Props: Yahoo!

Quoteworthy:

"I don’t see any irony ... Even though Fedor is now under contract with Zuffa, I still have a hard time imagining he’ll ever fight in the UFC. We’ll see, but that’s my bet right now. There are few fights, though, that can’t be made now. And that’s the good thing. You know me ... I’m as big a fan of this as anybody and I love making the fights that everyone wants to see. At the end of the day, it’s all about making great fights and the fights the people want to see. That’s what we’re doing."

It appears that in the end, UFC President Dana White used a big money end around to land his White Whale, former Pride FC heavyweight champion and mixed martial arts legend, Fedor Emelianenko. White has chased the Russian to all corners of the globe and stacked bags of money at his feet, but "The Last Emperor" has always gone in a different direction. Even when Zuffa purchased Pride FC several years ago, Emelianenko and his M-1 entourage opted to fight for Affliction MMA and Strikeforce rather than play inside Dana's Octagon. Now it appears that even though his five-year chase has come to an end (sorta), White still can't picture Emelianenko ever walking down the UFC tunnel. With back-to-back losses, would it be in Emelianenko's best interests to get his career back on track with the Zuffa promotional muscle behind him or should he continue to ply his trade with Strikeforce on Showtime because that's where all the best heavyweights fight these days anyway?