Fedor Emelianenko News

Tom Taylor - February 1, 2018

While Rory MacDonald spent the last few months preparing for his Bellator welterweight title fight with Douglas Lima (which he won via hard-fought decision), he’s also repeatedly expressed interest in serving as an alternate in Bellator’s Heavyweight Grand Prix. This Heavyweight Grand Prix is populated by far larger men in Matt Mitrione, Roy Nelson, Chael Sonnen, Ryan Bader, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal, Frank Mir, and Fedor Emelianenko. Despite the fact that entering this tournament would force MacDonald to fight men three weight classes heavier than him, his coach Firas Zahabi is all for it. In fact, he believes MacDonald could thrive in this tournament, even KO the likes of the legend Fedor Emelianenko.

Justin Golightly - January 31, 2018

Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir finally has a chance to fight one of the very best fighters of all time. Bellator has turned back all the clocks to the ol’ glory days of MMA when the grand prix tournament was still king. They’ve also brought in fighters that have never gotten a chance to face each other in all their years of being in the sport. One fight has already gone by with Chael Sonnen and Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson and they’ll be another one in between Mir fighting Fedor Emelianenko. While many feel he’s passed his prime, Mir assures everyone that Fedor is still Fedor. “Damn, that’s a tough first fight. No joke, Fedor [Emelianenko] is still a phenomenal fighter. I know a lot of people don’t have the eyes that I have and they look at him and go, ‘Well, look at his results.’ And that’s easy to say in our sport, you know. […] Fedor is extremely good. He’s still very quick. He hasn’t lost his power in his punches. Even when he threw the punch against [Matt] Mitrione, Mitrione fell down. Mitrione’s a big kid, y’know, a big guy. I think the difference I try to explain to everybody, [people will say], ‘Well, he used to be unbeatable.’ Yeah, that’s not because he’s gotten worse. Everybody else has gotten better.”

Justin Golightly - November 24, 2017

Fans have wanted Fedor Emelianenko in the UFC for many, many years and it just never happened. Despite him being one of the greatest of all time, we never got to see him against arguably the best competition in the world’s biggest fighting organization. While we can’t turn back time and do it in Fedor’s prime, Scott Coker and Bellator’s heavyweight grand prix will give us a chance to see such a match-up. Former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir is taking on the legend in one of the opening rounds and that’s just the type of big game Mir is hunting in his return to MMA. First round match ups announced for @BellatorMMA heavyweight Grand Prix. I’m honored to be fighting #Fedor …A living legend that I’ve wanted to compete against for many years. #Bellator is going to finally make it happen 👊🏻💥#mma pic.twitter.com/2cfs2DxhS5

Justin Golightly - November 21, 2017

The bells of nostalgia are calling and have summoned a Bellator heavyweight grand prix that will drop early next year. Among all of the UFC veterans and MMA legends involved, former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir will take on the illustrious Fedor Emelianenko. Despite being far removed from his prime and experiencing some devastating losses, Mir believes Fedor is just as dangerous as ever, it’s just everyone else who has changed. “I think [Fedor Emelianenko]’s still extremely dangerous. He did everything he does normally. You see how fast he threw the right hand on [Matt] Mitrione. The difference is everyone else just have gotten a lot better. If Matt Mitrione would fight 10 years ago in Pride, he would have been one of the best fighters in Pride, if we grab Mitrione we are seeing now and put him back there. Back then guys were either good boxers, wrestlers, jiu jitsu guys. You didn’t have a lot of guys who were good at everything. Which Fedor is. He’s good at everything. And now he has to deal with the fact that everybody now is good at everything.”

Justin Golightly - November 10, 2017

The grand prix is the pinnacle of combat sport. It is the most difficult tournament format and has the potential to produce absolutely chaotic results. That chaos is why that, for the most part other than Japan’s RIZIN, the creation of an MMA grand prix is few and far between. However, there is a man who has never strayed from that chaos, but welcomes it to put on exciting fights throughout the years. That man is Scott Coker and he is at it again. Bellator will put on a heavyweight grand prix to crown its first heavyweight champion in four years. “This is going to be something that’s iconic for us. Tournaments, traditionally, are kind of the way martial arts contests happen. Now we get to put eight iconic brand names in our sport together over a year, and then whoever wins will be crowned the heavyweight champion. I think there are certain fights that people want to see. Believe me, we’re going to have some amazing match-ups in this tournament. These fights that we’re going to put together are something that the fans want to see. These are iconic names, big brands.” — Scott Coker speaking to MMA Junkie. 

Russell Ess - October 27, 2017

The Emelianenko brothers seem to be quite the opposites and it shows with their current relationship. According to Alexander who spoke with sovsport.ru recently, the two MMA siblings have not spoken to each other in the last 10 years. The tattooed Alexander recently made a return to MMA competition in September following an 18-month prison sentence after being convicted of sexual assault. After a successful return to MMA, Alexander opened up on his relationship with his older brother.

Russell Ess - September 27, 2017

The M-1 Global promotion is celebrating their 20th anniversary and doing it with a bang by highlighting the best KO’s that have taken place at their events. A likely fan favorite of all the fighters who have competed under the promotion is Fedor Emelianenko, who had a few fights with M-1 along with their co-promoted events with Strikeforce. Other big names that have competed in M-1 include Alistair Overeem, Gegard Mousasi, Andrei Arlovski, Melvin Manhoef, and Ben Rothwell.

