Fedor Not Fighting on New Year’s Eve, Won’t Fight Barnett at “Day of Reckoning”
Fedor Emelianenko, the world’s near-consensus top heavyweight and among the planet’s best pound-for-pound fighters, will not be competing on New Year’s Eve and will also not meet Josh Barnett early next year at Affliction’s second event.
Affliction Vice President Tom Atencio recently alerted MMA Junkie of the status of the promotion’s top fighter.
“I’ve been told actually 100 percent that he is not fighting on New Year’s Eve,” said Atencio. “[The members of Emelianenko's management team] are our partners. We have extended his contract, and that’s where we’re at. I spoke with [Emelianenko's managers] the other day, and they said he is not fighting. So that’s just rumors.”
Affliction’s second event, “Day of Reckoning”, was scheduled to take place on October 11 in Las Vegas but was rescheduled last month, reportedly due to low ticket sales. The event was tentatively rescheduled for January 17th in Anaheim, California but is now expected to take place on another date in early-2009 at a location to-be-determined.
Rumors and reports suggested that Emelianenko would meet Barnett, another of the promotion’s top heavyweights, in the “Day of Reckoning” main event but that fight is now not expected to take place after Barnett turned the fight down.
Emelianenko, who has fought on New Year’s Eve for five-straight years beginning in 2003, could instead meet former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski, who defeated Roy Nelson in primetime at EliteXC “Heat” on Saturday, in the “Day of Reckoning” main event.
Barnett turned down a title fight? Really?
Holy KJ Noons, Batman!!
Dbiz,
LOL…..Holy KJ Noons…..very good. How the F does Affliction have the BEST fighter in the world and cannot get a f-ing match set up and done? I am getting frustrated. I hate Affliction and need my Fedor fix!! Give me more Fedor man…..
Man Fedor should fight every ****ing month. I hate and love the fact that he destroy his opponent really quick because its always awesome but after I have to wait 4-5 months for another 38 seconds of real madness.
Kouch you hate Affliction, but they brought us Fedor. Yet you love Fedor and he won’t fight for UFC. What’s a man in your spot to do? I say go with self implosion while surrounded by 20 midgets in black robes with candles.
Barnett is a p**sy for not taking this fight. I am very disappointed in him.
On the bright side…Arlovski may be next!
Sounds to me like Fedor isnt wanting help AFFLICION either . And it doesnt make sense that Barnett wouldnt take a title shot ….. why bother fighting then if you dont want to be a champion . I know they are friends but that shouldnt make them not fight . “we dont want to fight each other ” is no excuse and they should have a penalty to pay for backing out .The fans lose in the end …….
it would appear that the baby faced assassin is more baby then assassin. so u got fedor for a fight wit no opponent and its gonna b pushed back even further from the 17th? man affliction u cant even do good enough as a promotion for the ufc to want to buy u out
Maybe Barnett just likes his face in its current configuration and doesn’t want it rearranged, therefore he turned down this fight. Its really disappointing that we don’t get to see more of Fedor. I wonder when we’ll get to see Aleksander fight again.
Excellent statement huertarogerhuerta, the baby faced assassin is now just a baby. Good stuff!
Justin, I look forward to seeing Aleksander as well. He’s the scruffy, biker bar, trouble causing version of Fedor. While he got his head kicked in by Cro Cop, he’s still got plenty of fight in him. He’s a better version of Tim Silvia. Same body type but Aleksander is more exciting to watch.
YouTube has some great fights with Aleksander and I’m not really sure why the law allows them to be aired on there. Ah well, free is good!
One point for Kris, the website genius:
You said we’d be able to get in touch with other MMAFrenzy users, is that in the next round of updates? Or am I missing something?
As always, great, great work on the site!
Barnett claims he won’t fight Fedor because Affliction are not offering him enough dollar$ to make it worth his while. Money talk$!
Dannyboy,
In regards to the law allowing videos on YouTube, basically what a lot of the stuff on YouTube boils down to is that whoever actually owns the rights to the material (UFC, PRIDE FC, CBS/Viacom, Shonen Jump, Viz Media, whatever) has to say something to YouTube. If said owner formally requests that the video be removed, YouTube will take it down. In fact I think it is an official policy that anything that is the property of CBS/Viacom is not allowed to be posted on YouTube because they have made such a big deal to YouTube about it. The FBI is too busy arresting college students for downloading songs/movies for free to worry about who’s posting on YouTube.
BTW way to link to youtube, by not actually linking to youtube and instead linking to your politically motivated blog, although I was not fooled by this link, it is disingenuous.
1st off justin nice ichigo avatar. 2nd i thought aleksander had herpes or hep c and he couldnt fight anymore? didnt diego almost hafta retire for the same thing?
