Fedor Emelianenko is making his Bellator MMA debut this weekend against Matt Mitrione in the co-main event of the Bellator 180 pay-per-view.
Even though the heavyweight has been widely praised by fighters and fans alike as the great of all time, the “Last Emperor” never thought of himself as that.
“I never considered myself to the best one,” Emelianenko said on The MMA Hour. “A fighter can lose at any moment. And there are some fighters that, for example, are defending on some position that will be better than me in some technique.”
Fedor and Mitrione were originally set to clash at Bellator 172, but Mitrione pulled out of the fight due to the effects of kidney stones.
Although Fedor has fought the greatest heavyweights that MMA has to offer, there is no single fight that he considers to be his favorite.
“All the fights were interesting for some particular reason, and I could find something in each fight,” he said. “But maybe one fight that I can differentiate, it would be the first fight with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. And the fight with Mirko Cro Cop.”
Bellator 180 takes place on Saturday, June 24 from Madison Square Garden in New York, New York with Chael Sonnen and Wanderlei Silva headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event, with a post-show podcast following the next day.
