Fedor is returning

Fedor Emelianenko seemed to have closed the book on his storied MMA career when he announced his retirement in 2012. Three years later though, and the legendary PRIDE champion has decided to write a new chapter as he will be coming back to active mixed martial arts competition.

The now 38-year-old fighter from Stary Oskol has began training again and will be returning to the sport. Bloody Elbow has confirmed the news with multiple sources close to the situation, with Russian outlet Union MMA first to report on the comeback.

"For every athlete it is very important to be able to engage in their favorite thing: give all the best in training, performing in competitions, defending the honor of the motherland," said Fedor on a statement released in his native tongue.

"During my time at the Ministry, I was able to work on the development of the sport, work closely with the presidents of sports federations, recognize the problems from within the sport, and as far as possible, try to solve them. But now I feel that it is time to return to the ring."

"I was able to recover and heal old injuries. The last three years I have maintained physical form, but this level is not enough to go into battle, therefore recently I started intensive training. We have assembled a team of versatile coaches and athletes who will help me in the training process" Emelianenko continued. "There is still work to do to prepare to leave the ring. Negotiations are underway with promotions. Once agreements are reached, there will be information on the date of the fight and rival."

I don't think it's a good idea. He's been out a while and don't see things going well if he returns at the top level.

Also, he was always a chubby LHW fighting at HW so if he did return I hope it is at LHW.
He could have some fun fights against other ageing legends but doubt he'll want that.

Randy Couture said he'd fight him only if he didn't sign for the UFC, why would anyone want this fight

Thinking back to Fedor, I decided to look up his career and it got me thinking about the short lived Affliction MMA promotion.

Only two events ever took place (I think it was partly owned by Trump) but the thing that got me was this:

In the Fedor vs Andrei Arlovski match, the purses were as follows:


Fedor Emelianenko ($300,000 with no win bonus) def. Andrei Arlovski ($1,500,000)



Thats crazy! AA gettting $1.5m!

I must admit it's crazy how this story has gone really, really quiet! The last I heard about Fedor was that he's set to be at the next Bellator event as an ambassador. As much as I love to see him in the UFC, do you really think Arlovski (who he is rumoured to have been offered) would take himself out of title contention to take on Fedor?