Time to add my thoughts - better late than never.
Randy and Dana have both made their arguments. Dana insists Randy was happy with his contract when he signed 8 months ago and didn’t attempt to renegotiate before quitting. Randy says Dana the Fertitas lied to him about being the second most highly paid fighter in the company and they failed to secure the big fight with Fedor.
If what Dana says is true, and Randy never even attempted to renegotiate his contract, I would side with Dana on this one. If he felt he wasn’t being paid enough the best course was to tell management directly rather than asking them where he stands in the company, talking to other fighters and then quitting out of the blue. I would agree with Couture that he should be paid the same if not more than anyone else in the heavyweight division (if not the entire company) but he did nothing to ensure that happened.
The other issue is Randy being very hung up on Fedor. Rightly so, he is still considered by most analysts to be the number one heavyweight in the world. It is completely logical that Randy would want to test himself against this man - once and for all silence all the critics and put the brakes on the Fedor hype train. It is for this reason I believe Randy only wants one more fight, for it to be with Fedor and for it to set him up financially for a long long time. Win or lose that fight I see him retiring for good if it ever happens.
So long term match making has not been greatly affected but the image of the UFC in the eyes of the mainstream has been tarnished and the heavyweight division thrown up in the air.