All-time greats Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko Filipovic may have rematch at Rizin Fighting Federation according to sources in Japan and from Cro Cop himself.
According to a new poster from Rizin Fighting Federation, the rematch would happen on Sep. 25. Rizin had previously announced an open-weight tournament for the event.
The first and only match between Emelianenko and Filipović took place at PRIDE Final Conflict 2005.
In the first round, Filipović stunned and broke Emelianenko’s nose with two quick straight left hands. He discolored Fedor’s midsection with powerful body kicks. Emelianenko was then able to get the fight to the ground and land several body shots, which took a lot of gas out of Filipović. As the fight progressed, Emelianenko became more and more dominant, winning most of the stand up exchanges and scoring several takedowns. After 20 minutes, Emelianenko was awarded a unanimous decision victory. The fight was awarded fight of the year by mmafighting.com and fight of the decade by Sports Illustrated.
In this recent interview with Japan’s efight.jp, Mirko said that he wants to avenge his loss to Fedor:
“Of course I want to do IT.”
Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic from his official Facebook profile shared the poster:
Both Cro Cop and Fedor have recently come back from retirement:
Filipović was expected to face Anthony Hamilton on 28 November 2015 at UFC Fight Night 79. However, on November 10, it was announced that Filipović had pulled out of the fight and abruptly announced his retirement. Subsequently on 11 November 2015, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) notified both Mirko Cro Cop and the UFC that he has been provisionally suspended due to a potential Anti-Doping Policy violation. The following day in a statement Filipović confirmed that he had used human growth hormone for his shoulder injury and had admitted this to the UFC. On November 25, Filipović was suspended for two years by USADA retroactive to November 9, 2015. He is considered one of the greatest fighters to never win a UFC title.
He was ranked as a top 10 heavyweight from July 2002 to January 2008, peaking at #2 in the world after his 2006 Grand Prix victory according to FightMatrix.
In July 2016, Filipović announced that he was ending his retirement and would return to mixed martial arts competition in Japan. He is scheduled to make his return with the Rizin Fighting Federation as part of a 16-man openweight tournament beginning September 25, 2016 in Tokyo. He received a bye for the first round and will go straight to the quarter final.
Fedor:
On July 14, 2015, after a three year hiatus from mixed martial arts, Emelianenko announced that he will be returning to active competition and has started training immediately. He was in negotiations with the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Bellator MMA. In a statement released through his management, Emelianenko added that he has retired from his position at the Russian Ministry of Sport, and will put all attention toward his comeback.
On September 19, 2015, at the Bellator 142 Dynamite 1 event, Fedor declared in English that he will fight on New Year’s Eve for a newly created regional promotion in Japan, Rizin Fighting Federation, under the presidency of former Pride Fighting Championships boss Nobuyuki Sakakibara. Jaideep Singh and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka were initially in talks for being Fedor’s opponent, but both fighters were ruled out for lack of competitiveness. Singh was eventually confirmed as the opponent and The Last Emperor easily won his comeback fight in the first round by submission to punches after an effective ground and pound from the full mount.
2016 : EFN 50 fight versus Maldonado
Emelianenko faced Fábio Maldonado on June 17, 2016 competing for a promotion on the regional circuit in St. Petersburg (Russia). Despite being dropped and nearly finished in the first round, Emelianenko rallied over the last two rounds and was awarded a controversial majority decision victory. 4 of 5 media outlets scored the bout a draw. All three judges being appointed by the Russian MMA Union was pondered as a conflict of interest. In turn, in mid-July the official result was overturned to a draw. However, WMMAA has no real authority to change the outcome and its decision is merely symbolic in nature.
After this disappointing performance, Emelianenko announced that he was going to pursue his career and study all the proposals he had received; the most anticipated being the one from the UFC, which Emelianenko confirmed he received prior to the fight against Maldonado.
