All the cool kids are reporting it MMA Junkie and MMA Mania, FightLinker and CagePotato, so I thought I'd spread the word about it too since these news are brand spanking new!

 

Without any warning or even preceeding rumors, M-1 Global pulls a rabbit out of a hat and presents everybody with teaser video about their upcoming reality show about 16 heavyweights will train and fight each other for their one and only shot at fighting THE Fedor Emelianenko.  The 16 fighters will do all the training and fighting at the Red Devil fight club in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The video made it sound like the show will actually be aired on American television, but I didn't see any clues as to when or where. They used the guy that voices over all of the American movie trailers to give it more credibility I guess. The video was mostly a compilation of Fedor highlights and previous M-1 Global/Bodog promo clips.

Well, this is interesting and came out of no where. I guess it's a good strategy to promote M-1 Global brand and their 1 and only, so far, big name - Fedor Emelianenko. This definitely worked for UFC, so I don't see why another show based in exotic Russia with the goal of getting a chance to fight this enigmatic undefeated Russian heavyweight champion wouldn't  work as well as the Ultimate Fighter Show worked for UFC. Run the show, promote the hell out of Fedor's accomplishments, give him plenty of face time and have him fight in the finale.  They may even recoup some of the 2 million dollars per they'd be paying him in TV ads money.

Definitely interesting how this will pan out. What do you think?

MixFight.ru posted a photo gallery of the Red Devil team members from 2008 Russian Combat Sambo Championship. There are pictures of Kirill Sidelnikov, who fought in PrideFC and who Fedor speaks very highly of as someone to watch for out of Russia, Dmitrii Samoilenko and Fedor Emelianenko doing a quick seminar between the fights.

The photo gallery is here.

MixFight.ru also put a video of a lighter Red Devil fighter Mihail Zayats's fight in the finals for the 90 kg weight category. Mihail Zayats is wearing the RED gi top (kurtka).

 

Head over to MixFight.ru to catch Fedor Emelianenko's championship fight at 2008 Russian Combat Sambo Championship.

It's hard to believe that the other guy was the finalist of the tournament. He looked awkward and couldn't muster anything more than half hearted jabs and an awkward knee.

This was way too easy for Fedor. I'm sure everyone there was disappointed with the obvious disparity in skill. I'm sure it was fun for Fedor though.

Yesterday I translated a little new blurb from Fedor's official website on what's next for him and his participation in Russian Combat Sambo Championship, but forgot to check mixfight.ru to see if they posted anything on it. And they did post a picture gallery of the "Red Devil" team preparing for the championship.

Today was the first day of the championship and there is an article on the results at mixfight.ru but it's only in russian. Here is what it says:

The first day of Russian Combat Sambo Championship took place today at St. Petersburg's SKK.

The Red Devil club was represented by 4 fighters in two weight classes.

In 90 kg weight category, Victor Nemkov confidently started his bout versus Alexei Veselovzorov, dominated in stand up, then did a throw for 4 points, but after the throw lost concentration and gave up his hand, which an experienced and skilled fighter like Alexei immediately took advantage of by armbar for the win. Victor Nemkov continued to fight in the cancellation bracket and in the fight for the third place he knocked out his opponent with a knee.

Another fighter from the Red Devil club - Mihail Zayats, who quickly won in the two fights prior, met  Veselovorov in the semi-finals. The semi-final bout between these two fighters turned out to be tough and difficult, but with every minute Mihail confidently kept gaining advantage and won in the end before the time was up.

In the finals of this weight category, Mihail outpointed Vyacheslav Vasilevskii from Krasnoyarsk and became the Russian champion.

Fedor Emilianenko and Alexandr Kosarev participated the over 100 kg weight category.

It was Kosarev's debut in a tournament of this level and in the fights with more senior and more experienced fighters he looked rather confident. Having won his first fight by knockout, Kosarev met Stanislav Shushko and was confidently leading the bout with 5-0 score, but then by accident while advancing forward he was leg tripped from standing to his back and the referee awarded "clean" victory to Shushko. In the cancellation bracket Alexandr knocked out another opponent and for the fight for the third place his opponent forfeit due to injury.

