ANGELS – Large night for Bellator at The Forum in Inglewood. Potentially the last walk of Fedor Emelianenko, the great Russian heavyweight MMA fighter, considered the best in history. The final of the heavyweight Grand Prix tournament of the fight league, which turned out to be a great success and during which American Ryan Bader faced Emelianenko in a title fight, having already won the airy heavyweight crown. Bader has hefty hands and great wrestling.

They are both similar in terms of weight and height. Bader is the less weather-worn one, in the full swing of his career, and the favorite. It’s likely that Fedor will go all out early, and if Bader (26-5 in MMA) can withstand this onslaught, the 36-year-old from Chandler, Arizona will have a great opportunity to claim the biggest scalp ever on his plate.

The Russians are here in full force to witness the berserker, explosive style of Sambo in which Fedor (38-5-1 in MMA) was undefeated in a 27-fight winning streak from 2000 to 2010, when he lined up a Who’s Who of great players, going through adversity to defeat them all in all their glory in Japan and the USA: Antonio Nogueira, Mirko CroCop, Mark Hunt, Mark Coleman et al. At the age of 42, Fedor will probably go to the cage for the last time.

In the case of “The Last Emperor”, that time of retirement may have already come. But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t have great performances. This week at media day during practice, he showed off his speed and power when he stuck his 4-ounce gloves into coach Peter Theiss’ pads. He is still respected and considered the greatest heavyweight of all time. It still carries with it a deep aura and presence.

He never said a bad word about his opponents. I never bragged. It never even lit up. There are few people who do not admire the great Russian bear.

Fedor, a former Japanese PRIDE Fighting Championships champion, former Strikeforce title challenger and one of the few names the UFC tried but failed to sign several times, Fedor joined Bellator through his connection and friendship with fighting league president Scott Coker .

“This is a huge event for us as we witness the culmination of the heavyweight Grand Prix and the emergence of a modern group of stars,” explained Coker, CEO of Bellator, which is owned by media giants Viacom. Last year, the fight league signed a three-year, $140 million deal with DAZN, an OTT streaming service. DAZN has exclusive rights to eight events per year.

The card is full of show stealers, including a fight between rising prospect Aaron Pico and Henry Corrales, a pair of Los Angeles natives from different sides of the tracks. Pico is a highly touted, talented boxer – and wrestler – who has plans to become a world champion in MMA and boxing. He trains with Freddie Roach at Wild Card Boxing Gym. There is even talk of him leaving MMA for a year to try to qualify as a wrestler for Mexico’s national team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Corrales, a 32-year veteran with a 16-3 record, is ready for it. It’ll probably be a fight in a phone booth. “If he (Pico) didn’t finish these guys off and emphasize their fight, he wouldn’t be talked about so much,” Corrales admitted to me this week. “His amateur career is quite legal. He’s a high-level wrestler. Boxer in Golden Gloves. It’s part of the game.”

They are both from Whittier. “Yes, same area. We never crossed paths. There is a ten-year gap. My people don’t even know about his people. I’ve never seen him, only heard about him. Various backgrounds. He grew up on an athletics field. The black arts led me to martial arts. I didn’t grow up playing sports, I was just a clown and an undisciplined little fucker. “A different background and different circles.”

However, this is an all-Latino fight. Corrales has “Guerrero Azteca” tattooed on his chest, depicting a lion’s head behind a cage. “Mexicans want to fight. It’s in their blood. I think this knowledge doesn’t exist because of generations of boxing. They absorb knowledge about boxing, they know this sport. But when it comes to MMA, they are just as massive fans. I am Mexican American. I don’t think there are many fighters who only train MMA.

Then rubbing and the difference in backgrounds. “I once got stabbed by a Mexican who looked like Pico,” Corrales says. The motivation seems to be sufficient. Pico, for his part, is looking forward to the challenge of moving up in class. “I think it will be a great fight,” Pico told me this week. “But I don’t think it will be what he thinks it will be. People don’t know I have it all. I can stand on my feet and wrestle too. I worked a lot in the field. Of course I can box and fight on my feet. I know what I have to do to win.”

Once a powerful wrestler, he now delights in stand-up. “Of course, I love fighting for a knockout. That’s what people remember. This is what people remember Mike Tyson for. I want people to know that Pico can do anything, but he ended up knocking out a lot of people. His fighting style is a real brawler. But a lot of people underestimate my striking speed with these four-ounce gloves. It’s a completely different ball game, the way I can hit. This is crazy. I feel comfortable on my feet. I could make the Olympic boxing team. I boxed with all the guys on the team. I definitely made a massive impact on boxing. But life took me in a different direction. I’m cheerful about it because I was able to travel around the world. I think I would be a better boxer than wrestler, 100 percent.”

As already mentioned, Pico has clear ambitions as a boxer. “MMA is the priority now, but I will take part in boxing fights. I’m not sure when, I’ll have to sit down with everyone. But if it were up to me and I was vigorous between fights, I don’t know why I couldn’t do both.”

“I’m pretty sure Bellator will let me box. Scott Coker is a very open guy. He knows I represent Bellator and MMA fighters. One thing about me going to boxing, it won’t be a side gig. I want to have a massive impact on boxing. I really, really feel like I can do it. I spar with a lot of guys and I do MMA throughout the week, but I spar with boxers who do it every day. I’m holding on.”

In the era of combat sports, we also have crossovers, and there is the intrigue, the fascination, of the MMA debut of WWE star Jack Swagger – or to give him his real name, Jake Hager – as a heavyweight fighter here at the event. On the eve of his move to the toughest training ground in sports: heavyweight MMA fighting, where he gets hit in the face with 4-ounce gloves by 250-pound men who want to decapitate you or break your limbs, he told me, “I’m making MMA again.” is great for professional wrestlers. I don’t know if I’m trying to confuse modern MMA fans with four different names, but we’re working on it. I definitely want to bring that personality, charisma and character to the cage.

But it’s a far cry from the long-legged spandex of WWE where he was champion. Hager was an accomplished college wrestler in the United States and a very decent American football player at the University of Oklahoma (where, for the record, he graduated with a degree in finance). Not since Brock Lesnar came to MMA from WWE has a name like this taken such a huge leap of faith. There is a risk.

“Oh, it’s a huge risk, a very massive investment in me and my skills,” Hager admitted. “But I think if you look at life, that’s how you accomplish great things. In 2016 and 2017 I was not in a good place. I was on the road for 12 years, I drank too much. I had to get back to who I was. It was a way for me to improve myself. Be better than my past self. This was really critical. I feel like after everything that’s happened over the last year and a half, I’ve already won. Swagger’s debut opponent is 5-foot-10 journeyman JW Kiser, who has a 1-1 record in MMA. This should be a pliable opening, but you never know in a heavyweight MMA fight.

The forum will be buzzing for tonight’s opening night of the Bellator 2019 Fight League, where history will be made and when a huge chapter could close with the presence of greatness in Fedor Emelianenko.

Subtab:
Aaron Pico (4-1) vs. Henry Corrales (16-3) featherweight
Jake Hager (professional MMA debut) vs. JW Kiser (1-1), heavyweight
Juan Archuleta (21-1) vs. Ricky Bandejas (11-1), bantamweight
Adel Altamimi (7-5) vs. Brandon McMahan (5-6)

Bellator Heavyweight Grand Prix
Main Event: Fedor Emelianenko (38-5) vs. Ryan Bader (26-5) for the Bellator heavyweight title
When: Saturday
Where: Forum
Television: DAZN and Paramount Network simulcast at 6:00 PM Pacific Time

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