Fedor Emelianenko’s comeback tour continues this weekend at Eurasia Fight Nights in Russia. There, the Last Emperor will face former UFC light heavyweight Fabio Maldonado in the main event of a card in front of his hometown. While that may seem like the perfect ending to his story…he might actually just be getting started.
Emelianenko sat down to talk with Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, and suggested that, after years and years of waiting, he may finally be set to join the UFC.
Here’s what he had to say:
“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. 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”
Is that true? Well, that’s a different story…
It’s probably not a coincidence that Fedor is saying he’s closer than ever to a UFC return right before his next fight in a brand new promotion. Could it be legit? Maybe, but the odds are in favor of Fedor just trying to get some attention for his fight.
I want to see Fedor in the UFC as much the next guy, but we’ve seen time and again that the UFC just plain isn’t willing to budge on how much money it will give fighters. And time and again, we’ve seen there’s always some promotion out there, whether it’s Strikeforce, EFN, Rizin or Affliction that’s looking to make a splash and is willing to give him more than the pennies the UFC will give him.
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