 Red Belt
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Translations of Update to Fedor's Site: Fedor's Thoughts in Barnett and Hunt ITT
Fedor's Teammate Knocks Out Opponent with One Punch
After returning from Japan where the last PRIDE event took place, Fedor has talked with us about the best fights, the winner of one was his teammate, Roman Zenstov.
As we wrote earlier, because of the operation on his hand, Fedor is unable to compete in fights for a while, however he doesn't intend to miss any events, and will go to them all as a spectator. It should be noted that that among the well-known Slavic sports competitors at the PRIDE event, Yana Klochkova (female swimmer from Ukraine), the four-time Olympic champion, was invited to attend.
This PRIDE was a fairly sensational event. Many of the fighters expected to win shocked the vans by being defeated. Such was the unexpected outcome of Rizzo vs Zentsov. Like Fedor, Pedro is a well known and successful fighter, especially in the UFC in America, with many victories there.
But despite that, Roman won 25 seconds, knocking out the Brazilian fighter. Roman caught a beautiful chance to counter: when Pedro tried to kick his leg, our fighter countered with a left hand and sent him to the canvas for a knockout. Thus, between Russian fighters in PRIDE, Roman now beats Fedor's fastest knockout record by a second, but both are still very far behind Alexander who holds an 11-second knockout over Morais and an 11-second knockout over Thompson).
As to Sergey Kharitonov and Alastair Overeem's fight, it continued barely more than 5 minutes; the shocking moment was Sergey's defeat. Nobody believed in such outcome of the fight. During a throw right at the beginning of the round, Fedor noticed Kharitonov's shoulder dislocate. After it was hurt, Sergey laid on his back and received many blows from Overeem. A the referee did not stop the fight, unfortunately now it may have a disappointing effect on Kharitonov's health this year. "The problem was that perhaps Sergey is not competing in Sambo enough, to focus on boxing training" Fedor explains- "in sambo, fighters specially train in all manners of throws, especially how to land without any risk to being hurt… And to improve the skill, it is necessary to be constantly engaged and participating in competitions".
One more unexpected result was Mark Coleman's victory over Mauricio Rua (Known more popularly as Shogun). The fight lasted 49 seconds. Mauricio was the winner of the PRIDE tournament last year at 92kgs and was considered to be one of the favourites for this year's Grand Prix. During Mark Coleman's takedown, he dislocated his arm; What happened exactly, if it was a broken bone or not, Fedor Emeljanenko can't say for sure, but the fight was stopped ahead of schedule. According to the judges - TKO.
Mark Hunt's fight with Yousuke Nishijima was interesting. Most predicted it would be at most two minutes, but it went three rounds in fact- the time being 17 minutes. The difference in weight between the contenders was 30kg (in favour of Mark Hunt), bvt in moments Nishijima was able to make Hunt look ridiculous. And in spite of the fact that Mark Hunt - the professional kickboxer, who repeatedly won in K-1 and become a champion, during the whole fight could not finish Nishijima. Only in last round Hunt managed to knock him out. However for many it was still very unexpected that the boxer could last that long, and it was clear he had a very good passion for sporting competition.
As to Tsuyoshi Kohaska (who Fedor faced two fights ago) and his fight against Mario Sperry, the victory belonged to the Japanese fighter. In spite of the fact that in he was hit hard and staggered, Kohsaka survived without being knocked out; he managed to recover, and, having regained the aggressive role, hit Sperry and finished him on the ground for the referee to stop it.
In the fight between Nakamuara and Josh Barnett, the weight advantage was with Barnett. Barnett won by rear naked choke, with this probably being the only thing which entertained spectators. The duel lasted a bit more than 8 minutes (almost a round). The most interesting thing was the manner in which Fedor noted the winner. Josh, with a manner specific to American fighters, celebrated and exulted to the fans, letting them know how proud he was of winning.
On the three rounds between Quinton Jackson and YoonDong Sik, and also Fabricio Werdum and John Olav Enimo (Norway), Fedor had to say: "I assumed Quinton would win the fight in a few minutes, but he won on the judge's views and the real sensation was his opponent". Fabricio (who has a win over Roman Zenstov) defeated his Norwegian opponent, but in Fedor's analysis did not show anything very special; it appeared to him that his opponent had very slow hands, and thus he was able to pick up a deserved win.
As for Antonio Nogueira's fight with Tamura, in Fedor's opinion this fight was a foregone conclusion. The fight lasted hardly more than two minutes, and Tamura was not a serious challenger (with Nogueira having a very significant weight advantage) for Nogueira to prove anything against. Therefore the fight, in Fedor's opinion, ended exactly as it should have- with an armbar.
We also interested with that fact, Barnett and Hunt, in the eyes of fans and PRIDE organizers, are being thought of as contenders. Fedor has our question on the subject like this: "It's a valid idea. In the first round of the Grand Prix, Barnett refused to fight me, and so he was unable to compete in the Grand Prix. To judge any rivalry between us is a hard thing to do. Whether or not he'll face me is up in the air, as he already suffered defeat from Mirko Cro Cop twice. Aside from that, I consider Barnett and Hunt worthy contenders, therefore, if they will set the fights up, I'll meet them gladly in the ring".
Despite it all, Fedor's fondest memory of the night was his teammate's victory over Rizzo. We were lucky enough to see his pride in his teammate and the reason for his success. He is Roman and Fedor's trainer Ruslan Nagnibid. As we wrote earlier, Ruslan helped to prepare Fedor with his fight with Mirko, and now trains Roman. With Ruslan, Roman has trained to fight in the М-1 fighting organization, receiving excellent training for his fight with Ibragim Magomedov, and now the victory over Rizzo, his second at that level of competition.
According to Ruslan, Roman had an excellent fight. Training (first on endurance/cardio) and preparation for the fights have satisfied both men. Before the fight, they looked through tape of Rizzo's fights and studied his tactics, which helped them visualize how the fight might be, and what sorts of tactics to use. The most important thing was that he was able to go for the whole fight without becoming tired. Zenstov remarked that training with Ruslan, his outlook on fighting has changed; if before in his career he went into the ring to destroy, now he goes in to create; a beautiful fight and a beautiful win. Roman did very well in this fight, and will fight again in PRIDE this year as this was the second of a three-fight contract.
For now, the plan for the Emelianenkos and Roman is training, training, and more training. They plan to go to Kislovodsk to do some mountain training there in the middle of March. They plan on training psychologically and improving their mindstates before and during the fight so they can perform confidently and well.
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