As predicted, Fedor Emelianenko easily won all of his three fights.  None of his opponents in this Russian championship forfeited as it has happened before in world and European championships, to the credit of our fighters.

In his first fight, Fedor quickly attacked, after a combination of strikes he took his opponent down and submitted him. The fight was 35 seconds long. His second fight was even shorter - Fedor broke his opponent's nose on the 10th second.

The final fight against Stanislav Shushko took a little bit longer. Stanislav tried to keep Fedor at a distance using his height advantage, but Fedor closed the distance with a combination, went for a throw and a holddown. Then the fighters ended up in standing position again and the situation happened again - a combination of strikes from the champion, a throw, but this time Fedor finished his attack with a submission and won at 1 minute and 1 seconds.

In the breaks between fights Fedor was surrounded by a crowd of fan and the champion did not refuse anyone his autograph or taking a picture with him.

The winner of  the 74 kg weight category was a very experienced fighter, who is well known in Russia and outside - Vener Galiev. He, it seemed, out matched his opponents in all aspects, finishing all his fights decisively and beautifully.

At the opening ceremony Vladimir Voronin was awarded an honorary title of "Deserved coach of Russia". We congratulate him definately DESERVED award.

Those are the results of the first day of the competition.

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Well, first of all, Russian Sambo fighters are apparently have a lot more courage than some of their international counter parts and were not afraid to face Fedor no matter the out come. Cool.

Second, nice to see Fedor win all of his three fights. It still surprises me that the sport that produced him cannot give him any meaningful competition, yet. At the same time it's neat to see him being so commited to his national sport and trying to make it popular. It was one of the things he was looking forward to when he mentioned it in his recent interview.

Another surprising thing to me was that an equivalent of a Judo Ippon still has it's place in the Combat version of Sambo and can end the fight.

I'll keep you updated if anything else comes up about it.

This was posted on Fedor's official website fedor.bel.ru yesterday but only in the Russian section so I thought I'd translate it.

Fedor Emelianenko will participate in Russian Combat Sambo Championships.

The Championships will take place on February 7th and 8th in sports complex "Peterburgskii" (St. Petersburg)

Bit of history, the first combat sambo championship in USSR took place in Leningrad(St. Petersburg) in 1939. 56 athletes participated in it. Now, there are Combat Sambo clubs and schools in 53 countries around the world.

This championship will gather top athletes from practically all regions of Russia. As far as St. Petersburg's team "Red Devil", besides Fedor it will be represented by: world Combat Sambo champion Dmitrii Samoilov, all Russian Combat Sambo champion Kirill Sidelnikov (both of these athletes are from Starii Oskol, Emelianenko's hometown), finalist of all Russia Combat Sambo championship Mihail Zayats, master of sport Andrei Lisitsin, candidate for master of sports Alexei Cherepovskii, and also Radmir Gabdullin.

Russian Championship - isn't the only competition that Fedor Emelianenko will participate in next two weeks. On the 15th of February in Moscow in sports complex "Luzhniki" President's Combat Sambo Cup will kick off.

Let us remind you that Russian Federation President's Combat Sambo Cup was established by head of the government Vladimir Putin on 20th of March of 2006. Russian Federation President's Combat Sambo Cup will be awarded to a team - winner of the yearly tournament organized by RosSport and Russian Sambo Federation with giving away his smaller copy.

When I came across this picture of Jean-Claude Van Damme hugging Fedor Emelianenko on CagePotato's It's BFF Friday!!! post I just could not stop laughing at Van Damme's face expression.  There are more pictures there, as well as a video of JCVD hugging Fedor at Yarenokka. FightLinker wrote about that episode as well here. It just didn't strike me then cause he had an animated gif of it and I didn't bother waiting for it to load.

I know how creepy this looks....and how creepy it is.... and felt I had to explain why Fedor is tolerating this bizarre behavior from Van Damme.

