Former UFC heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos was disappointed with the organization of the fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Timothy Johnson, which will take place on October 23 at the Bellator tournament in Moscow.
Emelianenko is set to return to the Bellator cage this October in Moscow, Russia, and when the news first broke that “The Last Emperor” was going to fight again, immediately big names like dos Santos, Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem, Josh Barnett, and even Jake Hager all threw their names in the hat to get the chance to face off with the legend. However, Bellator decided to choose Johnson instead, and that disappointed dos Santos.
“Not trying to sound disrespectful or anything like that, but at first I was very hopeful that I would be a great option for Fedor, to close his career. My idea is that he wanted a great fight, a fight that really interested the fans and made people excited to watch. That would be the case with options like myself, Overeem, and even Werdum. I was imagining something along those lines, something that made sense in my head, but it was completely the opposite of what I was imagining,” said dos Santos
“He ended up choosing Tim Johnson. I don’t know how the fight will go, I’m not judging anything, but I believe it would be way more interesting, or at least would get a bit more attention, if it were Overeem, Werdum, me, Josh Barnett. He’s the greatest champion in heavyweight history, I’m a fan of Fedor, but, for his last fight, (I thought) he probably wanted to gift fans with a super fight, one that called the attention of the entire world, but it wasn’t the path he followed. I don’t understand why, but it was a bit disappointing, I can’t say it wasn’t.”