On August 19, reports began to appear that Fedor Emelianenko for the second time decided to leave the post of head of the Russian MMA Union ahead of schedule and left temporary leadership to his protégé Andrei Terentiev. A day later, he confirmed the information about the departure of the legendary wrestler, but, in fact, did not name any specific reasons.
“Fyodor Emelianenko submitted his resignation, resigned as president, but remained in the Russian MMA Union and will continue to work. He will now be an honorary president or head of the supervisory board of our organization. We don’t have any conflict situation, but now you don’t have time to do daily routine work. For now, I will be the interim president of the MMA Union and together we will solve all the everyday problems. The election of the president of the Russian MMA Union will take place at our annual conference, which will be held in Moscow at the end of the year, ”Terentyev told RIA Novosti Sport.
This whole situation takes us back to 2018, when Emelianenko had already issued something similar. He led the MMA Union from the moment it was founded in 2012, and six years later decided it was difficult for him to continue his professional career and manage the structure. And his former training partner Radmir Gabdullin became his successor. Fedor himself modestly took the post of head of the supervisory board. By the way, this body was created specifically for a special position for Emelianenko. This management structure lasted almost four years. During this time, Gabdullin gradually gained his own authority from him, invited people from him, in particular, Lenar Ganeev, and even removed the patrons of the Union – Uralkali and Uralchem.
Emelianenko surpassed everyone and returned the post of head of the MMA Union:
Emelianenko won another fight. Fedor literally outwitted everyone.
To this day, we can only guess what really happened between friends, but Fedor decided to leave the organization in April 2022: “For me, I found the only way out – to leave the Union, because I was tired of justifying the actions of Radmir inexperience. and vehemence.
Then they wrote that, perhaps, Gabdullina ruined their independence. The last emperor did not like that his protégé stopped listening to advice, although he promised to listen, and the legendary fighter allegedly had questions about the financial activities of the Union president.
Emelianenko explained in an interview with MMA.Metaratings.ru: “Radmir speaks well of me, but only in public, and behind his back he does his business, which periodically affects my reputation, not in the best way. To be fair, let me explain. I informed Radmir of my departure from the Union on March 28, but he did not consider it necessary to notify the Presidium. After waiting two days, I sent a letter of information to the members of the presidium, because I believe that if the current president did not inform, then out of respect for my colleagues, I should do it myself. Unfortunately, information about this appeared in the press. After that, the current president of the Union did not miss the opportunity to leave a caustic comment about my departure, which caused greater public interest in what was happening within the organization.
The Presidium then announced a vote of no confidence in Gabdullin and called a snap election, where Andrei Terentyev became Radmir’s rival. But in the course of the play, Fedor Emelianenko himself appeared on the stage. He unexpectedly decided to participate in the elections, and Terentyev withdrew his candidacy on this occasion. Of course, Gabdullin didn’t stand a chance. Fedor said in the hall that Lenar Ganeev had been fired, and after a while the former president also resigned.
“I explained to him that it would not work with the team and he wrote a statement,” Emelianenko said then.
Now, after a year’s reign, the Last Emperor prepares to “go out” again, but, like last time, he will take care of those he leaves instead of himself. The true reasons for Fedor’s upcoming departure are unknown to us, so we can only speculate.
One of the most popular versions is the June scandal involving the death of a young MMA fighter. Hv tournament in the Amur region, one of the fights ended in tragedy. 16-year-old wrestler Bogdan Pushkarev was kicked in the head from a roundabout and later died in hospital. According to the rules of the competition, the 16 and 17 year old wrestlers were required to fight with helmets, but the rule was ignored. Of course, in the direction of the MMA Union also flew. At the end of June, it became known that the Ministry of Sports had deprived the organization of accreditation for three months. Now it is not even known whether the MMA Union will be able to hold tournaments in the future, so it is very likely that Fedor will move away from this matter a little so as not to tarnish his reputation. Furthermore, he promised to personally deal with the situation and bring some changes to Russian MMA. It is unlikely that this has already been done in such a short time.
Fedor vowed to restore order in Russian MMA:
Fyodor was shocked by the death of a schoolboy. Emelianenko decided to restore order in Russian MMA
Another version is that Emelianenko wants to box so much that he decided to free himself from unnecessary obligations. Fedor, after all, has only recently begun to flirt with the opportunity to box. He initially said that he wanted a true professional fight and recently named Mike Tyson, 57, as his desired opponent. It has been noticed more than once that Emelianenko is actively training and preparing for a possible fight. The only question is, does this point to a serious reason to leave the Union?
In any case, Fedor himself has not yet commented on the exit, so for now we can only guess. And he hopes, suddenly Emelianenko’s candidacy will resurface in the year-end elections. However, apparently, we must first wait for the final decision of the Ministry of Sports regarding the fate of the MMA Union.
