M-1, Fedor Emelianenko Sue Affliction Over Canceled Event
M-1 and Fedor Emelianenko have filed a lawsuit against Affliction Clothing, Affliction Entertainment, and other unnamed parties alleging breach of contract stemming from the cancellation of “Affliction: Trilogy” and folding of the MMA promotion earlier this year as part of a deal struck with the UFC.
“Trilogy” was to take place on August 1 in Anaheim, California, but was put in doubt when headliner Josh Barnett, who was to fight Emelianenko in the pay-per-view’s main event, tested positive for steroids and was forced off the card in late-July. The event was ultimately canceled citing the promotion’s inability to secure a suitable replacement, though the lawsuit alleges that Brett Rogers was “ready, willing, and able” to fight Fedor at the event and that Affliction “elected to serve its own financial interests at the expense of its partners”.
Emelianenko and Rogers are now slated to headline Saturday’s Strikeforce event on CBS, which is co-promoted by M-1.
The lawsuit outlines a number of allegations regarding the relationship between M-1 and Affliction, most of which concern the deal between Affliction and the UFC which resulted in the cancellation of the event and closure of Affliction Entertainment, an independent branch of the company which promoted MMA events, even though a viable replacement opponent had been secured and the show could have taken place as scheduled.
Bloody Elbow and MMA Payout have further details on the lawsuit, including that wording of the complaint makes it appear likely that the UFC will soon be added as a defendant alongside Affliction.
Tags: Fedor Emelianenko
Loading ...
Lame… Fedor your ruining MMA and your name.
I was waiting for this. They left themselves extremely vulnerable the way they closed their doors and were in bed with the UFC w/n the weekend. If they did not compensate Fedor’s group(when they were technically together) when they shut down their operation and continued to exist they are in fact in breach of contract. Depending on the deal struck between the UFC and Affliction the UFC could be liable.
Hey you sign a contract expecting to get paid, but because your company re-negs on the project and your out a job. Would you take it in the a$$. I’ll answer that for you …. no. You would go to the labour board or take it to court and get paid. It’s not even like they went bankrupt, they just ditched in an attempt to crawl back to the UFC and sell more t-shirts and not lose anymore money.
The way I see it is Affliction is libel for Fedors paycheck, and if I were in his shoes I’de be getting my money too.
Liable, one day I will learn to spell as well as chrisl.
Affliction MMA – The Promoter and Affliction Clothing – the clothing brand are separate entities. Affliction MMA has ceased to do business, I don’t know what they plan to get out of this. Just more Russian BS, IMO.
It’s a way of gaining leverage on the company that bought Affliction entreatment’s assets… the UFC. The way to do that is to prove some form of collusion took place beforehand.
Actually, Affliction Inc. owns(owned) both Affliction Clothing and Affliction Entertainment, as well as Xtreme Couture and Sinful clothing. As long as Fedor went after Affliction Inc, he should get himself a healthy paycheck.
I clarified the post to state that Affliction Clothing and Affliction Entertainment were sued (at least according to reports, I’ve been unable to read the actual lawsuit personally) and that Entertainment was an independent branch of Affliction that promoted its MMA events.
Thanks Kris! Curious to see the lawsuit myself. The wording will be very determinant of whether or not anything happens.
On the surface this seems like just another nuissance lawsuit, but if M-1 Global’s lawyers can convince a sympathetic judge to authorize some sort of long-reaching forensic accounting of events, then they might in fact be owed some money, but only in that screwball American civil legal system sort of way.
Unfortunately, in all the noise whats going to get lost is that fact that as Justin H posts, there is a distinct lrgal and corporate difference between Affliction and the Affliction MMA promotion, which as far as I can tell has ceased operations, and probaby did so while in the red, no pun intended, so I’m not sure what Fedor’s group is hoping to gain here.
And dragging the UFC into this mess would be laughable if we didn’t have such a horrific civil suit structure wherein I could file suit against the frenZy for eyestrain from reading all of their great stuff and for the carpal tunnel syndrome I’m suffering from ever since I started posting here…
Without knowing what the contract specified, this is all just speculation. If Affliction consulted a good lawyer when setting up and canceling the event, they will probably be fine.
M-1 has picked up a lawyer that has already been involved in a suit against Affliction before.
Finkledinkle should be suing that Barnett character He be the EVIL doer BOSS
Affliction MMA (LLC) had contracts with M~1 Global and Fedor respectivly, Fedor essentially got paid via M~1 Global (bonuses, PPV cuts, endorsements the like) and Affliction MMA paid Fedor a “base salary”….. Todd Beard the President and Cheif Chair of Affliction Clothing and Affliction MMA (LLC) would most likely be the center of this lawsuit, and yes he still is the standing President of Affliction Clothing (Affliciton MMA (LLC) is for all intents and purposes is no more, I do believe all debts have been paid and they have no monies left in “bank”)…..
If M~1 Global is just looking for more free money this perhaps is a bad idea, especially if M~1 was serious about Fedor ever going to the UFC (hence they probably don’t want to bring ZUFFA into this lawsuit), this could be a money grab, but trying to get that money out of a broke LLC company (which has paid back all debts to its parent company) is going to be rather difficult…
Actually wondering if this isn’t a high risk maneuver to force the UFC into some sort of negotiations. Like I said the issue will be if it is just against Affliction or if Zuffa is involved due to Zuffa’s quick deal with Affliction.
