Fedor defeats Hong Man Choi

Fedor Emelianenko made a successful return with a quick submission victory over Hong Man Choi at the Yarennoka New Years Eve event. The fight quickly hit the floor after the monsterous Choi, now 1-1, stuffed Fedor’s takedown attempt and landed on top. Emelianenko, who improved to 27-1 (with 1 no contest) with the win, attempted an armbar but Choi escaped. After a short time on their feet, the fight hit the floor in similar fashion but this time Fedor secured the arm-bar after taking a few punches.

On the undercard, Strikeforce Lightweight Champion Gilbert Melendez suffered his first loss at the hands of PRIDE Bushido veteran Mitsuhiro Ishida via unanimous decision. Ishida scored repeated takedowns and controlled the fight from top position to earn the win.

The full results are as follows:

• Shinya Aoki def. Bu-Kyung Jung – Unanimous Decision
• Hayato “Mach” Sakurai def. Hidehiko Hasegawa – Unanimous Decision
• Fedor Emelianenko def. Hong Man Choi - Armbar Submission at 1:54 of Rd. 1
• Kazuo Misaki def. Yoshihiro Akiyama – KO (Strikes) at 2:12 of Rd. 1
• Mitsuhiro Ishida def. Gilbert Melendez - Unanimous Decision
• Makoto Takimoto def. Murilo Bustamante - Split Decision
• Tatsuya Kawajiri def. Luiz Azeredo – Unanimous Decision.
• Mike Russow def. Roman Zentsov - N/S Choke Submission at 2:58 of Rd. 1

Randy Couture could fight Fedor in October, 2008

Current UFC heavyweight champion, Randy Couture was cornering a few of his fighters at yesterday’s HDNet Fights: Reckless Abandon and in the post-event press conference, he was quizzed once again on a possible fight with Emelianenko.

Couture stated he still wants to fight Fedor and that his current UFC contract will expire in July and his broadcasting contract will expire in October, which of course would make October the earliest date he could fight Fedor, outside of the UFC.

Unless the UFC wants to do a co-promotion with M-1 and make the Fedor fight happen, I’m going to have to wait ’til my contract expires.

I have no intention of breaching that contract; that expires in July. My employment contract expires with them in October. So I would assume the soonest you’d see me fight Emelianenko would be in October.

When asked about the upcoming fight between Fedor Emelianenko and Hong Man Choi, Randy said that Choi would have a puncher’s chance, but that he would he would be hoping the Russian would prevail.

I hope it goes successfully for him because I want to be the first one to beat him