Fedor finds a fighting date for New Year’s Eve

At Bellator’s September Dynamite show, it was announced that Fedor Emilianenko would return to MMA on New Year’s Eve for a new Japanese promotion which we later learned would be called Rizin Fighting Federation. Former Pride president Nobuyuki Sakakibara made the announcement but didn’t announce an opponent for the former Grand Prix champion.

Several names have been rumoured to be Fedor’s opponent with word first leaking out (and quickly denied) that the opponent would be former Super Fight League fighter Jaideep Singh. Seemingly every non-UFC heavyweight who didn’t already have a fight booked was linked at one point or another, and late Thursday night, the promotion held a press conference, to announce Fedor’s opponent on December 31st.

And that opponent is…Jaideep Singh.

At the time of the original rumours, Singh had only fought one in MMA, a 2013 bout in which he submitted 0-1 fighter Alireza Tavakoli. He’s since fought for the DEEP promotion in Japan, scoring a 2nd round KO over Carlos Toyota (6-6-1). Fedor and Singh will be the main event of  “Breakfast with Fedor” — a show that will be broadcast on New Year’s Eve on Spike TV at 10 AM Eastern. The show will feature fights from the three shows that Rizin will be running that weekend, two of which involve current Bellator fighters Brennan Ward and King Mo Lawal in separate fights.

Emilianenko was at one time considered the top heavyweight and pound-for-pound fighter in all of MMA. He had a 10-year winning streak snapped at the hands of current UFC heavyweight champion Fabricio Werdum in June 2010. He went on to get knocked out in his next two Strikeforce fights against Bigfoot Silva and Dan Henderson before returning to Russia and Japan. He won twice for M1 Global and once for Dream before retiring after a June 2012 KO of Pedro Rizzo.