Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix Finals: Fedor Emelianenko vs Ryan Bader
Big night for Bellator at The Forum, Inglewood. The final walk, potentially, for Fedor Emelianenko, the great Russian MMA heavyweight regarded as the greatest of all-time. The final of the fight league’s heavyweight grand prix tournament, which has been a major success and sees American Ryan Bader pitched against Emelianenko in his bid to claim the title, having already claimed the light heavyweight crown. Bader has heavy hands, and brilliant wrestling.
The two are matched in weight and height. Bader is the less weather worn, in the pomp of his career, and the favourite. It’s likely that Fedor will go all-out early, and if Bader (26-5 in MMA) can weather the onslaught, the 36-year-old from Chandler, Arizona, has a great opportunity to claim the greatest scalp he will ever have on his record.
The Russians are here in force, to witness the berserker, explosive Sambo style that saw Fedor (38-5-1 in MMA) undefeated in a run of 27 victories between 2000 and 2010, when he lined up a Who’s Who of the great fighters, coming through adversity to defeat them all in their pomp in Japan and in the USA: Antonio Nogueira, Mirko CroCop, Mark Hunt, Mark Coleman et al. At 42, Fedor is likely making his last walk to the cage.
For “The Last Emperor”, that time of retirement may well have come. That’s not to say there are still not great performances in him. Working out, the speed and power were there this week on media day as he cracked the 4oz gloves into the pads of trainer Peter Theiss. He is still revered, still considered the greatest heavyweight of all-time. Still carries a profound aura and presence.
He has never had a bad word to say about his opponents. Never gloated. Never glowed even. There are few who do not admire the great Russian bear.
A former champion in Japan’s PRIDE Fighting Championships, a former Strikeforce title contender and one of the few names the UFC tried, and failed, a few times to sign, Fedor joined Bellator through his association and friendship with its fight league president Scott Coker.
“This is a huge event for us as we see the culmination of the heavyweight grand prix, and the rise of a new set of stars,” explained Coker, the CEO of Bellator, which is owned by media giants Viacom. Last year, the fight league signed a three-year 140 million U.S. dollar deal with DAZN, the OTT streaming service. DAZN have exclusive rights to eight events annually.
The card is replete with show-stealers including a fight between rising prospect Aaron Pico and Henry Corrales, a pair of Los Angeles natives from different sides of the tracks. Pico is highly touted, a gifted boxer – and wrestler – who has designs on becoming a world champion in MMA, and in boxing. He trains with Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Boxing Gym. There is even talk of him departing MMA for a year to try to qualify as a wrestler for Mexico at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Corrales, a veteran of 32, with a record of 16-3, is up for this. It’s likely to be a fight in a phone box. “If he (Pico) wasn’t finishing these guys, he’s highlighting reeling these guys, he wouldn’t be so talked about,” admitted Corrales to me this week. “His amateur career is pretty legit. He’s a high-level wrestler. Golden Gloves boxer. It’s part of the game.”
They are both from Whittier. “Same area, yep. We never crossed paths. There’s a ten-year gap. My people don’t even know of his people. I’ve never seen him, just heard about him. Different backgrounds too. He grew up in an athletic field. The dark arts brought me to the martial arts. I didn’t grow up playing sports, I was just being a clown and an ill-disciplined little f—. Different background and different circles.”
But it is an all-Hispanic showdown. Corrales has ‘Guerrero Azteca’ tattooed on his chest, depicting a lion’s head behind a cage. “Mexicans want to fight. It’s in their blood. I guess the knowledge isn’t there because of the generations of boxing. They absorb the knowledge of boxing, they’re familiar with the sport. But it comes to MMA, they’re just as big fans. I’m Mexican American. I guess there’s not too many who just do MMA.
Then the rub, and the difference in backgrounds. “I’ve been stabbed back in the day by a Mexican that looks like Pico,” offers Corrales. Motivation enough, it seems Pico, for his part, cannot wait for the challenge in this step up in class. “I think it’s going to be a great fight,” Pico told me this week. “But
