Fedor Emelianenko Honored in His Russian Homeland

One thing that M-1 Global does seem to have succeeded in doing is making Fedor Emelianenko much better known in his Russian homeland. Fanhouse…

By: Nate Wilcox | 14 years ago
Fedor Emelianenko Honored in His Russian Homeland
Bloody Elbow 2.0 | Anton Tabuena

One thing that M-1 Global does seem to have succeeded in doing is making Fedor Emelianenko much better known in his Russian homeland. Fanhouse reports:

In a ceremony to honor Russia’s top athletes, Fedor Emelianenko was honored as the best male athlete alongside top-ranked tennis player Svetlana Kuznetsova, who was the best female athlete of 2009. Over 500,000 votes were cast for the awards, according to Russia Today.

More on Fedor’s exposure in Russia from Sherdog:

“The main event of Fedor vs. Rogers reached an impressive 5.46 million viewers in the United States on the CBS Network,” said the release. “The fight was also broadcast in Fedor’s native Russia by ‘Channel 1,’ Russia’s largest television network, and reached 16 million viewers in Fedor’s home country. In addition, ‘Fedor vs. Rogers’ was broadcast to millions of viewers in Korea on SBS, one of the three major national South Korean networks, as well as television networks in China, Latin America, United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ukraine, Finland, Africa, Turkey, Israel, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Malta. Live internet streams of the ‘Fedor vs. Rogers’ bout generated ground-breaking viewer numbers in Japan and all over the world and these numbers continue to grow through Video on Demand.”

In Russia, Emelianenko’s bout was broadcasted on a four-hour delay at 12:00 p.m. by the free, government-run channel, which reaches approximately 120 million homes.

Jake Rossen rightly pointed out that there is some fudging of the numbers going on, but it’s indisputable that Fedor is better known in his homeland only a few months of working with M-1 and Strikeforce than he became in a decade of fighting in Japan.

Share this story

About the author
Nate Wilcox
Nate Wilcox

Nate Wilcox is the founding editor of BloodyElbow.com. As such he has hired every editor and writer to work for the site. Wilcox’s writing for BE is known for its emphasis on MMA history, the evolution of fighting techniques and strong opinions. Wilcox developed the SBN MMA consensus rankings which were featured in USA Today from 2009 to 2011. Before founding BE, Wilcox was a political operative working for such figures as Senators John Kerry and Mark Warner and an early political blogger. He is the co-author of Netroots Rising, a history of the political blogosphere from 2003 to 2007. Wilcox also hosts the Let It Roll podcast on music history for the Pantheon Podcast Network.

More from the author

Bloody Elbow Podcast
Related Stories