Fedor Emelianenko: 'When My Career Ends, and I Don't Fight in the UFC, the UFC Will Be Sorry'

he will be remembered as the best of the “Old School” guys from the early (pre-mainstream) days.

Had he retired undefeated, even without ever fighting in the big leagues, there would have always been some GOAT sentiment, but when he went to the minors, wouldn’t fight the champion who had been calling him out, then lost in the minors in a #1 contender fight (and not via a flash KO)…only the biggest of fanboys 10 years from now will be making that claim.

He was, without a doubt, the greatest HW of the PRIDE era however…

Says the guy with the Lesnar sig…

That’s like saying Rocky Marciano will be forgotten.

If you can’t promote a scary-calm omni-skilled Russian with an icy gaze, what can you promote?

It’s different in the rest of the world though, like in Europe and Asia where Pride had more success than the UFC, where a lot of casual fans actually switch to the UFC when Pride died and Crocop had his first fight there.

A lot of this has to do with the fact that 90% of Fedor’s highlight reel is owned by Zuffa.

Strikeforce only has the Rogers fight and his loss to Werdum with which to advertise him. They can’t even use video of his Affliction fights. Affliction had a similar problem when they had Fedor; promotion of the Arlovski fight consisted of playing the 36 second win over Tim Sylvia in slo-motion like a million times.

If Fedor went to the UFC, his accomplishments would be plastered on every form of advertising Zuffa has.

The dude is a tailor-made scary foreign heel who comes in and destroys everyone (think Ivan Drago times umpteen – only REAL). Given the fact that UFC owns the entire PRIDE video library, they could have certainly made him look like a total badass to end all badasses. Bottom line – it does not matter if he’s well known or not, the UFC hype machine would’ve taken care of that. The real question is if he’d been up to the hype.

and, as anyone who has ever been involved in small business ownership will tell you, as a minority partner, you get what they give you after everything that can be milked out has been…

Who does SF have other then Werdom and The Demolition Man?

It sounds like Sonnen.

The problem I see is that his wins will likely be seen as what they are not in a context of the times. When he beat Coleman the first time it was impressive, but that win is meaningless in historical context. Cain would beat the shit out of the best Coleman that ever walked to the cage as well as Herring, Nogueira, and CroCop. While all of these wins were impressive at the time, in reality a win over Werdum now would prove more than those victories.

GSP or Anderson Silva probably.

My guess would be Mole Man.

Don’t be a hater Mike!

Miami Dolphins . . . no comment. Hey, I’m a Knicks fan, we just recently had

Fedor
I’ll give the guy a pass any time. Over 30 professional fights. He fought cans, he fought top contenders. He was pitted against UFC champions and left unscathed. He shut Freddi Roach up because we all know that he’s such an expert on MMA. Fans went from talking about how Couture, Lesnar and now Velasquez would destroy him. I acknowledge that there are some fighters that buy into Dana White’s train of thought but some fighters who don’t pay attention to the whole negotiation process with M-1 recognize Fedor as that dude.

Note: We don’t know all that transpired between M-1 and Zuffa and Strikeforce. Remember, you get what you negotiate. That’s business, that’s life. Despite what Dana White says, we really don’t know what was offered and what was not. Dana has a good history of twisting past events to make the UFC look good. And he’s a vindictive businessman protecting his interest, period.
 - When was the last time we saw Frank Shamrock’s highlight reels? Especially his match against Tito Ortiz?

You know, those like AEI (American Enterprise Institute) and the Cato Institute…

Would be scary stuff if the majority of thinking people didn’t already assume that kind of re-writing of history occurred regularly, particularly with “electronic only” media…

Something tells me you’re not serious with that question.

The UFC can and will re-write history. We’ve seen it with Frank Shamrock.

Sherdog DB will always put things into perspective.
Oddly enough many people feel Randy Couture (19-10) is/was one of the G.O.A.Ts. But when you look at the wins and losses. You’ll notice that he beat Tim Sylvia (28 – 6) and then you’ll see that Sylvia and Couture lost to Rodgrigo Noguiera (32 – 6). Now Big Nog tried and tried but never defeated Fedor (31 – 2). If people like Dana want to praise, scream or shout about Couture fighting the best of the best of the best with that so-so record . . . eventually inquiring minds will ask so who is this guy with a better record than Big Nog and Tim Sylvia. Why does he get so much respect from guys like Rampage, Cain Velasquez, Randy Couture. Why does a guy in a position like Velasquez, who will probably never face Fedor, is discussing the possibility of facing Fedor.

To be fair, when Fedor was at his peak PRIDE was the heavyweight proving ground.

But back then the UFC’s HW division compared to PRIDE’s was like Strikeforce’s WW division today compared to the UFC’s – still a few people that think the lesser org’s champ is the best, but few and far between…

I agree with everything you say here, but I also understand and share some of the exasperation with Fedor and how he’s approached the sport in the past few years. I was happy when Werdum beat him, because it created an opportunity for fighters who are actually fighting to redefine the division that he owned for so long. I’d love to see Fedor in the UFC, but I’m really glad that we no longer NEED to see him in the UFC. If he wants to go be a Russian politician, that’s groovy. He will be well remembered for his success in the sport, but the way he’s behaving now is making it hard to celebrate his glory days.

There was that whole almost dying bit, but then again I would rather have a case of diverticulitis than a case of the Finklestein.

Those videos are insane!

but if I remember right, Wand was the bigger star.

My question is why aren’t those fights happening?

but none of these fights are happening. It is frustrating. Fans haven’t seen Fedor in a desirable matchup in years. Even the Werdum fight was frowned upon when it was announce. A lot of people thought Fedor was hand picking opponents and ducking Overeem.

but if I had to pick one, I’d probably lean toward Reem. I realize he may not be as good/proven/legendary as Fedor, but his upside is outrageous, and he’s a perfect larger than life figure for the UFC fan-base.

I also am more optimistic about Reem actually happening. I think if Dana offered enough dough, and maybe let him compete in some set number of K-1 events per year, he would be get-able.

even though he hasn’t fought any significant opponent in recent memory

…other than his last fight?

He fought the best available at the time. Tim was ranked in the top ten. Arloski was ranked in the top ten. At the time Big Nog was the champ and Fedor had already beat him. The Affliction fights were top HW fights at the time. Fedor certainly has some blame in this whole thing but Dana has a big hunk of blame too. I would love to see him fight Cain but who knows if that will happen. Him not being in the UFC doesn’t diminish his accomplishments. He is the Ali of MMA in my book regardless what the casuals know or don’t know. Hell half the people can’t even tell you who the first president was so I wouldn’t put much faith into a popularity contest. The facts are facts.

The UFC would make a shit ton of money booking Lesnar vs Reem, title fight or not.