Another legal setback was suffered by Randy Couture in his battle to gain free agency and eventually fight Fedor Emelianenko. The Texas Court of Appeals has granted Zuffa's motion to compel Randy Couture to arbitrate in the District of Nevada, thereby killing HDNET's motion against Zuffa in the state of Texas.

According to UFC's legal team, “The practical effect of the Court’s decision is to allow Zuffa to continue its prosecution of claims against Mr. Couture in the Arbitration presently underway here in Nevada without any regard to the flaccid claims of HDNet and its management. Based upon evidence uncovered during the interrogation of Mr. Couture during his deposition, we have every confidence that Mr. Couture will be held accountable for the serious and ongoing breaches of his contractual obligations to Zuffa.”

Randy Couture resigned from the UFC in October of 2007 to pursue a fight with Fedor Emelianenko. He announced his intentions in front of a live crowd during the intermission at an HDNET Fights card. Zuffa immediately took offense and filed a breach of his personal services contract because his likeness appeared at a competing promotions event. They also claimed that his resignation was a retirement and invoked a clause in his contract that would retain Randy indefinitely until he fulfilled the two fights left on his original contract.

Randy to this day claims that the time portion of his fight contract has already expired and his non-compete ends this September. Time does not appear to be on the forty-three year old's side as these type of legal wrangling can go on for years. Fedor's camp has already stated that the fight possibility is time sensitive and Randy's age makes the possibility of lengthy stall in the courts appear untenable.

One possibility that has always remained a factor is for the fight to happen within the UFC but the first attempt at negotiations between Zuffa and M-1, Fedor's management team, ended acrimoniously with Dana calling them "Those Crazy Russians" in a subsequent interview.

So the world waits as the lawyers battle in court to decide whether Randy Couture can fight as a free agent or must remain an asset of Zuffa.