The other major event was the signing of Emelianenko, still considered at the time of his signing by most inside the sport as the best heavyweight, and many still considered him the best overall fighter in the sport. But it came at a huge cost and with tremendous headaches. Not only did the cost per fight run into the millions, but they had to co-promote every show with M-1 Global, Emelianenko's fight company. And after every show, Emelianenko's people would keep trying to change the deal. He was also submitted in one minute by Fabricio Werdum's triangle, in what was from a world MMA news standpoint, the biggest moment in the company's history.
The idea to turn things around, was the heavyweight Grand Prix tournament. It was an idea from Japan. Coker had regularly attended the K-1 World Grand Prix every year which at its peak would sell out the Tokyo Dome and be every bit as big in that country to the public as an event like the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament was in the U.S.
Instead of one night, he figured it was best to space it out over a year, like Pride had done with its successful tournaments. The idea would be two first round fights on two different nights, then the two semis a few months later, ending with the finals. The idea at first was that hopefully the semifinals could get them back on CBS, and build to the finals on pay-per-view with the hook of crowning the "true" best heavyweight in the world.
But even before the tournament had started, SVSE decided it wanted out.
"From their side, they invested a lot of money into the brand," said Shamrock. "We were signing some high dollar fighters, Dan (Henderson), Fedor, and when we committed to the heavyweight tournament, that was a huge financial commitment. Those guys, they aren't big risk takers. After we signed Fedor at everyone's suggestion, we didn't get the support from our distributors that we thought and hoped for. Nothing was guaranteed and they could expose themselves to great risk, and they got out. To them, it was just business. We were an asset not making enough money and having too much risk. For the rest of us, it meant a lot more."
They spent heavy on the tournament. The eight first-round fights would pit Emelianenko vs. Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva, the Elite XC champion when it folded and a huge guy. Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC champion, would face Sergei Kharitonov, one of Pride’s top heavyweights when it went down. Josh Barnett, another Pride heavyweight star, would face Rogers, who gave Fedor a great fight on CBS. And Alistair Overeem, champion by that point in Dream, K-1 and Strikeforce, returned to face Werdum. The idea was to build for Overeem vs. Fedor in the semifinals.
There was simply no way to outlay the kind of money it took to get those fighters together without big pay-per-view numbers or much larger television rights fees backing it up.
