It was announced last December that Mariusz Pudzianowski was slated to face Aleksander Emelianenko on April 2010 in a bout rumored to have been co-promoted by KSW and M-1 Global. Even Bob Sapp was rumored to be an alternate if one of the fighters unexpectedly dropped out. We caught up with Pudzianowski at the Moosin: God of Martial Arts press conference and asked him if the bout was going to happen. Pudz told us that it was just an elaborate rumor and that he wasn’t prepared to fight someone of his caliber at that stage in his MMA career.
Last Friday, KSW owners met up with Aleksander Emelianenko and reached a verbal agreement for Alek to fight in the promotion in a bout rumored to take place at KSW 14 against Mariusz Pudzianowski. Somehow the match fell through and over the weekend, KSW announced that Butterbean would be fighting Pudzilla on October 9th in the upcoming show.
About an hour ago on Polstat News, KSW co-owner Maciej Kawulski stated that Aleksander Emelianenko will not be fighting in KSW because the organization discovered he has Hepatitis C. MMARocks.pl comes through once again with an translation of the brief interview.
“We planned to put Mariusz Pudzianowski against Aleksander Emelianenko, but the unpleasant thing happened. Aleksander has got Hepatitis C, that’s a serious disease and we won’t risk Mariusz’s or any of our fighters’ health in such a fight. It’s safe to say that because of that the deal between our promotion and Aleksander won’t come to fruition“
Bummer for Aleksander. I guess we all just have to settle on watching The Grim Reaper phantom punch guys into retirement. [Source]
