Fedor Emelianenko once expressed the desire to have his retirement bout be for the title. Of course this was all prior to the 2022 political situation so the plans were scrapped pretty much as soon as the war had started.
That left Emelianenko in a tough spot with his age advancing. Bellator president Scott Coker recently shined a light on the situation
Coker claims that Fedor’s main goal for his last match is to get revenge on Ryan Bader for a previous defeat.
Bellator President stated the following during an interview on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani:
“Fedor, he’s got his bullseye on Ryan Bader.”
“So we’re going to have a conversation.”
In a Russian interview, Fedor Emelianenko even requested for Bader, saying:
“For me, Bader remains the number one goal for now. They (Bellator) didn’t contact me, no one told me the news, I also learned about it from the Internet, from the media. Whether it is inflated, whether it attracts attention. But for now, I’m preparing for Bader.”
The first time Ryan Bader and Fedor faced off was in the Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix Final. The American won the match via first-round knockout in just 35 seconds.
If Fedor wasn't Fedor there's no way he'd be getting a rematch after this pic.twitter.com/VQzdW9k4hl
— calfkicker (@calfkickercom) October 12, 2022
Later Mike Bohn caught up with Coker who clarified what’s the hold up as well as where the negotiations stand with Anderson Silva.
“So that’s that’s what I’ve been focusing on. But I will reach out to Fedor maybe sometime next week. And let’s see if we can come to some common ground. The Anderson Silva thing was really was just a conversation I had with this was about four months ago saying, hey, wouldn’t that be amazing? ”
“He reached out to Anderson. Anderson said, I really want to focus on my boxing, and that was it. So that was really the extent of that conversation. But I think Fedor really has his bulls eye on Bader real quick.”