It seems that there is generally some confusion swirling around the MMA community yesterday regarding the announcement by Greg Savage at Sherdog.com's claim that Fedor will be fighting Hong Man Choi in a K-1 event on December 31st. Oddly enough, many fans are confusing M-1 Global for running the event and this being their inaugural event for the promotion. When I first read the news, it felt like Fedor's management was wheeling a deal with K-1 to have Fedor fight on the card. This is the benefit of having a non-exclusive agreement with an organization. This is why Fedor wanted this type of agreement and why the UFC is unwilling to do so. Here some key points:

• Fedor is essentially for "rent" as Sam Caplan stated in his article at FiveOuncesOfPain.com. If you are new to MMA and the notion of non-exclusive agreements, PRIDE ran off this principle for some of their fighters. Organizations can come to the table with Fedor's management, which is essentially a part of M-1 Global now. If they can come to terms on some sort of agreement, Fedor would be able to fight within their organization.


• There are usually stipulations. For instance, HDNet Fights allows their fighters to sign non-exclusive agreements as well. Sean Salmon wrote about this at MMAJunkie.com in a number of posts. In Sean's case, he wasn't supposed to have another fight scheduled a month in advance of his appearance on an HDNet Fights card. We have now seen exactly why. Sean suffered a horrible knockout at Strikeforce and now the main event may be busted due to his injuries. It also allows medical suspensions within the state to run their course.


• In Fedor's case, M-1 Global has the right to approve of the opponent for Fedor. This could stop Fedor from fighting a marquee fighter that M-1 Global may want to try to lock down for their own card. There are other scenarios as well, but for the most part, M-1 will want to try to limit Fedor from fighting the competition. In this case, the NYE fight would be ideal for Fedor to start getting back in the swing of things and allowing the Japanese PRIDE fans to see "The Last Emperor" fight.


• In general, promotions will have to pay a hefty fee for Fedor's services. Especially since he is still arguably one of the best fighters in the mixed martial arts world. It'll be interesting to see if this comes to life or if the money will be too much. It seems to be fairly close to happening, although Hong Man Choi may not be the opponent, as Caplan confirmed.

This was one of the key points as to why the UFC is so weary about non-exclusive contracts. The UFC prides itself on having the best fighters in the world and maintains that elite stable of fighters in their organization alone. That way, if you want to see one of the more elite fighters in the world, you will either have to find fighters in other organizations that have proven their worth without hitting the UFC or you will have to watch the UFC cards. They have essentially created a supply and the fanbase is in demand of that supply. The UFC doesn't want any other organization to tap into that great stable of fighters that they hold in their hands. Of course, it has its downside.

By signing exclusively to the UFC, things can happen that completely stifle your career at times. Exhibit A: Andrei Arlovski. He's been on the shelf for quite some time because his agent and the UFC cannot come to an agreement on his contract. He has recently stated that he now wants to fight his remaining fight and scour the free agent market to see what he could obtain. The UFC's contract structure is number of fights or a time limit. They could just keep him on the shelf for the time length of the contract. These are some of the crappy tactics that can occur in exclusivity. Non-exclusive contracts allow you to go out and fight at times when you've been shelved for quite some time, or the fighter may be the type who needs to fight continuously.

On the flip side, the UFC does not have to worry about their great fighters running off to fight a matchup in another organization because the money is better and run the possibility of getting injured, hurting their appeal to the UFC fans. It's a money making business and the UFC limits the potential for their athletes to be unable to fight in upcoming events. As we've seen with the IFL Grand Prix, events can be completely decimated by injury and the UFC reduces the chances of that. The most obvious reason, however, is to keep their fighters in the UFC and maximize their profits without giving up any to other organizations.

If anybody may have more details on how PRIDE structured their non-exclusive agreements, I'd be interested in hearing about it. I'd also love any insight that readers have on this.