Ben Fowlkes breaks down the real problem with selling Fedor in an MMA Fanhouse round table:
Naturally fans want to see fighters who they identify with, but the thing that's standing between Fedor and star status isn't nationality or even language. The real barrier is Fedor himself. He really doesn't want to be a star. It doesn't mean anything to him. That's why he does the bare minimum in terms of press and appearances. That's why he hasn't made it a priority to become a fluent speaker of English. He's fine with his celebrity status just the way it is, which is actually very refreshing, if not downright unheard of.
It's interesting to watch the various attempts at marketing Fedor to an American audience. There's this tendency to try and make his reclusiveness into an asset rather than a hindrance. They play up the mystery around him, asking 'Do you know who I am?' or sometimes just promising 'Fedor will return.' But if you're an American who is at all inclined toward MMA or combat sports in general, you've probably at least heard of Fedor by now. The only people who have no idea who the guy is either don't care about watching two grown men fight each other or don't have much access to media in general.
If Fedor wanted to be a huge star in the U.S., he would be. He would have signed with the UFC and he'd be on T-shirts in every mall in America by now. But if he doesn't care about that - and he very clearly doesn't - I don't see why we should.
The Chicago Sun Times has more on this aspect of Fedor:
Nor does he act like the stereotypical modern athlete.
''He is this humble guy. Very religious, doesn't drink, doesn't party. He has this great attitude about him,'' Coker said. ''He doesn't have this overbearing, cocky, egotistical attitude that some of the other fighters have that think they're the man --when really Fedor is the man. You'd never think he's a fighter until the bell rings.''
...
Most fighters dream of an opportunity to compete for the sport's biggest organization, but Emelianenko is certainly not the typical fighter.
He seems not to care if you know his name, if he achieves commercial success, or if he achieves American superstardom.
''I don't think about that because I'm preparing for my fights. I want to show interesting and beautiful fights so that the audience loves the fights.''
It's also worth noting that 1/3 of the Sun-Times piece is devoted to the bidding war between the UFC and Strikeforce over Fedor's services. When Dana White made a super-aggressive, public quest to sign Fedor and then turned it into a feud when he failed, he added something that had been missing from the Fedor story. Something essential to news coverage: conflict and intrigue.