Filed under: Fighting, UFC, Strikeforce, M-1 Global
Pre-fight conference calls are generally quite routine affairs. They serve a purpose: getting quotes to reporters to pass on to the fans, but often it’s a lot of words with little meaning. The fighter always has had “the best camp of my life,” is in the “the best shape of his life,” and has plans to win.
A few colorful characters sometimes stray from the script, but every once in a while you get something unexpected. Heavyweight MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko dropped one of those moments during Friday’s Strikeforce call leading up to his fight with Fabricio Werdum on June 26. Asked by MMA Fighting why their fight was more relevant than the upcoming UFC heavyweight championship bout a week later, the usually soft-spoken Emelianenko explained that the two fights featured four world-class talents. Then, he let out a rare, pointed comment.
“I’m not a UFC fan,” he said through his interpreter, Steve Bash.
The budget battle currently enveloping New York state is stalling the passage of MMA sanctioning, but turmoil in the state capital is not quite as likely to swallow it as it did last year. That is because unlike past years, MMA has two chances at the legalization process in 2010.
At 21 years old, 
Mixed martial arts is a sport so new that good statistics aren’t readily available for many scenarios worth examining. But watching for years gives you the ability to make general observations, and one of them is the conclusion that fighters that lose both of the first two rounds of a bout rarely come back to finish an opponent in the third.