Last week, UFC color commentator Joe Rogan hosted the latest edition of his ‘Fight Companion’ podcast to accompany the live broadcast of UFC 184. During the show, Rogan brought up retired MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko and suggested that the “possibility is high” that Fedor abused performance enhancing drugs during the peak years of his career.
“Go back and look at what he looked like against Fujita. He was a thick motherf*cker. He didn’t look anything like he looked when he fought “Bigfoot” Silva. So what happened? Did he stop lifting weights? That’s possible. Or, did he stop taking whatever the f*ck he was taking? That’s possible too.” (via McKeeever)
The comments got a significant amount of backlash from the MMA community, as well as Fedor himself, who referred to Rogan as scandalous. Even UFC Hall of Famer Mark Coleman does not buy into Rogan’s theory, but more importantly, he doesn’t understand why Fedor’s past drug tests even matters anymore.
“I know the guy was one of the toughest, baddest fighters in the world for quite some period of time and I don’t know if he’s ever failed any drug tests,” Coleman told Submission Radio. “It doesn’t really matter at this point.”
Coleman, who fought Fedor twice during his storied career, simply didn’t believe that Fedor needed to inject himself with steroids to become a successful fighter. He was the division’s reigning kingpin for a decade before being usurped, and still stands as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
“It’s really not part of Fedor’s resume and I just look at him as possibly the greatest fighter of all time for a ten year span; and who knows, he probably could have went a little longer, but [when] you’re champion for ten years it’s just hard to stay so focused for so long and continue to be the champion. It had to come to an end at some time, but that doesn’t take away anything from what Fedor did.”
Transcription taken from Submission Radio
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