The former Pride Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko who needed only 48 seconds to defeat former UFC heavyweight champion Frank Mir at Bellator 198 this past weekend. That win puts him in the semifinals of the Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix tournament, where he will meet Notorious trash talker Chael Sonnen– who already outpointed Quinton “Rampage” Jackson in January to advance. Sonnen met ‘The Last Emperor.’ in the cage after his win for slightly awkward Bellator face off.
The greatest HWT ever and FEDOR. pic.twitter.com/muGRaFB9RO
— Chael Sonnen (@ChaelSonnen) April 29, 2018
Sonnen took aim at Fedor’s past fighting history in Japan during a recent episode of his “You’re Welcome” podcast: (Quotes Via MMA Nytt)
“You won’t say anything about me, but I will say something about you — I don’t accept your wins in Japan. The referee was wearing an earpiece, you never had a weigh-in, you never had a commission. Anyone that came over from Japan to America has a losing record. Why? I’ll tell you because the fights over here are real and they are fixed in Japan.”
Emelianenko is back in the winning column after a defeat to Matt Mitrione in his Bellator debut last summer. He has won six of his past seven. ‘The Last Emperor’ fought the majority of his career in Japan under the Pride and holds notable wins over the likes of Mirko Cro Cop and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, but Sonnen who isn’t buying those wins and has claimed many of those fights were fixed.
“Fedor would greatly be offended if I said that he had a fake fight. I have said this to Cro Cop who was offended, he couldn’t believe that I said it. Wanderlei Silva couldn’t believe I said it, that guy is crazy.
“The guy that is going to go over in professional wrestling will sit down in the same room as the guy that’s going to put him over and then work out the match. What they did in Japan was they only told one guy. So the guys that were going to win, your Cro Cop’s, your Wanderlei’s, your Fedor’s, they were never in the room when the guy that was your promoter, also known as the Yakuza, also known as the Japanese mafia, walks in the room and tells the opponent when to go down.”
Sonnen (30-15-1) will square off against Emelianenko (37-5, 1 NC) in the semifinals of the Grand Prix later this year.
Between them who do you think will come out victorious?
