RearNakedNews.com will have UFC 101 "Declaration" Live Results this Saturday night. We'll kick things off with results for the preliminary card then a full play by plays for the PPV, which starts at 10pm ET. The card is a little light on the bottom, but you can't really beat seeing Griffin/Silva and Penn/Florian to end the night. I'm also excited for Neer/Pellegrino. I give Joe Silva crap some times for booking strange fights, but he did good with that one.

UFC 101 Declaration

It's a valid question. Going into the negotiations, they had to know co-promotion was not an option. The only bargaining chip they had was Fedor, who as great as he is, remains unproven as a PPV draw. The UFC offered an extremely generous contract, which would have paid Fedor more than he will make with Strikeforce and even allow him to compete in Sambo, which was a sticking point during the last round of talks. M-1 turned it down. They still wanted to co-promote.

My line of thinking is M-1 used the UFC's offer to boost their asking price to Strikeforce. They knew the UFC would never relent on co-promotion. It was all for show. If they were serious about signing with the UFC, would they also have been working on a deal with EA Sports at the same time? Wouldn't you put it on hold for the greater good? Everyone knows Dana White declared war on EA. By agreeing with EA, you're putting a possible deal with the UFC in jeopardy. It's not like Fedor will make crazy money from the video game, either. It's like a guy having a date with Angelina Jolie planned for Friday night then inexplicably getting a fat chick pregnant the day before.

I think we've been strung along the last week by M-1. They never intended to sign with the UFC. M-1 needs Fedor to remain viable as the best fighter in MMA. Sending him to the UFC would be too dangerous. In Strikeforce, he can fight Brett Rogers, Alistair Overeem, and Fabricio Werdum. He'll be an overwhelming favorite in each fight and barring a random punch, should have little trouble. In the UFC, he would have faced Brock Lesnar, Randy Couture, and Carwin/Velasquez/Cro Cop or a second fight with Lesnar. They took the easy path and I don't think MMA fans will ever forget it.

Fedor Emelianenko has signed a multi-fight contract with Strikeforce. He will make his debut this fall on Showtime. M-1 Global will also come aboard and co-promote with Strikeforce. This ends a crazy week of speculation about where MMA's best fighter would sign. The financial details have not been revealed, but there is no possible way Strikeforce offered a higher salary than the UFC. They did cave to M-1 Global's demand for co-promotion, though. For them, co-promotion might not be a terrible decision. We'll see how it plays out.

And somewhere in his top secret mountain lair, Dana White is plotting the destruction of his new mortal enemy...Strikeforce.

UPDATES COMING

The UFC offered him $30 million! Why did he turn it down?!

Lets start with the reported $30 million offer. The source is Carmichael Dave, who is a total UFC mouthpiece. I'm not saying I think he's lying, or more specifically the UFC fed him false numbers. However, this is definitely the best case scenario for the offer. If Fedor finished out the entire 6 fight contract and each fight did excellent PPV numbers, he'd walk away with $30 million (maybe even more).

I'm not saying it's a bad offer. It's more than fair from a salary standpoint. The point I'm trying to make is the UFC put the details of this offer out there to garner public support. They want to make Fedor and his handlers into the bad guys. A week ago Dana White was on the radio saying the UFC does not release full salary info to protect their fighters. Now he's feeding a story to his friend outlining the offer to Fedor. Releasing the details was a calculated move and it worked perfectly. If he ultimately does not sign with the UFC, they can use the offer as evidence to discredit Fedor's standing as the best fighter in MMA. They'll say, "We offered him the world! He wasn't interested in fighting the best competition."

Can you explain what "co-promotion" means?

Um, kinda. M-1 Global has been mostly vague with what they actually mean by "co-promotion". I'm not even sure they know for sure. The best I can do is give you an example of how a co-promoted event would work. Lets call it UFC/M-1 "Never Gonna Happen". The first obstacle would be contracts. The UFC requires their fighters to sign exclusive deals, which means they can only compete under the UFC banner. A co-promoted event would feature fighters signed to the UFC as well as M-1. I doubt the UFC would be interested in allowing any of their exclusive fighters to face someone from M-1. If the M-1 fighter won, the UFC would have no future rights to the winning fighter. They could sign certain M-1 fighters to non-exclusive deals, but that would go against the UFC's business model.

The next stumbling block concerns money. M-1 wants to split expenses and profits. Again, they're vague about what this means. Lets say we line up Lesnar/Fedor for the main event of "Never Gonna Happen". Is M-1 going to split Fedor's UFC salary? Will they pay half of Lesnar's? Or will they only pay Fedor's M-1 contracted salary? I don't see how M-1 could afford to pay half of the UFC salaries for Lesnar and Fedor, so I'm gonna assume the only thing they'd be on the hook for is Fedor's M-1 contracted salary. You can probably see why this is a huge problem. It doesn't make sense for the UFC because they have to pay both fighters, while their "partner" does not.

