While Fedor Emelianenko got the nod from the three people who matter the most on Friday evening in his home country of Russia at EFN 50, most people feel that the majority decision ruling in his favor was somewhat of a questionable call. Among those who felt that the ruling was off was Fedor’s opponent on Friday night, former UFC contender Fabio Maldonado.
Shortly after the fight, which took place at the EFN 50 event in St. Petersburg on Friday, Maldonado gave his take on the fight and many of the controversies that came out of it with MMAFighting.com.
“I have the utmost respect for Fedor, he’s the most humble fighter I’ve ever met in my life, and I’m happy that I fought here. But I think I won the fight, right?” Maldonado told MMA Fighting a few hours after the fight. “I didn’t lose that third round. In the worst-case scenario, give him the third round and it’s a draw. He didn’t win that fight. Judges saw what nobody else did. He was better in the second round, but that was not a 10-8. And I have no doubt the first round was a 10-8.
“For the love of God, he almost fell several times. Everybody knows (the first round) was at least 10-8, or even a 10-7. He punched me close to the fence, but I was there because I really wanted him to attack.”
Maldonado also spoke about some of the controversy coming out of the wild first round, which saw Emelianenko nearly finished at several points.
“He did stop the fight. The referee touched me, stopped the fight standing to give Fedor his mouthpiece,” Maldonado said. “He stopped the fight when I was attacking. Man… It would be hard to win a decision here, we knew that. But the referee did a good job. People talk about Mario Yamasaki, criticize him, but he always did a great job when I was fighting. He let me get beat up by Glover Teixeira, and stopped it against (Stipe) Miocic. So he did a great job with me. It wasn’t a mistake to not stop this fight, but he did a mistake by stopping it to give Fedor his mouthpiece that time.
“But it wouldn’t be crazy if he wanted to stop it,” he continued. “For less than that, the referee stopped his fight against Dan Henderson. He went back up and down several times yesterday. But even when he was dizzy, it was hard to catch him, he kept dodging my punches. Holy sh-t, that’s a tough man. His jab tasted like blood. Any slap he threw got me off balance.”
RELATED LINKS:
* VIDEO: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabio Maldonado Highlights From EFN 50
