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Fedor Emelianenko (Dave Mandel/Sherdog)
Report: Fedor Emelianenko Looking to Return to Fighting
José Youngs
Bellator, News, Spotlight
It looks like one of the greatest fighters in mixed martial arts history is looking to come out of retirement.
On Tuesday, it was revealed the legendary PRIDE FC heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko was contemplating coming out of retirement and re-entering the world of competition. Russian site Union MMA was the first to report the news, which Karim Zidan later confirmed.
"It's extremely important for any athlete to do what you love, to work out on training sessions, to prove yourself on the competitions, representing your Motherland," Fedor told Union MMA. "For the time that I've been working for the Ministry of Sport I managed to give my contribution into development of martial arts, I cooperated with the sports federations, learnt the problems of our sport and tried to solve them as good as I could. Now I feel that it's a high time to get back in action.
"I managed to recover and heal the old injuries. For the last 3 years I was maintaining my physical shape, but that's still not enough to compete at proper level. Therefore I started to do more intensive trainings recently. We got a team of versatile professionals and athletes, who will help me to prepare myself well enough. I will also try to help other fighters to grow as professionals. I have to do a great job to prepare myself to return in fighting. Now we are in the middle of negotiations between the promotion companies. Once agreements are reached, there will be information on the date of the fight and my opponent."
Emelianenko (34-4-1) was at one time considered the very best fighter on planet. Between 2001 and 2009, the Russian sambo specialist amassed an astounding record 27-0 record with one no contest. During prime years, Emelianenko walked away with victories over a who's-who of the heavyweight division, including former PRIDE champion Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira, former K-1 champions Mirko Cro Cop, Semmy Schilt and Mark Hunt as well as former UFC champions Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski.
His reign of terror would eventually come to an end with a first round submission loss to reining UFC heavyweight Fabricio Werdum under the Strikeforce banner in 2010. Emelianenko would go on to drop his next two bout to Antonio 'Bigfoot' Silva and Dan Henderson before righting the ship with a decision win over former UFC title contender Jeff Monson
He would earn two more knockout victories Sataoshi Ishi and Pedro Rizzo before annoucing his retirment.
While there were rumblings of his return for a blockbuster matchup with former UFC champion Brock Lesnar at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, these rumors were eventually put to bed after Emelianenko's revealed he was no longer interested in donning the gloves again after the passing of his father.
There is currently no word on which organization Emeleianko will sign with but the UFC and Bellator MMA are expected to be the favorites.
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José began his career as a mixed martial arts journalist while still enrolled at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University. Since graduating in May 2013, he has attended dozens of high profile UFC fight cards as a credentialed member of the media, providing live cage side coverage through his articles and videos. His work has appeared on UFC.com, ArizonaSports.com and AZCentral. He is also currently one of the main contributors on Power MMA Show at Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, one of the first all MMA radio shows on a major radio station.
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