Stories from the Road: Fedor Emelianenko

Bas Rutten was once offered an opportunity to fight Emelianenko but wisely decided against it. The Pride color commentator and former UFC heavyweight champion had not trained as a professional for a few years when he was approached. After testing his body for 10 days ahead of what would have been a two-month training camp, he opted out.

They go, “Have you ever thought about fighting him?” I said, “I’d love to try.” For me, it was not, “Am I going to beat Fedor?” For me, it was like, “Can I go 20 minutes with this guy?” Striking wise, I was thinking I might have a chance. On the ground, it will be a very tough time for me. I said, “Let me work out a little bit.” It didn't work. In order to do that against a guy like Fedor, I need to be completely healthy. A guy like that can kill you if it goes too crazy.

I knew him from Rings. That was the time Dan Henderson was going over there… and a lot of [other] people. I knew 100% those guys would never fake fights. That was the whole thing with Rings in the beginning. When Fedor came there, I knew he was a powerhouse. I heard about him from Holland because he was training there with the strikers. Fedor has this thing that in training he might not be so technical. With his punches also. He’s a little wide and a little open, but he never loads up. The punch that he knocked out Brett Rogers with, if you watch that, it is so beautiful. The punch is next to his body at shoulder height. There’s zero load up and suddenly he fires it in there. That was his power, his accuracy and not telegraphing anything that he was doing.

You know there was a moment, probably in the last round against Mirko [Filipovic], when he throws a cross-hook because he knows that Mirko is tired; and immediately, because both connected, he does the same thing but switches the cross to the body. When I see things like that, those are such great setups people don’t even realize what he’s doing at that moment. It works so well because he expects the cross-hook to the head and he changes it to a body shot, which if you’re tired and breathing in and he connects, the fight is going to be over. These little tiny things that he did.

He’ll fight you in spots they never expect. I guarantee you “Cro Cop” never thought he would stand with him, and that’s why he does it. Nogueira would never expect that he would stay in the guard because Nogueira is good in the guard, and that’s why he trained for that. So that Nogueira is working on other things, and Fedor is just going to play his game. He doesn’t mind, and he just makes his game better in that guard. Also against “Cro Cop,” right from the get-go, he went into his face. He was constantly pushing the fight forward and pushing Mirko backwards. There’s nothing worse for any good striker, especially if you want to land that big high kick. If you get pushed back, it’s hard to throw that left high kick.

Sometimes I thought with Fedor that he was acting like he was sloppy. Sometimes on the ground, he would open up and I would go, “Why would somebody do that body movement?” and “Many people don’t do that in the guard.” And he overcommitted. There was one moment, I think it was against [Tsuyoshi] Kosaka, and he was doing these big movements and I said, “He has to watch out even when you’re Fedor, because you might get caught in a triangle choke if you overcommit like that.” I got so much heat for that, but then he did exactly the same against [Fabricio] Werdum, [who] caught him in a triangle choke.

I remember somebody put those two videos together where you hear me say you have to watch out. Sometimes, he was opening up a little bit too much, but his accuracy and power were out of this world. For me, he’s the best. When he was in his prime, he went on a long streak. To me, he is one of the best guys ever because he puts such an impression on you.

He was such a calm person all the time. If you remember, you would go to a press conference and he would put a smirk on his face [and] the whole room would light up because we never saw him angry or happy. If a smile came, all the cameras would go [off] so they [could] have a picture of Fedor smiling. I remember one time in Gong Magazine or one of the big fighting magazines, there were 30 pictures of Fedor, all exactly the same, and underneath it says “Fedor Happy. Fedor Sad. Fedor Excited.” That was Fedor.

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Josh Barnett and Emelianenko were often discussed as potential rivals, but despite efforts to make it happen, the bout never materialized. Instead, their paths crossed with a meeting of the minds in Tokyo, and they have been friends ever since.

This is the story of the night I became friends with Fedor. We were in the Tokyo Dome Hotel. I think that’s where we were. It’s getting hard to remember. We were in Japan. I fought that night. Fedor had not. I go to drop a check off for [Jacob] “Stitch” [Duran] who I was bringing with me all the time as my second and hand wrap guy and to work with warming me up on pads and such. I ran into Fedor in the hallway and start talking to him. I’m like, “Dude, what’s your problem with me? You give me a thumbs down in the audience and different s---.” He goes, “Well, I don’t think you’re a sportsman. You talk.” I go, “What are you talking about?” He goes you do this, you do that. I said, “Look man, I’m just selling fights. It’s part of the performance.” He goes, “Well, maybe you’re just a businessman and not a sportsman.” I’m like, “No, no, no. I go out there. I train my ass off. I fight.”

We’re standing out there in the middle of the hallway having a bit of a tense conversation, but that’s also my nature to just straight up confront things. So we’re having a conversation and we’re talking. “No, no, I don’t have any disrespect for you or your brother or anybody.” We’re talking, and then out of the elevator James Thompson’s coach at the time shows up. He just goes, “Hey! Oh my God. Great to see you guys.” He just starts f---ing chit-chatting. He’s fired up having a great time. He said, “Oh yeah, I’ve got this giant bottle of soju.” He goes, “I don’t really drink, so here you guys go.” He hands us this big old bottle. Fedor is holding the bottle. This guy has just come in and interrupted our conversation in front of the elevators. Fedor looks at me. I look at the bottle. He says, “You want a drink?” We roll back to his room and just start talking over drinks, and we kept talking and talking and drinking and drinking. That soju’s gone. We have another bottle, something that’s in the room. Roman Zentsov wakes up, and he joins us. The boxing coach is sitting in the bed, and he’s chatting over there. Roman was helping translate a little, but Fedor’s English isn’t bad if you’re willing to just have a nice, slow, chill conversation. We chop it up all night, drinking and talking, and we go from adversaries, not as athletes but having a lack of understanding of each other. We leave and have our arms over each other at the end of the night. I’m s---faced [and] he’s s---faced, but now we’re buds and we understand each other a whole lot better.

The next morning, I rolled down to breakfast. “Stitch” was there. I think Matt Hume was there. I say, “Guys, I’m totally s---faced, but here’s what happened last night.” So I tell them the story. Later on that day, I see Fedor leaving, but he has to get help. He’s even worse off than I am to get to his bus. We go from having tension to being friends, all over just an opportunity to sit down with one another. We’d meet with one another and see each other here and there from there on out. Always been good for that.

I always thought he was an incredible fighter and a great athlete anyways. I think he’s got a great heart on him, and I’m glad to say he’s a friend. It made me want to fight him more because I wanted to meet him in the ring in that sense, too, also as friends but with the highest respect at the highest level of our craft. To be there in front of him, to give it my all and to see what it would be like to be in the ring with him and see him at his best, as well. Maybe I’m unusual that way, but it wasn’t like there was any animosity towards him. I don’t usually have any personal animosity towards anyone I fight. Sometimes the more I know a person in a positive light the more I want to give them my best because I don’t want to disrespect them with anything less than that.

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