"At this moment, for us, the key thing is the level of the opponent, and not how much we get paid. I can say that if we were unable to agree with Ishii, we wouldn't participate in this tournament. We had concurrent offers with other DREAM fighters, but this is not for Fedor's level, and we didn't want to have a fight with mediocre fighters, taking a step backwards. We want to be taking steps forward and we will follow this in the future.
We want to have three fights. One in Russia, one in Europe, and one in the USA. We really want to get a rematch with Werdum, but he is locked up in the prison called UFC, and because of that arranging for him to fight Fedor would be very difficult. Dana White is like a dog on hay - he neither eats it himself, nor lets the others eat it. There are many other good fighters, whom we are considering. For instance, Josh Barnett. We need to wait for the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament to end and then we can see how likely it is that we can arrange a fight." - Championat.com (via MMAMania.com)
It's onward and upward only for "The Last Emperor."
Now back in the win column after snapping a three-fight losing streak with a decision victory over Jeff Monson, M-1 Global says they're looking for only the best Heavyweight talent available to fight Fedor Emelianenko. Though his next bout is currently set, a New Year's Eve clash against Olympic Gold Medalist Satoshi Ishii, M-1 Global President Vadim Finkelchtein expressed interest in a future rematch with Fabrico Werdum, who shocked the MMA world by submitting Emelianenko in just 69 seconds back in 2010, or a fight against former UFC Champion Josh Barnett.
While Finkelchtein acknowledges the potential obstacles to be encountered in putting those match-ups together, namely the fact that both competitors are curretly contracted by ZUFFA, he remains hopeful that one or the other may break free from the "prison called UFC."
