(Seen here: How Aleksander Emelianenko won his last fight.)
To get you in the mood for the brief, albeit saddening story we are about to tell you, you should first watch this. Now then…
Perhaps you are familiar with the tale of Henry Bemis, a lowly, nearly blind bank teller oft ridiculed for his near crippling obsession with the written word. Specifically, doggerel. Henry was a simple man, one who found more excitement in the whimsical tales of Charles Dickens than he did through actual interactions with his fellow man, a conundrum that had adverse effects on his occupation in more than a few instances. But what could he do? A passion is a passion, so in order to satisfy both his personal needs and his work requirements, Henry would often sneak into the bank’s vault during his lunch break and escape into whatever world his book of choice would provide for him.
On one such occasion, Henry happened to be reading the daily newspaper, which claimed that a new H-Bomb was “Capable of Total Destruction.” Before he could even grovel over such a morbid discovery, said bomb went off, killing not only everyone in the bank, but utterly destroying the entire planet. Left alone with only his thoughts, Henry decided to commit suicide via revolver to end his misery. But before he could do so, he found that the town’s library was amazingly still intact. Left with the quiet he so desperately craved, not to mention all the books he could read, Henry had basically found his utopia. That is, until he tripped and broke his glasses, rendering himself incapable of reading the very texts that he had found solitude in for as long as he could remember. Dooming him to a life of (literary) blue balls, if you will, and eventual suicide.
If recent history has indicated anything, it is that Aleksander Emelianenko is the living incarnation of the character portrayed by Burgess Meredith in that November 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone, and his most recent fight against Ibragim Magomedov at M-1 Challenge 33, which went down last night in Dzheirakh, Russia wrote this notion home with a resounding “Uuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhh….”
At 22-8, Magomedov was perhaps the most legit opponent the younger Emelianenko has faced since, well, the last time he faced Magomedov in 2009, wherein he earned a TKO victory in under 1 minute. While that may invalidate the previous sentence, the rematch did not go quite as smoothly for Emelianenko. As if you can even use the word “smoothly” to describe anything that has happened to Aleks in the past five or more years.
Taking place at a venue that fulfilled both fighters dreams of finally being able to walk down a barren, exposed hillside on their way to the ring, the first round of Emelianenko/Magomedov II was highlighted by some beautiful shots of Russian mountain ranges in the background and nothing else. Given Emelianenko’s ability to finish opponents without ever actually touching them, perhaps he was under the impression that his Jedi powers would lead him to victory once again.
But it was the second round where things ended in decidedly anticlimactic fashion, as has become the norm for Aleks. After landing a few decent combinations and battering Magomedov’s face in the process, Emelianenko’s fingers go all Kevin Burns on his opponent’s eye at the 2:49 mark, halting the action. Although the poke doesn’t appear to be all that significant, nor intentional, Magomedov is pissed nonetheless, and takes a moment to collect himself. When the bell signifying that third round is about to begin is rung, Magomedov claims that he cannot see (at least that’s what us English speakers took away from it) and after a couple minutes of confused shouting from everyone including the judges, the fight is called.
A doctor stoppage TKO win for Emelianenko at 5:00 of round two.
We know, we’re also confused.
Word has it that Emelanenko later stormed off, screaming “It’s not fair!” until he could no more, and for good reason. For, not unlike Mr. Bemis and his books, it seems that all Emelianenko really wants to do is have a good old fashioned throwdown, yet every opponent he steps into the ring against will simply not allow that to happen. And on the off chance that he actually finds a book worth reading, so to speak, Aleks drifts off before he can even finish the first chapter. We honestly feel a bit sorry for the guy, who appears all but unable to end a fight in satisfying faction these days.
Hopefully the win bonus he received for such an odd victory will help ease his pain.