public. He’s a loyal UFC employee who has kept his nose clean, and hopefully he’ll be rewarded.
”He’s losing a tremendous amount of money,” Arlovski adviser Leo Khorolinsky said. ”He relies on fighting to maintain a living.
”We’re ready to fight whenever they ask. We believe we have a very good relationship with the UFC and Dana.”
But the sides haven’t talked in three weeks.
Not exactly good news. White knows that he controls just about all the chips in these situations and he is really playing things as hard as he can get away with. The UFC is a business and damned if they aren’t going to run it as such. Unfortunately that means losses for the fighters as well as us as fans.
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