It’s entirely possible that Fedor Emelianenko and his lack of appearance in the UFC is the greatest ‘what if?’ in mixed martial arts.
The greatest heavyweight in the sports history, Emelianenko made his name outside the UFC after going ten years undefeated in (the now defunct) Japanese promotion PRIDE. For years, UFC President Dana White attempted to sign the Russian, but repeatedly fell short in negotiations, until in 2012, Fedor announced his retirement from the sport and the dream of seeing Emelianenko under the Zuffa banner was over.
And yet…
With Emelianenko’s return to MMA last year, rumours of the two finally coming together began to swirl again. Now, with Fedor’s next bout against Fábio Maldonado being aired on the UFC’s online streaming service Fight Pass this weekend, it appears business relations between the two are finally starting to become friendlier.
Today, Fedor added fuel to the fire after appearing on MMAFighting’s MMA Hour and (through a translator) stating that an appearance in the Octagon might not necessarily be that farfetched.
“Yes,” Emelianenko said. “In a word, yes. That possibility does exist.”
With this weekends bout against Maldonado marking the last before Emelianenko becomes a free agent, the Russian veteran will be headed back to the negotiations table, where he’ll no doubt be dealing with offers from the various names in MMA promotion.
Not that the UFC are waiting that long. They’ve already made an offer to the PRIDE legend.
“I always wanted to fight for UFC and I would fight for UFC, but at this moment we’re looking at the deal and the deal has to satisfy both parties — them and my organization,” Emelianenko said. “Until there’s no friction, until we are 100 percent in terms of seeing eye-to-eye, we are all basically in limbo.
“Right now, I’m much closer compared to when I just came back to MMA[…]Yes, we did receive an offer. But there are some finer points that we wanted to discuss.”
The scene Fedor could potentially enter at heavyweight in the UFC has long been a tumultuous one. The title hasn’t been defended more than twice, and one of the few who managed double defences was professional wrestler Brock Lesnar, who incidentally just announced his return to the sport.
Lesnar and Fedor was for a while MMA’s White Whale, with the UFC attempting to have the two meet back in 2009, when Lesnar was the promotion’s heavyweight champion. Even though both are several years away from their primes, any fight between them would still generate some serious interest.
Fedor’s interest, too.
“All I wanted to say is for now we never received a proposal like that,” Emelianenko said. “But if somebody were to make that proposal, we’ll definitely look at it closely.”
At the top of the list for other options would likely be former UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum.
Werdum has the notable honour of being the man to finally hand Fedor the first loss after his ten year run. Since then, both men have made it clear that a rematch would be most agreeable.
Just last month, Fedor mentioned he wanted the bout, with Werdum quick to state it would be a dream to face off with the ‘Last Emperor’ one more time. At the time a potential fight between the two seemed unlikely, with Werdum the UFC champion. But with his losing the belt to Stipe Miocic at UFC 198, the Brazilian suddenly finds himself more flexible for opponents.
Of course, all this talk could be redundant. Fedor has often ‘been close’ to signing with the UFC, only to crop up in a different (smaller) promotion. Maybe though, just maybe, this could be the time the ‘deal never made’ finally gets done.