This would have been a more appropriate link in that situation.
Justin,
Well to be fair it was a youtube based entry.
Thanks for the info, though. I always wondered how items got ‘banned’ and the like.
So are you of the opinion that UFC has a YouTube staffer that searches the site to ensure no UFC material is uploaded? And if it is, they are on it like stink on sh*t?
Well pooh, I was hoping my Gravatar pic would show up. Am I missing something? I’ve signed up and added the pic but perhaps I need to do something on this site to allow it to show? Any help would be great, thanks!
huertarogerhuerat,
Diego (Sanchez?) had a staph infection. This is curable with antibiotics and time. I haven’t heard anything about Aleksander having anything, I did a google search to try to find anything out before posting that and didn’t find anything about upcoming fights, or reasons he is not fighting. He was scheduled to fight at Affliction: Banned, but it seems that did not take place, I don’t know why.
Also, thanks for the Avatar comment.
Okay nevermind it just showed up for some reason. Sheesh, sorry for the spam everyone.
Sanchez is right, Justin. I also thought it was completely unfair that Aleksander was amidst Hepatitis scandals when it wasn’t the case, a while back. I may have missed the retraction, but wasn’t Aleksander cleared of his supposed Hepatitis infection? Kind of a shady thing to do to someone who just didn’t have the paperwork handy.
Dannyboy,
I think your Gravatar has shown up now. And they may have someone to do that, or they may just have a standing agreement with YouTube. I could be wrong about it having to be someone officially linked to the company.
Oh and before I hear it from everyone, yes I look like a Douchebag. I was lucky enough to find a beautiful woman who prefers Douche over Vinegar & Water.
It probably helps that I make decent money too. haha
“(Sanchez?)” was more to make sure he wasn’t talking about another Diego that I didn’t know about.
On Aleksander…
http://www.google.com/search?q=alexander+emelianenko+hepatitis+b&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
http://www.redsweat.com/aleksander-emelianenko-tests-positive-for-hepatitis-b/
http://www.google.com/search?q=alexander+emelianenko+hepatitis+b&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
hmmm…as a result of links in my last comment, it is awaiting moderation, hopefully Kris will get it up soon.
i kno it ended up bein staph for diego but i remember the rumor that he wasnt gonna fight kos cuz he had hepititas.
“UFC President Dana White dropped that bomb today, unveiling that the 25-year-old welterweight contender was battling a mysterious illness prior to UFC 69 that was — at one point — diagnosed as hepatitis C.”
and this is the last i heard bout the aleksander hep b situation
“A source close to the situation…explained that the blood tests came back right before Aleks and Buentello were scheduled to weigh in and that is why there was so much confusion around the stage and why the fighters did not weigh in. Gary Goodridge ended up stepping up on extremely short notice and filling in for the Russian heavyweight.
The tests were positive for Hepatitis B which resulted in the CSAC cancelling the fight.”
Fedor is saving himself for the Couture fight for UFC 100 imo.
diego i kno it turned out to b staph but i dont remember hearin bout aleks not havin hep b
never mind i just found the whole it was paperwork not hep b my apologies
That sucks man Affliction better do something here i hope they dont try and stop Fedor Emelianenko from fighting in DREAM he was there at Dream 6 not fighting but more of a things to come sort of deal.
i think he should fight Alistair Overeem that would be a good fight
and if the ufc was not so tight on there fighter contracts and actually pay what he’s worth then they would have Fedor, but they dont! but its only a matter of time till the ufc smarts up
Just on a GSP note here ……. I want him to fight Penn next but if there was a different opponent awaiting it would be yoshida . yoshida is a tough son of a b!tch and may have the stuff to beat them both .He obviously scared the crap out of karo .
karo wasnt scared. joe rogan said he needed surgery awhile ago and neva got it so now when he flexs his leg it makes a divet in his hamstring. but i believe yoshida is schedualed to fight kos for the troops. should b a good test for both fighters. as for him fightin gsp hes got a long way to go cuz theres a certain pitbull whos standin in the way of that
M3 said:
and if the ufc was not so tight on there fighter contracts and actually pay what he’s worth then they would have Fedor, but they dont! but its only a matter of time till the ufc smarts up
Yeah, because 300-500K per fight for the top draws is really unfair. Perhaps Fedor is just overly greedy and should have gone for boxing to make his unwarranted salary demands. I mean, word is he asked 2 million for the Randy fight from the UFC. Is he a good fighter? Hell yes. Is he enough of a draw to shell out 2 mill for a single fight when he won’t commit to NOT fight somewhere else? Never in a million years.