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A star-studded roster of MMA luminaries will attend Bellator 290 to give MMA legend Fedor Emelianenko a grand send off.
Emelianenko will undoubtedly be regarded as the finest MMA fighter who never took part in a UFC event.
Fedor Emelianenko, a longtime MMA heavyweight GOAT contender, will main event Bellator 290 on February 4. The Bellator Heavyweight Champion Ryan Bader will face off against "The Last Emperor" for the title. In their most recent encounter, which took place at Bellator 214 in January 2019, Bader won via first-round TKO after only 35 seconds.
Since then, Bader's promotion career has been a rollercoaster, with wins against fighters like Lyoto Machida and Valentin Moldavsky while also suffering defeats to Vadim Nemkov and Corey Anderson.
Emelianenko, meantime, has fought twice since the Bader defeat, defeating Timothy Johnson and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. In 2022, the Russian superstar fought just once.
Josh Barnett, Mark Coleman, Randy Couture, Renzo Gracie, Royce Gracie, Dan Henderson, Matt Hughes, Rampage Jackson, Chuck Liddell, Frank Shamrock, and Chael Sonnen will all be at Bellator 290, according to Scott Coker, who made the announcement during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour. After Bader's fight, the star-studded group will be on hand to recognise Emelianenko's career.
Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, and Rampage Jackson, among others, were instrumental in the UFC's rise to prominence in the aughts.
Dana White and "The Last Emperor" did start talks for him to join during Brock Lesnar's time as the UFC Heavyweight Champion. However, the Lesnar/Emelianenko dream fight never happened, much to the disappointment of the fans.