In 2007, Fedor Emelianenko, widely considered the world’s top heavyweight, had exactly two fights.
In his latest, he fought an inexperienced human skyscraper named Hong Man Choi, submitting him by the worlds largest armbar. And in his only other fight of the year he fought someone on the exact opposite end of the size spectrum, submitting middleweight, Matt Lindland.
Lindland is so small he could have been in a quantum superposition of both winning and losing the fight had no one been there to actually observe it. And Choi is so big that Lindland would likely start orbiting him if he got close enough.
Why is Fedor fighting these sideshow matches?
The problem is that, despite being offered loads of money by the UFC, Fedor and his management would not agree to the additional components of the contract, specifically limitations on his capacity to fight in Russian-based events like sambo competitions. And outside of the UFC, Fedor’s future horizons don’t look so bright.
In fact, the fans are already starting to question him. At this point, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine a dancing bear becoming his next opponent, considering the freakish nature of his recent competition.
Indeed, Fedor has only fought two legitimate contenders in the past two years — Lindland and Mark Hunt — and of the pair Hunt was the only one in his weight class.
Now that Pride is gone and he has no shot of facing anyone in the UFC after signing on with M-1 global, it would appear that Fedor’s future is looking bleak. His legacy will no doubt be tarnished if he does not face top-level competition.
So what is next for Fedor?
Obviously, Randy Couture would be the perfect opponent for Fedor. The fans want it. Couture is a legitimate heavyweight champion, just like Fedor. The fight would make busloads of money. The only problem is that the UFC does not want this fight at all.
As MMAmania.com reported earlier in the month, the UFC has already filed a lawsuit against Couture seeking damages and an injunction to prevent him from competing in other organizations. Of course, Couture’s fight contract is set to expire in July, but it is not clear that he would be able to legally fight at that point, as he also has an ambassadorship and commentating contract with the UFC that lasts until October.
Fighting in another organization would conceivably violate it. Even so, expect the UFC to contest his departure even after both of the contracts have expired.
The only way this match could possibly occur in a reasonable time frame is if Fedor and Randy went at it in a bar with broken bottles. In short, Fedor could expect to fight Couture, at best, sometime after October, about nine months from now. In the meantime, though, who could Fedor possibly face?
It won’t be dancing bears and skyscrapers and quantum-sized men from here on out … will it?
There is, of course, another potential option. Ever since the UFC bought Pride, Josh Barnett has virtually fallen off the mixed martial arts landscape, and hasn’t fought in about a year despite being very highly ranked in the heavyweight division back when he was still fighting.
An Emelianenko versus Barnett fight is the best we can possibly hope for in the absence of any expedient possibility for Couture getting out of his obligations to the UFC. Both Fedor and Barnett share similar circumstances, not having fought much in the past few years and quickly losing credibility with the fans despite their former greatness.
It’s the perfect match up for these trying times.
Attention M-1 Global: sign Barnett and book this fight. The fans are growing tired of watching perhaps the greatest heavyweight of the sport toiling away in meaningless match-ups. And do it quickly, before the UFC realizes he is the only reasonable competition for Fedor and snatches him up themselves.
Barnett is the best choice. A strong second would be doing a co promotional event with EliteXC and match Fedor vs. Antonio Silva, whom gary shaw has been running his mouth about and calling out all UFC Heavyweights.
So EliteXC and M-1 all want to do cross promotional events then they should join up and make this fight happen
Barnett is in discussion to be fighting against Aleksander not Fedor during the April 11th Chicgo event.
I can’t say I understand why they’d have Aleksander face Barnett over Fedor. Here’s hoping M1 can find someone semi-legitimate in his place, then. Or perhaps they have too much wishful thinking and really believe Couture will be able to fight soon?
they should fire dana white for preventing these fights 2 happen