Stories from the Road: Fedor Emelianenko

Bellator MMA President Scott Coker first landed Emelianenko in 2009, days after Affliction’s sudden demise, knowing it would raise the stakes of his business and put a target on his back. Coker on Saturday is ready to promote his 11th fight with Emelianenko, the last six coming in Bellator since 2017 despite attempts by rivals to snatch the heavyweight away.

Here is something a lot of people don’t know about Fedor. When I first met Fedor, he was stoic, almost a Russian version of James Bond. A spy. A guy who was beating everyone up. Killer-stone-face kind of character. I didn’t really know him. I watched him fight. I saw him in Japan, and he was such a big star there being mobbed wherever he went. So this is what I had in my mind, but when I signed him to Strikeforce, I learned this guy is super funny and has a big sense of humor.

This is another nugget. We actually signed him, and I didn’t tell anybody, didn’t tell our PR team, didn’t tell our staff, didn’t tell Showtime. So for three days, I was kind of keeping it to myself. I called Bob Cook and said, “Let me ask you something. If we were able to sign Fedor, do you think that’s a big deal? How big of a deal is this?” He says, “Coker, it’s a massive deal. You need to get this out there if you did it.” I said, “Well, we did it three days ago.” I don’t know why I kept this to myself. I guess I was just trying to take it all in and soak it in and think of a strategy before we announced it. The stakes changed when we did that. You think about how much the UFC was going after him and how much all these companies wanted to be in the Fedor business, and he chose my company to do the deal with. It felt great, but I think that there’s a lot of people that are upset. I think we became a bigger target, and with that, comes the onslaught. The UFC was not happy that we signed him.

We did one fight with him, and then I heard Fedor was in Curacao and I get a call saying, “Hey, Dana White’s here to meet with Fedor and they’re trying to make a deal.” I said, “We have another fight under the two-fight agreement. We have another fight left.” They were trying to make a deal back then with him, flying to this private island. I’m getting calls from this island saying [the] UFC is here trying to make a deal knowing well that we have a contract. I’m not sure what the strategy was, but anyhow, we squashed it. We actually sent them a legal notice saying he’s under contract just to let them know and make sure there’s no misunderstanding here. That was it.

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Mark Coleman is Emelianenko’s biggest fan, or, perhaps second biggest, behind the onetime NCAA wrestling champion and 1992 Olympian’s two daughters, who were made famous as kids when they watched their father get roughed up by the Russian in Las Vegas. “The Hammer” knows as well as anyone what made Emelianenko tough to beat, in and out of competition.

He’s such a down to earth man. I don’t really have no wild, crazy stories about Fedor, but me and Kevin Randleman… he was God to us. You know what I mean? Fedor had that aura with everybody, including me and Randleman. After the Randleman fight, we was backstage and we were all talking. Fedor says, “You guys want to have a drink with me tonight?” I was like, “Whoa, man.” This is back when I was drinking, bro. We said, “Well, hell yeah.” Randleman goes, “Beer? You’ll have a beer with us?” Fedor goes, “Oh no, no. No beer, only vodka.” And he grabbed his big belly and said, “It’s not good for my big belly here.”

I’m thinking about the time that this happened. For me personally, what a moment for me to be there in the presence, not only of my best friend, hall of famer Kevin Randleman, but the great Fedor. Shaking our hands. We’re going to get to hang out with Fedor. It just meant a lot to feel like you fit in. Just to realize we did belong. Everyone wants to belong in this world and sometimes you need to be told.

I am a fan of a lot of fighters, but Fedor is the GOAT to me. Fedor is my GOAT. For 10 years, he was unbeatable, and he’s my GOAT. That’s it. What he did was truly amazing. To be able to stay focused in this sport—stay away from the women, stay away from the booze, stay on path—he’s the GOAT.

What I found out with Fedor when I fought him was that his instincts were way above anybody else. The way he threw punches, the angles they came at. He had different angles on his punches than anybody I ever faced. They came from all different directions. Quite honestly, they were so fast. I’m talking about the second fight. The first fight, I didn’t give him a chance to punch me, but the second fight, I learned a lot more about him.

I had told Fedor he had better work on his wrestling. When Randleman slammed him on his head, I told him later, “Listen, you better work on your wrestling because you stand way too tall.” When Randleman was behind him, he stood straight up and down; it was an easy slam for Randleman. I told him he needs to widen his base. Well, the son of a bitch f---ing widened his base on me the second time. I couldn’t take him down. He also grabbed the ropes three times. You don’t have to include that if you don’t want. He did grab the rope three times, and he did have a wider base and I couldn’t take the son of a bitch down. I didn’t have my shoes on that fight. That’s what people don’t realize. When the shoes came off, it was my first fight ever with shoes off, and quite honestly, I was on a sheet of ice, man. It was a rude awakening when that fight started. I hadn’t trained enough without shoes on, and it was completely different. I couldn’t take him down. He is Fedor. He did work on his wrestling. He did have a wider base, but he did grab the ropes.

I had no choice but to stand in front of this guy, and quite honestly, his hands were so much faster and his accuracy was precision. He hit me six times, and I didn’t see any of them coming. They were some hard punches, too. Very hard punches. I was proud that I took them. The cameraman that day did not see the punches, either. They were so fast because the cameraman zoomed around and zoomed in on my face. I was beat the hell up. They zoomed in on my face, and the announcers said, “What happened to Coleman?” My eye was bloodied up. My nose was messed up. They didn’t even see the damn punches. Well, yeah guys, I just got plowed six times, man.

On the ground, I knew how to stop the armbar. I knew it would come. I went over it. Honestly, I was defending it and something happened. How did he get his leg over my head? I couldn’t figure it out. I was getting tired by the way. I couldn’t figure it out until Frank Trigg broke it down on TV. Fedor reached down between his legs and he pushed my leg away, like a quarter inch or inch, whatever it took to create the space. He whipped his leg up over me and slapped me in the armbar. Honestly, he put me in the armbar and he refused to f---ing snap it in half, because I wasn’t going to tap. When he didn’t put the extra squeeze on it, I started squirming out like I was going to try to get away, and when I squirmed away, he had no choice but to crank it; and all of a sudden, my arm popped about six times and I had to tap. But man, what a nice guy. What a great guy.

That picture of me and my daughters and Fedor has come up more than any picture of my life. On Instagram and all the social media, that picture comes up every year [and] reminds us. I really had to question myself as a father because a lot of the public came at me hard and told me I was a horrible father for doing that. At the time, I guess I was a fighter, but really, I don’t think anyone knows that being a father was far more important to me than being a fighter. It crushed me. It crushed me really bad that people thought I traumatized my girls. The truth is, if it did, I haven’t noticed at all because they’ve been a Fedor fan ever since. We’re all so excited. Thank you Bellator for bringing me and my daughters in because Fedor is still my favorite fighter to watch. I am ecstatic about this, and I do believe he’s going to win. I think he’s going to win this one.

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