Fedor
Emelianenko was without peer during his prime but still managed
to engage in some of the sport’s most memorable and influential
rivalries across a career that has now lasted more than two
decades.
Emelianenko, 46, will ride off into the proverbial sunset after he
challenges
Ryan Bader
for the
Bellator
MMA heavyweight championship in the
Bellator 290 main event on Saturday at The Forum in Inglewood,
California. “The Last Emperor” has won nine of his past 11 bouts.
Bader pinned one of those two losses on Emelianenko in 2019, when
he put away the former
Pride Fighting Championships titleholder with punches just 35
seconds into their Bellator 214 pairing. The Russian has never lost
to the same man twice.
As Emelianenko prepares to write his final chapter as a mixed
martial artist, a look at some of the rivalries that have helped
steer him to this point:
Emelianenko was not a household name in most MMA circles before
March 16, 2003. He was a 26-year-old heavyweight with a stellar
record and two appearances in Pride under his belt. When
Emelianenko climbed into the ring to challenge Nogueira for his
heavyweight crown at Pride 25, those in the know labeled him an
underdog. Nogueira was thought to be unbeatable by some, as he
mixed an unwavering fighting spirit with superb conditioning,
world-class submission skills and rugged durability. The Brazilian
had not tasted defeat in nearly three years and had recently posted
submission wins over the monstrous
Bob Sapp, the
6-foot-11
Semmy Schilt
and two-time Olympian
Dan
Henderson in one four-month span. Moreover, Nogueira had never
been dominated in defeat, having suffered his only setback in a
split verdict to Henderson in February 2000. Emelianenko wiped out
his aura of invincibility by establishing one of his own. Over the
course of their 20-minute encounter, the stoic Russian brutalized
Nogueira with ground-and-pound, short-circuiting his potent
submission game and stunning more than 19,000 fans inside the
Yokohama Arena in Yokohama, Japan. By the end of it, the torch had
been passed and a new era had dawned. Two rematches followed. The
first ended in a no contest due to an accidental clash of heads at
Pride Final Conflict 2004; the second resulted in another clear-cut
decision for Emelianenko at Pride Shockwave 2004.
They set the standard for heavyweights of their era, and their
paths finally crossed under the Pride Final Conflict marquee on
Aug. 28, 2005 in Saitama, Japan. At stake: Emelianenko’s Pride
heavyweight championship. The Russian icon weathered several body
kicks from Filipovic, closed the distance and crowded him with
punches and clinches. While Emelianenko did not escape
unscathed—“Cro Cop” broke his nose and opened a cut on his scalp—he
put a strain on the Croatian’s gas tank with suffocating top
control and heavy ground-and-pound. Filipovic’s movements grew
visibly labored in the second and third rounds, where “The Last
Emperor” tightened his grip on the match and ultimately walked away
with a clear unanimous decision. By the time it was over,
Emelianenko had landed five times as many significant strikes (50)
as Filipovic (10), connected on almost twice as many total strikes
(125-63), secured four takedowns and executed three guard
passes.
The Pride 32 main event on Oct. 21, 2006 at the Thomas & Mack
Center in Las Vegas was not for the faint of heart, as
Emelianenko—the event’s centerpiece—rematched onetime NCAA
wrestling champion. He sprawled out of Coleman’s increasingly
desperate takedown attempts, bludgeoned him with punches and
methodically drained his gas tank. With a minute to go in the first
round, referee Yuji Shimada hit the pause button and had Coleman
evaluated by the ringside physician. The 1992 Olympian had
sustained significant damage to his nose and both eyes yet was
cleared to continue. The bill for Coleman’s repeated bids for
takedowns came due in Round 2. Weakened by fatigue and the
considerable punishment he had absorbed at the hands of the world’s
premier heavyweight, he executed a takedown, settled in full guard
and went to work with some of his patented ground-and-pound.
Emelianenko was unimpressed. He calmly and coldly created some
distance with a scramble and spun into position for the
fight-ending armbar, netting the tapout 1:15 into the second round.
A thoroughly beaten Coleman—who had to submitted to the same
maneuver in their first meeting two years prior—was left to lick
his literal and figurative wounds on the canvas as “The Last
Emperor” rose to his feet. In the aftermath, Coleman’s two young
daughters, sobbing and distraught, entered the ring. He did his
best to reassure them, his own anguish somewhat masked by his badly
swollen face. “I’m OK,” Coleman told them. “Daddy’s OK.”
When nearly 12,000 fans poured into the HP Pavilion in San Jose,
California, on June 26, 2010, few—if any—realized they were about
to witness history.
Fabricio
Werdum met the great Emelianenko as part of a
Strikeforce-
M-1 Global
collaboration and, in the span of 69 seconds, turned the MMA world
inside out. “Vai Cavalo” retreated to his back when faced with a
volley of Emelianenko power punches and invited the Russian into
his notoriously venomous guard. “The Last Emperor” obliged and soon
found himself entangled in a triangle choke. For several tense
moments, Werdum transitioned between the triangle and armbar before
consolidating the two into a shocking finish. Emelianenko tapped a
little more than a minute into Round 1, the former Pride
heavyweight titleholder suffering the first undisputed defeat of
his remarkable career.
Silva forced a doctor stoppage against “The Last Emperor” when
their Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix quarterfinal headlined
Strikeforce “Fedor vs. Silva” on Feb. 12, 2011 at the Izod Center
in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The end came between rounds two and
three, Emelianenko’s right eye having been swollen shut by a series
of hammerfists from the monstrous Brazilian. A competitive first
round gave way to a lopsided second. Silva ducked one of the
Russian’s trademark overhand rights and scored with a takedown
inside the first five seconds. He passed to half guard and then to
the north-south position before moving to full mount. Hammerfists
left Emelianenko’s face a mangled mess and forced the former Pride
Fighting Championships heavyweight titleholder to surrender his
back more than once. Silva worked first for a rear-naked choke and
later an arm-triangle that nearly finished his counterpart.
Exhausted by the worst beating of his storied career, Emelianenko
saw his last-gasp effort come up short, as the two men traded
leglock attempts at the close of the second round. He returned to
his corner, where it soon became clear he could no longer continue.
Never before had Emelianenko been so thoroughly dominated.