UFC Burns Fedor and Crazy Russian Management
(‘Gotcha, motherfucker!’)
Okay, I take back what I said about April Fool’s pranks being lame. The UFC – an organization not typically known for its sense of humor – has the best joke of the day so far, and it’s really as simple as this headline on UFC.com: “UFC Greenlights Construction of Russian Stadium.”
Get it? Because Fedor Emelianenko’s management team allegedly wanted the UFC to build a stadium in Russia as part of their completely unrealistic contract demands? And so now the UFC is openly mocking those demands simply by pretending to have agreed to them, thus pointing out that they are so ridiculous as to be comical all on their own, while at the same time pretty much eliminating any chance of reconciling with Fedor and bringing him to the UFC! April Fool’s!
It is at this point that I have to wonder whether Fedor and the boys down at Crazy Russian Management Group, LLC (also an organization not known for its sense of humor) are going to get this joke. In all the Yakov Smirnoff routines, I don’t recall anything about how April Fool’s Day is different in Soviet Russia, which is weird because he must have covered every other conceivable topic but that one.
For my own personal amusement I’d like to imagine that Fedor sees this story himself when he goes to UFC.com today to buy a replica Octagon girl bikini top from the online store. I can imagine his face lighting up at the news, because it means he can finally stop wearing that Affliction crap and the next time Jerry Millen breathes all over him in the back of a limo he won’t have to smile and be nice about it. Then one of Fedor’s cousins who is familiar with American culture from that study abroad semester she spent at Ohio State tells him all about April Fool’s Day and also about Chlamydia (the two are inextricably connected in her mind), and he is suddenly filled with a crushing sadness.
Still, it’s like my father always said: a joke isn’t funny unless it really hurts someone. Kudos, UFC. I didn’t think you had it in you.
