Yeah. Great striker back in the day, doesn't seem motivated though anymore. If he could get the motivation back, he could definately school Bigfoot standing. We shall see.
SF doesn't have the backing or the best business plan. Still, it's better to have more than one organization as opposed to one all-powerful organization that can be used to blackball the employees who want alternatives.
They dont have a lot of money. They have to do what makes sense business wise right now. Why make Fedor vs the Giant, Fedor's last match?
I just find it funny that they announced the fight as title eliminator match and when Wetdum pulled off a miracle Coker just goes "Oh uh yeah that doesn't count, Fedor gets the title shot, disregard that fight or what was implicated prior to it" I hope Dana publicly ridicules them and exposes this sham for what it is. They aren't much better than XC or DREAM.
They are an organization for fighters to go to and get paid. That's not a bad thing, and it only helps MMA as a whole.
If Kharitonov can get back to form, he'd be a contender. As it is, his career and potential seem to have stagnated since he left the Red Devil team.
I agree. No one cares that much about the SF titles. They need to sell the matchups. Everyone wants to see the rematch. give it to them. TLC is right though, saying it is a title eliminator and then retracting it makes you look like a joke.
Unfortunately, I saw Kharitanov fighting in K-1 ( in a k-1 fight not MMA ) recently, and he looked fat and undertrained there. Seems he won't take it seriously ever again.
He didn't hype Kimbo at all. He exploited him, but there's a difference between hyping someone and exploiting someone. XC hyped Kimbo as a HW contender and was the face of the organization and headliner, they boosted this by putting him against cans to make him look good. Dana put Kimbo on a reality television show, and when he was done with him, gave him a TUF guy to fight then kicked him out at 1-1 in the UFC.
Contrary to popular belief, Elite XC never tried to hype Kimbo as one of the best hw in the world, Shaw never claimed he was ( but he claime Big Foot Silva was one of them and he was right ). Shaw did the same as White did, just that he had way less stars than White has so he had to build his company around his biggest star. And they didn't matched KImbo with cans, facing James Thompson, when you have 2 fights and no real experience in any serious sport isn't exactly cherry picking.