Fedor Emelianenko

Fedor Emelianenko has been regarded as one of the greatest mixed martial artists in the history of the sport. Born in Russia in September 1976, he has been ranked by many websites and MMA writers as the best pound for pound fighter in the world. He has remained the Pride FC heavy weight Champion for over five years and is undefeated in this particular event. He ascertained the Pride Heavyweight title by beating Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira in 2003.

As aforementioned, the consideration of Fedor being ranked number one in the world stems from the consensus of numerous well recognized sport and fight publications. These include ESPN and the Canadian channel, The Fight Network. The main reason why these publications regard him highly is based on two simple reasons. Firstly Fedor has never been defeated in his professional career ( exception of the loss from the cut ) and secondly for his complete MMA style. However some would argue that, the reason for him being ranked number one is because he has beat some of the best fighters in the world. These include wins over fighters such as Rodrigo Nogueira, Mirko Filopovic, and Mark Hunt. In addition to the latter, Fedor Emelianenko has numerous world titles in Sambo and Judo.

Fedor's early martial arts training began in Russia with the styles of Sambo and Judo. Fedor started studying with Vasiliy Ivanovich Gavrilov, and at a later date with the highly regarded Vladimir Voronov. Vladimir has often referred to Fedor when he was young "relatively weak physically and did not have a natural grappling talent; instead, his biggest strong point was his insistence and strong will".

During the year of 1997,Fedor ascertained the title of a "Masters in Sport" in the style of Russian Sambo and Judo and as such became an integral part of the Russian national team  In the years of 1998 he went on to achieve a bronze medal in the national games for Judo. A couple of years afterwards Fedor competed in Combat Sambo and went on to become the world champion.

Unlike most mixed martial arts fighters, Fedor Emelianenko does not utilize traditional wait training into his training regimen. He rather focuses on sport specific training with the utalisation of grappling exercises as well as boxing and kickboxing exercises. For his strength training there is heavy reliance on body weight exercises such as press-ups and parallel bar dips. For his cardiovascular training, Emelianenko partake in high altitude training. On of the most important aspect of his training are his 8-10 mile runs which he does on a daily basis.

To improve his striking, Fedor has recently started to utilize the services of highly regarded coaches throughout the world. In 2005, Fedor started studying Kickboxing under Earnesto Hoost, who held numerous world titles in Kickboxing and Muay Thai. He also adopted the services of, Ruslan Nagnibeda a highly regarded Muay Thai coach.