Thing people don’t understand is that in Eastern Europe most of the Western actions stars like Arnold, Stallone and VanDamme were way more popular than they ever were in the West. You could say it was just the right timing when Russia opened up to Western movies and VHS. There was nothing like that in the Soviet cinema at the time. Martial Arts besides Judo and Sambo were banned to practice. And those two weren’t highly televised or promoted.

Picture this, here you are in Russia at the end of Soviet era being fed non stop World War II movies on TV ala Saving Private Ryan. That was the only theme of all the action movies...well, wait..sometimes there were Russian Revolution and the Civil War movies too.

Enter VHS players. They cost a bunch and the only movies on VHS were of course from US and Hong Kong.  So the new Russian entrepreneurs put their newly acquired VHS players in little halls and basements with a bunch of chairs and charged an equivalent of 10 dollars to watch a movie on a 20 inch TV at best.

Enter Blood Sport with Jean Claude Van Damme. High spin kicking and splits doing action star doing things that most impressionable Russian youth at the time have never ever seen amounted to him becoming a huge idol and inspiration for training for many many fighters, including Fedor and CroCop.  I mean you had everyone trying to do the splits while trying to punch someone in the groin, doing splits between chairs, holding their legs up high and etc. 

Anyways, Fedor is only tolerating it cause hugging is more accepted over there and it’s VanDamme from the movies, not the creep he is in real life. I mean, from the Fedor interview I translated recently he was glad Jean Claude was there for his Hong Man Choi fight:

FEDOR: I'm very glad that the guys came to support me...Jean Claude...

But yeah…weird doesn’t even begin to describe VanDamme’s sad infatuation with Fedor and traveling to Japan to hug and kiss….

I already posted the pictures from Fedor Emilianenko and Randy Couture's photoshoot for Affliction in my previous post.

Following that up check out a short clip on that same photoshoot.

Fedor Emelianenko visited United States this week to meet with Affliction and Randy Couture, check the news bits on that at M-1 Global news site and MMAJunkie.

Fightlinker.com also had nice find on Fedor possibly travelling with out babysitters.

Well the meeting between Fedor Emelianenko and Randy Couture did take place. Hopefully they talked about actually fighting each other and how to go about fighting each other. I personally, as many of you I'm sure, would love to have this fight actually happen sooner than later.

Anyways, I came across several pics from the photoshoot for Affliction. Last one is just precious.

(reposting this because somehow this post didn't make it to my rss feed)

I was checking in on Fedor Emelianenko yesterday and saw a recent interview he did for his official website fedor.bel.ru. Unfortunately for non-russian speaking Fedor fans, the interview was only available in Russian and it had some, new to me, neat information I have not heard about Fedor yet.  So what's MMA Ninja to do? Here is my professional translation, enjoy it readers.

<<Support of those close to me adds to my strength and confidence, but at the same time adds even greater responsibility for the outcome of a fight...>>

Correspondent: Fedor, first of all, we want to wish you a Happy New Year and Christmas and congratulate you with, of course, the most important for you event - changes in your family and the birth of your daughter Vasilisa. Who let you know about this wonderful event and what where initial emotions to the news of your baby coming into the world?

FEDOR: Yes, it's true, there were changes in my family. Me and Oksana are no longer together: already two years go Oksana and our daughter Masha moved to St. Petersburg....but we keep in touch, I still see Masha and Oksana too. Now I have a new family. I've known Marina for quite a while, and, as many already know, on December 29th our daughter was born.  Marina is the one who gave me the news. Vasilisa was born when we were in Japan. Marina called and gave me the wonderful news. Baby's height - 46 centimeters, weight - 2 kg 600 g. And what were my emotions - of course joy and happiness.

Correspondent: Is Marina also from Starii Oskol? (mmaninja's note: Fedor's hometown)

FEDOR: No, she is from Tula, but very soon I'll be moving mom and daughter to Starii Oskol, I'm just finishing up remodeling my apartment and getting ready for their move.

Correspondent: How are mom and daughter feeling?

