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LAS VEGAS – There is no topic that divides mixed martial arts fans more than Fedor Emelianenko, the former PRIDE heavyweight champion and the man tied with Georges St. Pierre for the top spot in the current Yahoo! Sports pound-for-pound rankings.
Emelianenko’s very vocal supporters treat him with a reverence rarely seen in sports. He’s become an almost mythological figure to these fans. But there are those who believe that Emelianenko can’t fairly be judged until he lands in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and competes in the octagon.
Frank Mir, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion, said during a question-and-answer session with fans at a UFC Fight Club session on Friday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena that he’d love to fight Emelianenko, but said he’d only do it if it were in the UFC. Mir said that while there are other good fighters in competing promotions, “the best, the deepest pool of fighters” is in the UFC.
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“If he’s called the best fighter in the world, why wouldn’t he want to come to the UFC and prove it?” Mir asked. “I know I would.”
Mike Goldberg, the UFC’s play-by-play announcer who co-hosted the Q&A with Mir, concurred. And Goldberg made an analogy about football championships in an attempt to point out why Emelianenko needs to compete in the UFC.
“If you win an Arena Football League title, it’s a ring and you’re a great athlete and you deserve it,” Goldberg said. “If you were in the XFL and you won in the XFL with those uniforms, you are still a champion. If you won in the USFL – Doug Flutie and the boys, Herschel Walker – you were a USFL champion. But at the end of the day, all those players wish they had a Super Bowl ring and that they won in the NFL. And that equates to what Frank’s talking about.”
Mir used that analogy to continue, pointing out that as great a quarterback as Dan Marino was during his career with the Miami Dolphins, his legacy is tarnished somewhat by not having a Super Bowl ring.
Mir also suggested that a fighter with good technical boxing skills could beat Emelianenko.
“Fedor has fast hands and is a very aggressive puncher,” said Mir, who meets Brock Lesnar for the undisputed UFC heavyweight title at UFC 100 on July 11 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. “But a lot of times when he swings, he goes slightly off-balance. If you sit there in front of him, [it’s trouble]. Tim Sylvia could answer that question. But if you use proper boxing, like Andrei Arlovski was doing up to the last five seconds of their fight, you see what happens. I think a very technical fighter will bother Fedor a little bit.
“[A guy] using straight punches, [a guy] with good head movement. That’s what you want. That’s a code word for skill. He’s a very powerful, quick athlete, which some people don’t realize when looking at his body. But if you fight him with skill, I think you can do very well. I thought Andrei was winning that fight until – I don’t know what that was that Andrei did.”
Emelianenko’s very vocal supporters treat him with a reverence rarely seen in sports. He’s become an almost mythological figure to these fans. But there are those who believe that Emelianenko can’t fairly be judged until he lands in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and competes in the octagon.
Frank Mir, the UFC’s interim heavyweight champion, said during a question-and-answer session with fans at a UFC Fight Club session on Friday at the MGM Grand Garden Arena that he’d love to fight Emelianenko, but said he’d only do it if it were in the UFC. Mir said that while there are other good fighters in competing promotions, “the best, the deepest pool of fighters” is in the UFC.
ADVERTISEMENT
“If he’s called the best fighter in the world, why wouldn’t he want to come to the UFC and prove it?” Mir asked. “I know I would.”
Mike Goldberg, the UFC’s play-by-play announcer who co-hosted the Q&A with Mir, concurred. And Goldberg made an analogy about football championships in an attempt to point out why Emelianenko needs to compete in the UFC.
“If you win an Arena Football League title, it’s a ring and you’re a great athlete and you deserve it,” Goldberg said. “If you were in the XFL and you won in the XFL with those uniforms, you are still a champion. If you won in the USFL – Doug Flutie and the boys, Herschel Walker – you were a USFL champion. But at the end of the day, all those players wish they had a Super Bowl ring and that they won in the NFL. And that equates to what Frank’s talking about.”
Mir used that analogy to continue, pointing out that as great a quarterback as Dan Marino was during his career with the Miami Dolphins, his legacy is tarnished somewhat by not having a Super Bowl ring.
Mir also suggested that a fighter with good technical boxing skills could beat Emelianenko.
“Fedor has fast hands and is a very aggressive puncher,” said Mir, who meets Brock Lesnar for the undisputed UFC heavyweight title at UFC 100 on July 11 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas. “But a lot of times when he swings, he goes slightly off-balance. If you sit there in front of him, [it’s trouble]. Tim Sylvia could answer that question. But if you use proper boxing, like Andrei Arlovski was doing up to the last five seconds of their fight, you see what happens. I think a very technical fighter will bother Fedor a little bit.
“[A guy] using straight punches, [a guy] with good head movement. That’s what you want. That’s a code word for skill. He’s a very powerful, quick athlete, which some people don’t realize when looking at his body. But if you fight him with skill, I think you can do very well. I thought Andrei was winning that fight until – I don’t know what that was that Andrei did.”
also, another lol that fedor has to fight in the UFC, why dont Mir and Brock ask Dana to go beat Fedor up in a co-promotion if he is that overrated, sounds like a plan
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