Didn’t M1 co promote, are they suing themselves to? I really hope this is all M1 and not Fedor. Fedor is ruining himself and his legacy. He needs to drop M1!
Fedor is M1.
And by that I mean he has money invested in M1 and co-owns it.
i dont know the whole situation but as far as im concerned fedor should not get paid out for this…
he never fought, he never got paid seems logical to me…
they say that BR was ready and willing to fight… i call BS… and didnt he test postivie for steroids…
fedor has got to be dumb…. and broke…. i think the guy should just shut up or fight…
Think of it this way jjman: If you get offered a sum of money for a skill you have (let’s just say you’re a fighter for arguments sake), and you sign the contract to pay you X amount of dollars for a fight in 3 months. So now you train every day like it’s your job, which it is. You train 3 sessions a day at various locations. You pay top dollar for trainers and sparring and grappling and submission partners. You put out about 25% of your contract’s payment for training purposes. Then a week before the fight, it’s cancelled. The parent company of the MMA promotion that “folded” still exists under the same owners and has money in the bank. You’d want your money.
And Brett Rogers went on the record to say he would fight Fedor at Affliction, I’m quite sure that’s a fact, and not BS.
but heres the thing… as much as that would suck, and i can understand how that would cause a finaical burden… i ultimatly did not fight… which is what my contract was for…
no fight, no pay… to me its that simple…
if it was in the contract that he would get paid for the fight if the fight got canceled or what ever reason came up, then i would say he is entitled to his pay…
but to sue because there could have been a fight even though there wasnt… boo hoo!!!
the contract said there would be a fight. Affliction breached the contract. boo hoo for Affliction, pay the man his money.
And if he drags the UFC (or more likely Zuffa with its deeper pockets) into the suit, it is further proof the man never wanted to fight for them and negotiated in bad faith.
Be interesting to see what part of his contract forbids a company from going out of business, wouldn’t you say? Also be interesting to see what part of it says that he can be paid when there are no assets any longer…
how so dbiz? One could alternately say that he’s annoyed with Dana’s reluctance to let him compete in his country’s true Combat Sport, Sambo, and thus signed with a company that would give him freedom of person and a hefty paycheck.
Keep in mind that Affliction Inc. did not go out of business. They folded their Entertainment division.
I think the issue is that it could be said Affliction had no intention to put on the card after Barnett was ruled out after, only because the UFC deal happened so quickly.
However, I also believe that (this is my opinion) that this could have possibly occurred because no one believed Strikeforce was a legit threat to get Fedor. Thus making it so that the UFC assumed the issue would be settled when they signed him. However, with his Strikeforce signing that left that issue out there. My thing is that if they did not negotiate or mention this detail in the UFC negotiations then like Dbiz said the negotiations are in bad faith.
Except, eldiablo, SAMBO was never the issue in this negotiation. Both sides said it revolved around the fact that the UFC saw no reason to keep spending the same amount of money on each event and splitting the profits for events involving Fedor with M-1. M-1 calls this co-promotion. The rest of us call it bad business.
It is also important to note that Fedor and M-1 likely never had a contract with Affliction, Inc. In all likelihood, they had it with Affliction MMA, which did fold and go out of business.
M-1’s gripe is not about Fedor or his money for not fighting, it is about their money they spent promoting the fight, and allegedly acquiring contracts to distribute the event over television in other countries.
As far as Rogers fighting, it was my understanding at the time that Rogers was open to the idea, but Strikeforce was not (contrary to the claims of M-1). In fact we Ran an article with quotes from Strikeforce Director of Communications Mike Afromowitz saying that Rogers would not be fighting for Affliction.
affliction did not breach the contract…. affliction canceled the fight because there was no suitable… available fighter…
so if anyone breached there contract it would be the guy who tested positive for roids… so maybe fedor should sue him…
m1 = greed X1billion
M-1 = Greed
The optics of this thing are poor for Fedor and M-1 Global.
If they are trying to get money out of a bankrupt company, Affliction MMA, they look incompetent. If they are trying to get money out of Affliction, they are kidding themselves if they don’t think that Affliction properly indemnified themselves legally before signing a deal with the UFC, or even before launching a start-up MMA promotion.
If M-1 is trying to get money out of Zuffa, they look like the gang that can’t shoot straight, because Dana laid out a sweet deal to Fedor and M-1 Global walked because…well, we’ve kicked that around to death, so, y’know.
At no angle does this thing look like M-1 Global is on-point here. They look like they are rattling empty cages, and trying to get blood out of a stone.
Even their boy Fedor can’t do that.
Yet.
I do agree with tapout kid m1 is very greedy in fact that is why fedor wouldn’t sign with ufc is because dana would not promote m1 on the cards if i stand correct the total figure for fedor in six fights for the ufc was about 36.6 million dollars and dana would let him compete in sambo and do what the hell ever he wants so im going to say m1 is messing up and if you dont believe me about m1 being promoted on cards get on the strikeforce website and click events and look at the top of the page