Fedor Emelianenko

By FCF Staff

Now that Junior dos Santos and Alistair Overeem are both free agents, Scott Coker is reporting he’s interested in seeing either decorated heavyweight fight Fedor Emelianenko.

Following their respective losses under the UFC banner, both Overeem and dos Santos have hit the free-agent market. Bellator, meanwhile, is looking to book Emelianenko’s next fight. The Russian legend hasn’t competed since December, 2019, when he stopped ‘Rampage’ Jackson.

While talking to MMA Junkie recently, Bellator’s President Coker relayed that the promotion has talked to both Overeem and dos Santos. In addition, Coker had this to say about the stars and the possibility of facing Emelianenko (39-6, 1 NC).

“We’re not going to sign these guys to, like, a two-year, six-fight deal or build them up,” Coker said. “They’ve done everything. They’ve already proved themselves. They are legends of the sport already. But what I will say is we do have legends of the sport here. If we go down the road, and we think a Fedor opponent will work, Alistair and Fedor will be very interesting to me. Junior Dos Santos and Fedor will be very interesting to me.”

And while discussing the fact a fight between Overeem and Fedor never transpired, when both men were fighting for Strikeforce, Coker said.

“We put them on opposite sides of the bracket and Fedor lost,” Coker said. “It just didn’t get to the end. Having that fight now might be interesting. We’re still a long ways away from making that happen. But (with) superfights, if they’re open to it, what I told them both is, ‘Look, if you can get a contract somewhere else that is exclusive, then great. If you can’t and you want to fight superfights, the door is always open and we’ll have conversations.’”

Overeem (47-19, 1 NC) is coming off a stoppage loss to Alexander Volkov in February, and dos Santos (21-9) is looking to get back on track, after being put away by Ciryl Gane in December.