[MMA] Mark Cuban going after Fedor

... to sign him, that is.

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=8834

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NBA's Cuban Pursuing Fedor Emelianenko

Monday, September 03, 2007
by Josh Gross (joshg@sherdog.com)

Mark Cuban, the energetic and controversial owner of the National Basketball Association's Dallas Mavericks, is negotiating for the services of Russian mixed martial arts star Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures), Sherdog.com confirmed Sunday.

"I am in ongoing discussions with some of his people," Cuban revealed in an e-mail interview that will be published on Sherdog.com later this week.

Cuban's interest in Emelianenko has everything to do with HDNet, currently available in 6 million homes, nearing a major uptick in the amount of MMA programming on the HD network.

"I plan on making a significant investment in MMA with the goal of promoting it as a professional sport with professional athletes," said the 49-year-old Cuban, whose net worth was listed by Forbes in 2007 to be $2.3 billion. Cuban purchased the Mavericks in 2000 after selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion in stock. "There is no reason that a fighter in an undercard match should be treated any differently than how I treat our players on the Mavs."

In Emelianenko -- the longtime PRIDE heavyweight champion who became a free agent after Zuffa purchased the PRIDE Fighting Championships in March -- Cuban would have his fighting Dirk Nowitzki.

"We would work with his promoters to place him in fights from affiliated promoters or in fights we promote ourselves," said Cuban, who plans on partnering with established MMA organizations to fill the weekly quota of bouts HDNet would need for its successful Friday Fight Night series.

"It's the highest rated sports programming by far [on HDNet]," Cuban said. "Our MMA programming on HDNet beats networks that have five times or more the carriage that we do. So it's been a big winner for us and we expect it to get even better."