FEDOR: The baby was checked out of the hospital, she is with grandma right now, and Marina is still at the hospital, she's having some complications with her health. But everything will get better in time and, I hope, we will all be together very soon.

Correspondent: Is grandma happy that she has another granddaughter now?

FEDOR: Both grandmas are very happy.

Correspondent: Do they trust you with taking care of Vasilisa?

FEDOR: Of course (laughing).

Correspondent: Trivial and common question, who does the baby look like?

FEDOR: She looks like me. Like Marina said "she is a total you!" And I think she looks like me too, my little copy of me.

Correspondent: Were you disappointed that you had a daughter and not a son?

FEDOR: No, not at all. I'm very happy. As far as a boy is concerned - everything is still ahead of us...

Correspondent: One of your fans said something concerting to that "Marina gave daughter for New Year's present and he in return gave her another victory!" With that said we have a few questions. It was your first time fighting for "Yarenokka", what was your impression of the event's organization and matchmaking? How was it different from Pride?

FEDOR: Regarding my present to Marina - while she, of course, is glad to see me win - that wasn't my main present for my daughter's birth. For us, definitely, the baby herself was an amazing present!  Regarding "Yarenokka", I can say that it was organized by former top-managers of Pride together with M-1 Global. Japanese organize this types of event at the highest level. The event wasn't boring, all the fighters gave it their all: fights were interesting, colorful and memorable. They got the fans riled up so much that they were loud non stop.

Correspondent: Your opponent had better physical attributes than you, does the difference in weight and height (Hong Man Choi's 218 cm and 165 kg versus Fedor Emelianenko's 183 cm and 106 kg) significantly affect way you fight?

FEDOR: I felt the difference in size when I tried to take Choi down but it turned out that he tripped me to take me down instead. Then I realized that my weight is not enough and strength is not enough either, so I had to take the fight by mastery. I attempted an armbar. It's important to never forget that in our sport if you slowdown for a moment or thrash around that you never know how things will end. That's why you have to finish a submission from the first try... though in the fight with Choi I managed to finish the submission in my second attempt.

Correspondent: What do you think of the fighting form of the Korean fighter? From what I know he's had some success in K-1.

FEDOR: Yes, Hong Man Choi is on of the leading fighters in K-1. He has a fairly positive fight record there: beating Semmy Schilt, Bob Sapp and Gary Goodridge...because of that  I can say he is a very worthy opponent...

Correspondent: Many famous people came to root for you, Jean Claude VanDamme, world champion boxer Natalia Rogozina, world famous woman-sumatori (anybody know what that is?) Olesya Kovalenko. Does their support help you?

FEDOR: I'm very glad that the guys came to support me...Jean Claude, Natasha, Olesya, several guys from Starii Oskol, few people from Moscow and St. Petersburg...Thank you everyone, it really does help, adds strength and confidence, but at the same time adds even greater responsibility for the outcome of a fight...

Correspondent: When will your next fight take place with M-1 Global and do you know your opponent?

FEDOR: A fight is planned for either April or March, in America, supposedly in Chicago, opponent is unknown...

Correspondent: How many fight are you supposed to participate in this year according to your M-1 Global contract?

FEDOR: According to the contract - 3-4 fights per year, and because the contract is for 2 years, I will have 6-8 fights.

Correspondent: Besides preparing for fights, what are your plans in the near future?

FEDOR: I'm slowly building a house, at the beginning of February I'll participate in Russian Combat Sambo Championship, then mid-February there a President's Sambo Cup... I'll be getting ready for my fight in America and, of course, most pleasant thing I'll be doing is parenting my daughter!

Correspondent: Thank you for the interview. Please, accept our most sincere congratulations and we wish you kindness, peace and prosperity to your family. We hope your baby will be very healthy and that she brings you more joy every day. And of course new a professional achievements in the sport!

-- end of interview.

I thought it was pretty interesting, changes in his family, being a new dad again and his assesment of Choi. While everyone written Hong Man Choi off as a complete scrub, Fedor didn't thinks so, especially after he felt his strength and size.

What did you think?