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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Fedor Emelianenko will face Fabricio Werdum later this month on Showtime, but talk is already underway for the platform in which his next fight will be contested. After appearing on CBS and now Showtime later this month, Fedor will likely return to pay-per-view with his third and final contracted fight with Strikeforce.
According to a report from MMAWeekly.com, citing M-1 Global Director of Operations Evgeni Kogan, should Fedor get past Werdum on June 26, a fight between him and Alistair Overeem would likely take place on pay-per-view.
"Following this fight now we have one more fight on the cards," Kogan said. "That's the future for now, there's one more fight following the June 26 fight and that fight is more likely than not on pay-per-view."
When this fight would take place depends on Fedor's health coming out of the Werdum fight, but it would be expected to be before the end of 2010.
Penick's Analysis: If Strikeforce is intent on making the move to pay-per-view, this is absolutely the fight to do it with. They've built up to it by having Fedor in two separate fights along with Overeem's destruction of Brett Rogers, and it's absolutely the one fight that would make sense for them to put on pay-per-view. Fedor's draw in that particular area is still a big question mark, however, as he's never drawn big numbers, and even though he brought in a lot of eyeballs to CBS, that doesn't necessarily translate to people purchasing his fights. If the numbers are poor on Showtime for the Werdum fight I'd be skeptical as to how successful this pay-per-view venture might be.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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