On the most recent edition of The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, the great Fedor Emelianenko came on the show and in it they got into a serious discussion on whether or not Fedor was or thought of himself as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, this is a topic that’s been poked and prodded at for sometime now, especially when Emelianenko was in his prime.
Well, it would seem that Fedor, in fact, does not consider himself to be the G.O.A.T. (Greatest Of All Time) It’s interesting, with so many fighters and other sports figures proclaiming themselves as the best all the time, to here one of the legends of the sport actually have the privilege of being asked that question by someone else and actually denying it.
What do you think? Is Fedor wrong or right? Is there more to be said? Who knows? Now, onto the interview, take it away Mr. Emelianenko!
“I never considered myself to the best one,” Emelianenko said during an in-house visit to The MMA Hour on Monday. “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.”
“All the fights were interesting for some particular reason, and I could find something in each fight,” he said through his translator. “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.”
“We did review the opportunity to fight in the UFC. If the UFC wanted me to get in, we could have,” he said.
“We didn’t come to the agreement.”
“It is very difficult to say, you know,” he said. “It was always something that wouldn’t work out, and it would go back and forth. If, for example, speaking about Scott Coker, we met together and we discussed a lot of issues. We negotiated, we agreed, and he sent me the contract. Everything was exactly [as stated], and the contract was signed. With the UFC always something would [pop up].”
“Well I cannot [relate] myself to the fighters who have very exaggerated and excited reaction hearing the words ‘UFC,’” he said. “For me there was always no difference where to perform, in which organization, whether it be the UFC, or Pride, or Strikeforce, or Bellator, the main thing is who is your opponent.
“And also you’ve got to have that good relationship and preserve that good relationship with people who work in the organization. So the fighter is the fighter, and he deals with a lot of things. He goes through a lot of paths. His load is a huge one.
“I performed against different opponents who were the best fighters of the UFC.”
