Den amerikanske mellanviktaren Chael Sonnen har aldrig varit ett stort fan av ryssen Fedor Emelianenko, vars meriter han vid flera tillfällen ifrågasatt. I veckans avsnitt av The MMA Hour
berättar Sonnen att Fedor är överskattad som MMA-fighter, som lyckades väl i Japan men när han tävlade i USA under sanktionerade former lyckades han inte alls lika bra.
He’s definitely overrated. But he’s not that highly rated. The people who listen to your show, the people who listen to my podcast, we have some hardcore fans. They watched him over in Japan. They watched some of those matches and they’re more than happy to forget when he came over to the states and actually did a sanctioned fight with a real referee that’s not wearing an earpiece. They forgot about those. The average human being doesn’t have the foggiest idea of who he is. And history is not going to reflect well on Fedor Emelianenko, as far as his MMA career goes
Sonnen fortsätter med att jämföra ”hypen” kring Fedor likt den som fanns runt Kimbo Slice när denne klev över till MMA.
Fans assess Fedor constantly. They have no idea what they’re talking about. I hear things said about Fedor where I’m just sitting there rolling my eyes. I had to live through this with Kimbo Slice. I had to live through this where the fans’ perception gets so far off that they don’t know what they’re seeing. Fedor can give you a very good assessment of himself. He knows where he’s at. So when he puts himself over there in Japan and goes, ’I can make a few bucks doing this, I can stay busy and I don’t have to fight those guys in the UFC,’ that ends the argument. His fans always want to come out, ’You’d do so well in the UFC.’ If he’s telling you that he won’t, you’ve gotta listen to him
Den 39-årige forne PRIDE-mästaren kommer att göra sin MMA-comeback i slutet av året när han går match på den nyskapade japanska MMA-organisationen Rizin FF. Vem som kommer stå för motståndet är ännu oklart.
