NEW YORK -- A contingent of officials from fight promotions M-1 Global and Affliction Entertainment, complete with Donald Trump as a front man, announced plans Thursday to move forward with their new mixed martial arts reality television show, Fighting Fedor.
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| Would you fight this man? (Affliction) |
The show will be filmed in St. Petersburg, Russia, at the Red Devil fight gym with a crew of fighters recruited from all over the globe. According to M-1 Global vice president Jerry Millen, the show could begin filming as early as April.
Additional details pertaining to the show are vague at best. Despite plans to distribute the show in multiple international markets, the project still does not have a single television partner attached. The hope is that Trump's involvement will open major doors within the television industry.
Vadim Finkelstein, president of the Russian-based MMA promotion M-1 Global and Emelianenko's manager, stated during the press conference that they've received offers from television partners and will decide "soon" exactly who they'll move forward with.
While Millen was unwilling to get into specifics, he indicated to CBSSports.com that the project is attracting interest from some "huge" players within the U.S. television landscape and hinted at potential interest from major networks.
If Affliction and M-1 Global are able to pull the project off, it could finally serve as the vehicle necessary to allow Emelianenko's international superstardom to translate into the American market. Affliction COO Michael Cohen, who also doubles as Trump's chief counsel, referred to Emelianenko as the Mike Tyson of MMA. While Emelianenko is every bit as dominant as Tyson was during his heyday, he's currently nowhere near the draw Tyson was as far as the U.S. is concerned.
Many industry experts consider UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva to be the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the sport, but it was a title once held by Fedor. And it's an uncrowned designation for Fedor that a significant number of pundits still consider to be true, much to the consternation of the UFC president Dana White.
Thus far, White's anti-Emelianenko campaign has been one-sided, as Fedor's camp has been unable to take their case to the mainstream American fighting public due to a lack of exposure, with several attempts to bring him into the forefront here being less than successful.
A major moneymaker in Japan for years, Emelianenko used a window in his PRIDE contract to fight for the now-defunct BodogFIGHT promotion in April 2007 against former Olympic Greco-Roman silver medalist Matt Lindland. But published reports indicate that the pay-per-view drew a paltry total of 13,000 buys in the U.S. in spite of a major ad campaign that included TV and radio.
The low buyrate could be attributed to the fact that Bodog's core business is online sports betting and was looking at MMA simply as a way to market its lifestyle concept to males between the ages of 18-34 as opposed to building a promotion with real roots. Other contributing factors to the low buyrate could be that the event was held in Russia and that Bodog lacked a major weekly TV presence in the U.S. However, what could not be overlooked was the fact that Fedor's notoriety had yet to penetrate past the sport's hardcore fanbase and into the mainstream in the States.
A major step toward rectifying Fedor's lack of recognition in the U.S. was taken after his management reached a long-term contract with Affliction earlier this year, marking the first time Emelianenko had ever signed with an American-based promotion.
Affliction, which began as a apparel maker, had just signaled its intentions to enter the MMA promotional business a few months before the acquisition of Fedor as the fight company's centerpiece. The promotion held its first show this past July at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., with the event built around Fedor as the headlining star.
