Looks like we haven’t seen the last of the Last Emperor. After his 35 second TKO loss to Ryan Bader in the Bellator’s HW Grand Prix back in January, rumors swirled that Fedor Emelianenko is retiring.
Well, the cat’s out the bag and it turns out, Fedor is NOT retiring. After the Bellator 222 event ended this Friday night, the announcement was made that the Russian is back. Full details of his contract are unknown but it’s expected Fedor returns to cage later this year (h/t MMAMania)
“It’s a multi-fight deal, multi-year [deal] and this is going to be his retirement tour,” said Bellator president Scott Coker. “I think we’d like to take him to a lot of countries and cities that maybe haven’t seen him in a long time or have never seen him. It’s going to be fun when we roll this thing out.”
However, a heavyweight contender Josh Barnett who recently inks a new deal could be his next opponent.
“That’s definitely one of the names we’ve approached with Fedor,” Coker said of Barnett. “He’s fine with it. That would be a timing issue. I’m not sure if that’s going to be the very first fight but I think we have a great roster that he can fight.
“I think [Quinton] “Rampage” Jackson versus Fedor, I think of Josh Barnett, there’s a couple other fighters out there that just come to my mind.”
Fedor is currently 43 years old and has a 38-6 MMA( 2-2 in Bellator) record. He has been looking significantly older and slower in his recent fights so the news of his new multi-fight deal comes as a surprise to pretty much everyone.
