Photo by Valery Sharifulin\TASS via Getty Images
One thing I love about Bellator head cheese Scott Coker, is that he does whatever the hell he wants, whenever the hell he wants to do it — often to great success. Fedor Emelianenko vs. Quinton Jackson heavyweight showdown this December in Japan?
Sure, why not.
While it’s far from a done deal, Coker is in talks with RIZIN chief Nobuyuki Sakakibara about a potential crossover event in “The Land of the Rising Sun,” which has become accustomed to year-end supershows featuring MMA, kickboxing, and pro wrestling action.
Something Sakakibara made famous while steering the PRIDE FC ship.
“That’s something that we’re definitely working on,” Coker told Ariel Helwani. “It’s a situation where we haven’t finalized the details, Sakakibara and myself. Once that gets done, we can talk about the athletes. I would love to have Fedor fight in Japan because I think it’d be so much fun to watch that fight. Whether it’s a Japanese fighter or he fights ‘Rampage’ Jackson or Josh Barnett, or whoever, I think it would just be a magical night to see him back in the Bellator cage in Tokyo.”
Emelianenko, 42, achieved heavyweight immortality while competing for PRIDE FC over a decade ago, capturing dominant wins over the world’s best fighters including Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Mirko Filipovic, just to name a few.
Similarly, the 41 year-old Jackson cemented his place among the light heavyweight elite by stopping Chuck Liddell in late 2003, back when Dana White and Co. thought it was a good idea to bring “The Iceman” overseas to test his might.
Both “The Last Emperor” and “Rampage” have won three of their last five.
That said, it’s been quite some time since either Emelianenko (38-6, 1 NC) or Jackson (38-13) were relevant, at least in terms of the bigger picture, but they still have tremendous name value overseas and would no doubt be an easy sell for Bellator MMA fans.
Who’s in?