Could Fedor Emelianenko finally step into the octagon one day? It's an unlikely scenario for sure, but Fedor did leave the door open a little bit in an interview with Sportbox.ru earlier in the week. He discussed when his next fight will be, and where he'd like to compete (translation via RT):

"I can tell you the timing of my next bout right now," Fedor said in his interview with Sportbox.ru. "It's going to be June or July.

Of course, I want to compete at home, in front of my countrymen," the Last Emperor stressed. "But at the moment, the strongest and most respected MMA organization is situated in America. It's the UFC. Therefore, I have to go to the US in order to face the strongest opponents."

The article states that bouts with Cain Velasquez and Josh Barnett "are being discussed" and Fedor confirmed the discussions, but that's pretty vague. He did comment on the idea of fighting Barnett directly though:

"I really sympathize with Josh, and we've been friends for a long time," he said. "Perhaps, he is the only fighter whom I wouldn't want to meet in the ring."

This kind of stuff comes up every few months when it comes to Emelianenko, and it likely has no more substance than all the other times it has been discussed. But even if he's not the number one heavyweight in the world anymore, it would still be amazing to see him in the octagon. Fedor is currently on a two-fight win streak, with victories over Jeff Monson and Satoshi Ishii. Is that enough to earn him a big-ticket fight in the US? We'll see, but my magic Russian 8 ball is saying "nyet".