One of the most awaited bouts of 2017 was the return to action of arguably the greatest MMA fighter of all time. We are of course talking about ‘The Last Emperor’ Fedor Emelianenko who was set to face Matt Mitrione in one of the two main events at Bellator NYC. The bout took place at Madison Square Garden on Saturday June 24th in the first Bellator PPV card.
The fight started and Fedor kept true to his style, just standing in the center of the cage waiting for an opportunity. Mitrione on the other hand looked cautious, trying to stay in motion at all times. After a couple of irrelevant punches to break the ice they both go forward at the same time. The result was something you don’t see everyday. Both men landed their shots on each other’s face and both were knocked down. Mitrione recovered faster and immediatly got up to finish Fedor.
Matt landed one big shot on the ground that sent Emelianenko to another dimension for a moment. As Mitrione was getting ready to unleash on Fedor, the referee jumped in and put an end to the bout, and perhaps to Fedor’s career.
The fight ended officially at 1:14 of the very first round. With the win Mitrione improves his professional record to 12-5, while Emelianenko drops to 36-5-1 and snaps a streak of five victories.
While Fedor was still sitting on the stool, Mitrione threw on his old NY Giants jersey and earned himself a round of applause. The first thing he did during the interview was invite people to donate to the GoFundMe set up to help out the son of the late Tim Hague. (Which in case you want to make a donation is this: https://www.gofundme.com/tim-hague-memorial)
Relive the fight in the video below:
Increíble final! Ambos conectan pero @mattmitrione se levanta antes que #Fedor y acaba con la leyenda #BellatorNYC #BellatorxFOX #DiarioMMA pic.twitter.com/aPU2InyvfU
— Diario MMA (@DiarioMma) June 25, 2017
Go to the second page to watch replays from four different angles
