Fedor Emelianenko: "If I feel good, I will continue my career. If not, I will turn off"

– Everyone should do his/her work. At the moment I am focusing on my career. The main thing for me now is fighting, training. Injuries are often a reason to worry. It also requires a lot of attention. If I now deal with the negotiations, regularly fly across the ocean to meet with the managers, promoters, then I will be forced to sacrifice the training process to a great extent. This is unacceptable. Besides, I perform not on my own but I am a part of a major tournament organization, and, of course, its leaders have their own views on such questions like with whom and when I should fight. The opponents are selected on the criteria which are quite logical, profitable for business: popularity, the ability to interest the television audience, to bring profit. I am sure people know what they are doing. And, well, there are various details. For example, there is such practice when the battle against a weaker opponent can be used for promotion of the much more important, a notorious fight, which is planned in the future for the fighter.

– Is Werdum a suitable contender for promotion of the battle with Overeem?

– Werdum is not the case. He is a strong fighter, and his victory over Antonio Silva has once again demonstrated his high level. Well, it was initially talked that the winner of the battle between Brazilians would meet with me, so do not consider Werdum as just a way to promote the battle with Overeem. Werdum is a completely self-contained opponent.

– What is the power of Werdum?
– He is Brazilian. It already says a lot. Sticky, like all Brazilians. Experienced. Not so bad in a rack. Well, I will add that his style is not standard.

– In what way?

– Just in the punch technique. Still, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu leaves its mark.

– Does this promise more problems for you?

– No. This only characterizes the irregularity of the opponent. Maybe, some of his awkwardness.

– Will you prepare for Werdum traditionally, like for any other opponent, "as usual"?

– If I am preparing for a fight against a fighter who is fluent in wrestling technique, it does not mean that during the training we will pay particular attention to the ground fighting. Or vice versa. Everything must be balanced. So, really, I prepare as usual. Prior to Rogers, for example, we didnot charge for the work in the rack. Then we had fighted a lot. And something special, perhaps, is that my partners, having studied carefully with the coaches the fights of my future opponent, during sparrings try to copy his style of fighting, and the coaches make corrections  during the training.

– How do you like the slaughter of Rogers by Overeem?
– I have not yet seen this fight, like the rest of the Strikeforce tournament in May.

– You did not have time?
– Usually I do not watch the tournaments. There are some fighters who are interesting for me. And I try not to miss their fights.

– Who are they?
– Randy Couture is interesting, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Shogun. There are interesting young men now in the UFC: Velasquez, Dos Santos. Good, talented guys.

– All the people you currently have listed, just belongs to the UFC, the organization in which we can no longer hope to see you. Vadym Finkelstein said not so long ago that if a few years ago your contract with the UFC had been signed, now you simply would not be an athlete. Could something like that happen to you?

–I do not think that I would not be an athlete, but ... UFC is a machine for making money. The main thing for this organization is the brand and its promotion. They also have good fighters, there are a few champions, but they try to keep everybody approximately on the same level, so that no one would stand out, because the first priority is the organization. I think they have wrong policy in relation to the men, just showing disrespect, but I became a thorn in their eyes.
The negotiations between us are held regularly, but only recently there has appeared some respect on the part of the Americans. Now the conversation is completely different, and they began to listen to our opinion.

– Is the dialogue with the UFC to be continued?

– I can only say that Vadim Finkelstein now manages to continue it.

– You have a few years served also with a large organization, Pride. And with success. Did you encountered at that time with similar problems?

– There was also, shall we say, some peculiar attitude to us. All the time you had to be alert. The Japanese were not very satisfied, for example, that the championship belt in the heavyweight division stayed in my hands. They wanted Mirko Filipovic to become a champion. This is, in general, not a secret. This could be seen by the videotapes of our battle, and on the cover of the official journal of Pride was Krokop, but all the others were somewhere inside. The audience then was actively adjusted for Croatian.

– Does everything go smoothly at Strikeforce?

– Until now we understand each other.

– Fighters and trainers, with whom we have communicated, note almost in the first place your strong-willed qualities. For example, Alexander Michkov told me that, when you are very-very tired, you can opt out of training, and no one will force you to continue. But you go back and continue.

– Will power plays a very important role. During training, the battles are often hard, you want to stop, climb all sorts of ideas, but thanks to strong-willed qualities you continueto go forward, forward, forward.

– Can one train the will power?
– Of course. It is necessary to step over all the time. And the sport not only requires to have such qualities, but it develops them very strongly. When I feel hard, I add more. For example, if I do the cross and I feel that it gets hard, then I can slow down, but later I add. And I run even faster.
But everything must be done with the mind. I try to intelligently distribute the load, to do everything accordingly to my feeling of myself, so as not to hurt myself. If I feel hard then I slow myself down. This helps to avoid injury and psychological fatigue. I can do a minimum, and coaches will understand me.
 

– Sometimes it seems that you get tired not because of the high-load, but from increased attention to you.
– I would not say so. I spend most of my time in Stary Oskol, but here everybody have already been accustomed with me, there is no rush.

– But in this case you sometimes admit that compliments from fans are almost annoying.
– No, not annoying. I do not understand when they say "great" or something like that. I am an ordinary person, there is no need to exaggerate.
 

– Now my goal is to finalize a contract for two fights and try not to lose, and then we'll see. It will be as God wills. If I feel good and my health permits, thenI make a new contract. If not, I will turn off, I guess.
But my main goal is to raise my daughter, to support my family and to help the people who are around me.