With the recent news that WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko had been nominated for a seat in the Russian Parliament, speculation had begun regarding his future and whether he’d be retiring after his Strikeforce contract for politics.
Not so say’s M-1 Global’s Director of Operations, Evgeni Kogan, who spoke to MMAWeekly.com about the worlds number 1 heavyweight.
“He was basically nominated as one of the 58 candidates in the Belgorod Region, to be a candidate for the ruling party, for the Russian ruling party essentially,” said Kogan. “As far as I know, after he won a seat in the Russian Parliament or Senate, and it just kind of exploded from there.”
While working as a politician can have some similarities to fighting, the most dominant heavyweight in MMA history isn’t switching careers or even taking that much time away to tend to his Parliament duties.
“There’s no substance to them at all,” Kogan said about retirement talk. “He was nominated, I’m pretty sure he didn’t nominate himself, so he was nominated by other people. He is one of a number of a dozen people in the same position, and even if he goes through the duties that he would have to undertake as part of that role, (it) would be negligible.”
Well fight fans, there’s still hope that we may one day see one of the world’s most dominant fighter in the octagon yet.
Photo courtesy of M-1 Global.