Fedor Emelianenko kept his retirement promise after suffering a first-round knockout loss in a fight billed as the last of his career.
The 46-year-old faced Ryan Bader for the heavyweight title at Bellator 290 but couldn’t sign off with a storybook victory over the man who knocked him out in their first fight in 2019.
Lucas Noonan/Bellator MMA.
Bader scored an early knockdown at Bellator 290
Saturday was a similar story to their first fight as Bader landed a big shot early to send Emelianenko crashing to the canvas before following it up with poor ground and ramming.
The fight was called off midway through the first round as it became clear that Emelianenko was taking unnecessary damage and was never going to escape the perilous position he was in.
‘Darth’ retained his heavyweight title but took a back seat during post-fight festivities as Emelianenko put down his gloves to signify the end of his Hall of Fame fighting career.
The Russian was joined in the cage by MMA legends Josh Barnett, Mark Coleman, Randy Couture, Renzo Gracie, Royce Gracie, Dan Henderson, Matt Hughes, Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Frank Shamrock and Chael Sonnen.
They all cheered and cheered – along with the crowd – as Emelianenko confirmed in his post-fight interview that he was done with the sport.
He said: “On the one hand I’m sad, of course, that I didn’t fight the fight the way I wanted.
Lucas Noonan/Bellator MMA.
Fedor tried to stay in the fight but he got flustered midway through the first round
Lucas Noonan/Bellator MMA.
The 46-year-old confirmed his retirement after the fight
“But on the other hand, I’m so happy that all these people are here to cheer me on, and all these veteran fighters who walked with me for almost 20 years are here to greet me. I’m very happy.
“I’m so happy to see all the fighters who are there to support me. Thank you so much.”
At the height of his powers, Emelianenko became a champion with PRIDE and beat a whole host of heavyweight icons during his legendary 27-fight winning streak.
Minotauro Nogueira, Mirko Cro Cop, Mark Coleman, Mark Hunt Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski are just a few of the fighters who have fallen to ‘The Last Emperor’ during his epic winning streak.
Emelianenko walks away from MMA as arguably the greatest heavyweight fighter of all time and one of the few legends in the sport who has never competed in the UFC octagon.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;
n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,
document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘752905198150451’);
fbq(‘track’, “PageView”);
