Last Emperor vs. Pit Bull

 I've run into this article because of Ovechkin, of course... But it's a good read from N.Y. Times:

“Emelianenko is a huge star, on par with Sharapova and Ovechkin,” said Pavel Lysenkov, a journalist with Sovietsky Sport, Russia’s premier sports newspaper, referring to the tennis star Maria Sharapova and the N.H.L. star Alexander Ovechkin.


...Outside his rigorous training schedule — he spends hours honing various boxing and martial arts styles and runs 10 miles a day — Emelianenko’s life can seem at times to more closely resemble that of a traditional Russian peasant. He reads Orthodox Christian literature and relaxes at a banya, or Russian bathhouse.

10 miles a day? Ovechkin was running some 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) cross country races during offseason training and he was saying it was not easy. By the way, Tomas Fleischmann was running around 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) several times a week and the result is obvious.


How to make UFC Champion cry

Nicknamed the Last Emperor, Emelianenko has thousands of fans across Europe, North America and Japan. YouTube has more than 1,000 videos of him pummeling opponents from Orange County to Osaka in a sport that combines the spectacle of professional wresting with the violence of a barroom brawl. Each clip has tens of thousands of views, and many have gone viral, topping a million.

Emelianenko will fight Saturday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., in Affliction’s Day of Reckoning, a pay-per-view event sponsored by the Affliction clothing company and Donald Trump. Yet, in Emelianenko’s native Russia, a country that honors athletic heroes almost as highly as its greatest wartime generals, few will probably be watching.

This weekend, Emelianenko will face a fellow Slav, Andrei Arlovski of Belarus, a brown-bearded behemoth who resembles the rippling Spartan general from the Hollywood action film “300.” Arlovski, nicknamed the Pit Bull, is younger, taller and heavier than his opponent, and many commentators have suggested that Emelianenko may fall.

“I think a lot of people lose to Fedor before they even step into the ring,” Freddie Roach, Arlovski’s trainer, said in an interview with Affliction. He added that Arlovski was prepared and “will dominate.”

Emelianenko seems unimpressed. “I have no special strategy,” he said. “I can just wait to see what my opponent offers.”

Update:
Fanhouse AOL: Andrei Arlovski: Fedor Emelianenko Fight Is Coming at the Right Time