 Dana White has had a love/hate relationship with consensus number one heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. He attempted to sign the popular Russian fighter after PRIDE folded and then bashed the former champion relentlessly after Emelianenko rebuffed his overtures.
Emelianenko, for his part, said that the contract offered by White was unacceptable and he eventually ended up signing a deal with Affliction.
Now it appears that White is once again feeling the love:
“The door is wide open,” White told the a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/sports/other_sports/ultimate_fighting/view.bg?articleid=1126454">Boston Herald. “I want Fedor to come in and fight the best. At the end of the day, I’m a fight fan. That’s what I really am, and I want to see the best fight the best. Let’s find out if he’s the best. I want to do it. I still feel the same way about Fedor. I want to see Fedor fight the best in the world. People want to call him the best heavyweight pound-for-pound. Wait until he gets in and starts fighting some of these guys. I give him credit for fighting Tim Sylvia, but there are better guys out there than Tim.”
White's words ring a bit hollow now after M-1 and Affliction have formed a partnership. This leaves the likelihood of Emelianenko fighting in the UFC very bleak according to M-1's Chief Operating Officer Joost Raimond.
“The fact of the matter is that a loan-out is something that the UFC would not desire, they would never go for such a deal,” Raimond told MMAWeekly. “And secondly, the way we have our program set up for the next years, and our event schedules set up, it's just not feasible to have a Fedor fight within the UFC.”
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