M-1 Global is a very small fight promotion with one very big star and co-owner amongst it's ranks: Fedor Emelianenko. They had Gegard Mousasi as well, but he came to his senses recently and left. M-1 Global has always seemed to think that they are worth more than they are, and because they have Fedor to bargain with they have been able to weasel into the promotional picture. Being that Fedor is part owner in the company, he has a vested interest in letting the goons run the show and do whats best for the bottom line while making ludicrous demands to be a major player in a game they have done nothing to build. All this while picking and choosing opponents for Fedor and keeping him more protected than a fighter promoted by Don King. The most recent absurdity to come from the Russian click is the re-negotiating of Fedor's contract with Strikeforce in which they have some problems with the visibility of the M-1 name. If you remember the first Affliction card that was "co-promoted" by M-1, they were unhappy about the prominence of their logo on the fight posters and made a stink about it. This situation is more of the same, and I'm guessing a bit of money was involved as well. Here is a quote from an interview with Evgeni Kogan by Dave Meltzer at yahoo sports:
“The way the show was promoted, that was an issue to us, but we don’t have an issue with Strikeforce over it,” Kogan said. “M-1 isn’t a management company for Fedor Emelianenko. We are a fight promotion. We have done matches all over the world, U.S., Asia, Europe, Japan. But the media didn’t feature the M-1 name [in coverage of the November show]. Specifically, it wasn’t Strikeforce’s fault. They honored their agreement. The way the media perceived the event was it was Strikeforce. M-1 wasn’t promoted that much. That was an issue with us.”
CBS promoted the November show more as “CBS Saturday Night Fights” as opposed to promoting the Strikeforce or M-1 Global brand names. “For us, this is a really big deal,” Kogan said. “We’re concerned about our brand. For us, it’s an important piece of the big picture.”Kogan needs to remind us that M-1 is a fight promotion because of the fact that no one in the US, or any other part of the world, really cares or has any interest in knowing what they do. The shows that they put on in Russia are largely showcases for M-1 talent and the international shows are filled with fighters still working their way up the ranks. The fact that they believe that the media should give their brand more name recognition is on a whole other level of absurdity. Mentioning that CBS should rename their "Saturday Night Fights" to accommodate the M-1 brand name gives you an idea of how delusional they really are. As long as Fedor is managed by this group his legacy will forever be tarnished and fans will not get to see Emelianenko face truly elite competition because M-1 wants to milk the cash cow as long as they can and won't risk him losing. Georges Saint Pierre, Anderson Silva, BJ Penn, hell even Brock Lesnar will be higher up on my list of top fighters until Fedor gets back to fighting the best in the world on a consistent basis. That simply will not happen with the group of people surrounding him now. I have no problem with Fedor's people getting a piece of the pie, but this is getting ridiculous.
