Jan 5, 2011 - 10:22:21 AM

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

There are a lot of ifs and whens in the contract which are confidential, but essentially it's a four-fight deal. It's a deal that Fedor is happy with in the sense that should he continue his career even beyond these four fights, he wants to continue it with the folks that we're working with now.

But everything depends on the results in the ring or in the cage and what the future will bring. As far as we're concerned, it's a deal that hopefully will continue with Fedor through the rest of his career if he wants it to go beyond the current amount of fights that are there. There's mechanisms to do that as well.

We're very happy with the deal. We're very happy with our partners...

It's getting into some confidential areas, but in general, Fedor still has the ability to perform sambo in Russia as he's always wanted the ability to do.

There's opportunities there to do other things internationally, but the reality of the situation is, right now there's a very huge opportunity for not only Fedor but the other fighters in a tournament situation. In principle, I don't think Fedor's going to want to fight anywhere else, and he'll want to be part of what's going on right now on Showtime.

-M-1 Global co-founder Vadim Finkelchtein talks to Sergio Non at USAToday.com about Fedor Emelianenko's new contract extension with Strikeforce and Showtime.

Penick's Analysis: This should probably (finally) close the door on any thoughts of Fedor ever fighting in the UFC, and I'm just hoping that his intentions to close out his career with these partners in Showtime and Strikeforce means that they will get him in the cage for the fights they need to schedule. But the "there are a lot of ifs and whens in the contract" line is still worrisome coming from Finkelchtein's mouth. The ifs and whens are very likely tied to wins and losses, but hopefully tie-ups only happen if they need to renegotiate after a loss. If things need to be negotiated once again after a win, that could potentially lead to tying up the tournament, and that's the last thing they need to see happen. For now, I remain optimistic that we'll see Fedor fight at least twice in 2011, and if he makes it to the finals of this tournament then perhaps at least three times. But the first step is getting past fight #1 and hopefully having no issue with #2.

[Fedor Emelianenko art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]

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