Fedor Defeats Monson, Faces Ishii Next

Fedor Emelianenko
Earlier Sunday morning (US time, Sunday evening Moscow time) Fedor faced Jeff Monson at the main event of the evening during M-1 Global’s “Battle of the Legends” at the Olympic Stadium in Moscow, as he was greeted by 22,000-plus people in attendance including the Russia’s prime minister Vladimir Putin at ringside, and many more around the world via PPV; from Japan and Korea to North America and Canada.

During the course of three rounds Fedor showed composure and patience while taking Monson apart round-by-round. As Jeff Monson had made several attempts for takedowns starting with some early in Round 1, Fedor successfully escaped each one, refusing to play Monson’s game, and returning fire with precise leg kicks and repeatedly delivering jabs and the right hands that dropped Monson twice in the first round and couple more in the second. Fedor did not go to the ground for the finish and allowed Monson to stand. Round 3 comes to an end with Fedor connecting more lefts and rights. Judges score a unanimous decision as Emelianenko (32-4) picks up his victory and breaks out of the loosing streak, while Monson (43-13) suffers his second loss in nine fights. During the post fight press conference, M-1 Global’s Vadim Finkelstein mentioned that Fedor will be meeting Olympic gold medalist Satoshi Ishii at DREAM’s big year-end event in Japan.

Official results:

Fedor Emelianenko def. Jeff Monson via Unanimous Decision
Daniel Weichel def. Jose Figueroa via KO (strikes) – Round 1 (becomes new M-1 lightweight champion)
Alexander Yakovlev def. Juan Manuel Suarez via TKO (punches) – Round 2
Yuri Ivlev def. Jerome Bouisson via TKO (punches) – Round 1
Mairbek Taisumov def. Joshua Thorpe via KO (punches) – Round 2
Mikhail Malyutin def. Seydina Seck via KO (punches) – Round 1
Albert Duraev def. Xavier Foupa-Pokam via submission (triangle choke) – Round 2
Salim Davidov def. Sergey Kornev via unanimous decision