Tom Taylor - July 3, 2017

In late June, in the co-main event of Bellator NYC, Russian heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko had his lights shut off by UFC veteran Matt Mitrione. This loss marked the latest hiccup in Emelianenko’s clear decline, and in the opinion of Alistair Overeem, a heavyweight legend of the same vintage as Emelianenko, a signal that it might be time to hang up the gloves. Overeem broke it down in an interview with Fight Hub TV (via MMAFighting.com).

Chris Taylor - June 25, 2017

Fedor Emelianenko updates his fighting future following KO loss to Matt Mitrione Mixed martial arts legend Fedor Emelianenko (36-5 MMA) suffered a first-round knockout loss to Matt Mitrione in the co-main event of last night’s Bellator NYC fight card in New York.

Chris Taylor - June 24, 2017

Bellator NYC Results: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Matt Mitrione A heavyweight scrap between mixed martial arts legend Fedor Emelianenko and Matt Mitrione served as the co-main event of tonight’s “Bellator NYC” pay-per-view fight card in New York.

bjpenndotcom - June 21, 2017

While many MMA fans consider heavyweight MMA icon Fedor Emelianenko to be the greatest fighter of all time for his reign of dominance during the Pride FC era of MMA, ‘The Last Emperor’ doesn’t think of himself as ‘the GOAT’. From 2002-2006, Emelianenko terrorized the Pride FC heavyweight division, going on a spectacular 14 fight win streak that saw him claim, and defend, the Pride FC heavyweight championship as he dispatched of numerous top ranked fighters such as Mirko Cro Cop, Mark Coleman, Mark Hunt, and of course, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

bjpenndotcom - June 8, 2017

https://youtu.be/a5RiQU4f0O8 On this day in MMA history, heavyweight MMA icon Fedor Emelianenko picked up an impressive 1st round submission win over Kazuyuki Fujita after nearly being finished by ‘Ironhead’ in the opening minutes of the fight.

Tom Taylor - March 20, 2017

Earlier this year, heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko was expected to make his first steps into the Bellator MMA cage. His opponent in this Bellator debut was supposed to be dangerous UFC veteran Matt Mitrione. Regrettably, Mitrione was forced out of the fight at the very last minute with a bout of kidney stones. With this disappointing twist of fate, it looked as though Bellator would attempt to rebook a Fedor vs. Mitrione bout for sometime later in the year. Apparently, however, these plans might have been axed.

Russell Ess - February 24, 2017

Now that Fedor Emelianenko is signed to Bellator MMA, there are a quite a few matchups to be had for “The Last Emporer.” With his bout against Matt Mitrione falling out at the last minute with “Meathead” having to be transported to the hospital for issues from kidney stones, it is likely we will see Emelianenko and Mitrione compete on another date. Although nothing has been official for Emelianenko and Mitrione as of yet, current heavyweight TNA professional wrestling champion and Bellator fighter Bobby Lashley says he hopes to get a chance to compete against Fedor.

bjpenndotcom - February 21, 2017

This past weekend, MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko was slated to make his highly anticipated Bellator MMA debut against UFC veteran Matt Mitrione in a highly anticipated showdown that would have seen both Emelianenko and Mitrione put their 2-fight win streaks on the line in a highly anticipated marquee fight. Unfortunately, Mitrione was pulled from the fight just hours before fight night due to a medical illness that landed him in the hospital. Later, it was revealed that the reason for Mitrione’s hospitalization was kidney stones, which he would need to have surgically removed.

Tom Taylor - February 19, 2017

If things had gone according to plan, Russian MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko would have made his long awaited debut in the Bellator cage in the main event of Bellator 172 last night. Regrettably, fate got in the way, as his opponent Matt Mitrione was forced out of the fight with kidney stones just hours out from battle. Though Bellator initially made moves to find a replacement for Mitrione – with Chael Sonnen being the leading candidate – they ultimately failed to do so, and Fedor was removed from the card altogether. This ugly twist, of course, was gutting for fans of Fedor and Mitrione alike. It’s also likely to have stung pretty badly for Bellator, who invested plenty of resources into promoting Fedor’s debut in their cage – perhaps most memorably, by creating a video that explores the origins of the Russian’s legendary striped sweater.

Tom Taylor - February 19, 2017

On Friday night, the MMA community was transfixed on the imminent comeback of heavyweight legend Fedor Emelianenko. The Russian great was poised to take on Matt Mitrione in the main event of Saturday’s Bellator 172, and not even the UFC’s Sunday trip to Halifax could distract us from his return to action. Regrettably, things took an unfortunate twist on Saturday afternoon, when it was announced that Mitrione had been forced out of his planned bout with the legend, as he was suffering from kidney stones. With this development, a lightweight bout between Patricky Freire and Josh Thomson was elevated to the main event, and the card proceeded with much less pop than we anticipated.

bjpenndotcom - February 18, 2017

In just two short weeks, undefeated top ranked lightweight Khabib Nurmagomedov and streaking lightweight contender Tony Ferguson will meet in the Octagon for a highly anticipated interim lightweight title fight, with the winner then moving on to fight Conor McGregor when the lightweight champion returns from the hiatus due to the upcoming birth of his firstborn son.