It is common in the U.S. after an athlete has just won the biggest event of his life, to say that he’s going to Disneyland.
Would the opposite of going to Disneyland, billed as the happiest place on Earth, be getting in the ring with Fedor Emelianenko, who may be the real world’s most dangerous human?
In Beijing, China, after winning the gold medal in the superheavyweight division in judo this past week, Japan’s Satoshi Ishii said he wanted to fight “Emelianenko Fedor,” as the legendary Russian fighter is known in Japan.
Ishii, 21, has never fought MMA style. The idea of the match may sound laughable to MMA aficionados, but New Year’s Eve in Japan is traditional for gimmick performers, whether they be Japanese entertainment personalities, giants, or athletes who were successful in other sports, doing fights. With Ishii becoming a national hero in Japan and the sport fading in popularity, such a match would draw the kind of interest that Emelianenko against a top fighter could never do.
Ishii would be the third Japanese judo gold medalist to go into MMA if he’s serious. The first, Hidehiko Yoshida, was one of the key people in the high point of the Pride promotion. But Yoshida was 33, and a decade past winning his medal at 172 pounds when he started in the sport. Ishii is younger and a true heavyweight, but success in judo hardly guarantees top-level fighting ability in MMA.
Emelianenko in a gimmick match on network television is almost a New Year’s Eve tradition. If his hand injury heals and allows him to go this year, it will make the sixth year he’s fought on that date. With the exception of a win over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, the other matches have been against a popular pro wrestler, a 6-5, 400 pound tub of goo with turtle-like reflexes, a kickboxing star with little MMA experience, and a 7-2, 367-pound South Korean giant who only had one MMA fight.