All right, "Never Gonna Happen" is over and it did 1 million PPV buys. Time to split up the profits. Again, there's an obvious problem here. Back to the contract issue...The UFC would pay a larger portion of the salaries, so they should get a larger slice of the profits. M-1 would counter with, "Well, we gave you Fedor and be brought in the viewers." They want everyone to believe Fedor is a PPV giant, when in reality he's closer to 5'9. It's illogical for M-1 to get half the profits when they didn't pay half the salaries or even have the biggest draw on the card.

So co-promotion will never work?

If you take the PPV aspect out of it, you have a much easier process. The problem is you would not see much profit. The UFC does not have a major TV deal that pays them billions like the NFL. They basically use their televised events on Spike as a means to promote their brand and PPVs. Sure, they make money on the live gate and advertising, but it's not all that much. I don't see either side being interested in this option.

What are Fedor's other options?

Not many. He could either sign with Strikeforce or go to Japan. Strikeforce would be the best fit because they're fine with co-promoting. They actually have a need for a partner. The only way I'd see it working is if Strikeforce wants to put on a PPV. They'd need the additional revenue to afford his salary. Personally, I hope Strikeforce passes. They aren't ready for PPV yet. Maybe 6-12 months from now, but at this point their PPV would rely too much on Fedor's drawing power, which is not nearly enough. They need to build up their current roster a little more before making the leap. A Gina Carano victory would go a long way to meeting this goal.

As far as Japan, it might be the short term solution. At this point, it would be odd to ship him away to Japan, after all the time and effort Fedor's handlers have spent introducing him to the North American market. I could see a fight, but beyond that it does not seem like a good fit.

What is at stake for the UFC?

Signing Fedor would be great, but the UFC will continue doing insane PPV numbers without him. Their Heavyweight Division is stocked with interesting fights for at least the next year.

What is at stake for Fedor?

Lots of money and possibly his well earned legacy. More and more fans are beginning to question his status as the best fighter in Mixed Martial Arts. They're buying into the UFC's motto that to be the best, you have to fight the best.

How do you see this turning out?

There is still some hope. As I mentioned during Dana White's conference call, he wasn't totally bashing him. He said a lot of negative things, but he also left the door open for a deal. That said, I think the more likely option is the UFC sets their sights on putting M-1 Global out of business. All it would take are some well placed counter events. Lets say M-1 and Strikeforce partner for a PPV. Okay, the UFC schedules an event the same night, stocks it with some big names, and broadcasts it on Spike. Even worse, they could hold the event nearby and put a dent into the attendance as well. They did it to Affliction, so I don't see why it won't happen again.

The other less dramatic scenario is to wait it out. Fedor doesn't have a long list of possible opponents. Brett Rogers, Alistair Overeem, Josh Barnett (in Japan), and Fabricio Werdum - that's really it. There is also the random chance he loses, which would kill M-1's bargaining power and make a deal with the UFC more likely.

• Nothing new on the Fedor front. They've tried everything possible to sign him, but it hasn't worked out. White doesn't want to hear anymore Fedor questions.

• Tito Ortiz has signed with the UFC.

• Dan Henderson is next in line to face Anderson Silva.
  

• Rich Franklin vs Vitor Belfort at UFC 103. It'll be at a catchweight of 195 lbs. They decided to cancel the Franklin/Henderson fight because of negative feedback. See, complaining on the Internet works some times.

• Ortiz is working out with Freddie "Mush" Roach.

• Ortiz likely to return in November or December. Mark Coleman mentioned as a possible opponent.

• White reiterates that co-promotion with M-1 Global is not an option. He also said the UFC is targeting Russia for expansion.

• UFC 100 brought in 25 million viewers in Mexico.

• More Fedor talk. White sounds genuinely surprised they turned down the deal. Described his mood as "f---ing miserable". But, he has repeatedly said that a deal is still possible. Co-promotion is really the only obstacle to getting it done.

• He's going back and forth between bashing Fedor and talking about how much he wants to sign him. It's sorta strange to hear. I figured we'd get a clear message today about Fedor not being worth the trouble, but it's very mixed. I'm much more optimistic about Fedor signing with the UFC. If it was a dead issue, White would have laid into him a lot harder. I should note that this is Dana White we're talking about, so his light bashing contains stuff like "F--k him".