When Fedor Emelianenko returned to MMA after a self-imposed retirement in 2015, he did so by defeating Jaideep Singh at the very first Rizin event.
Fedor, after a successful return to the sport he dominated for so long, made his next appearance at Eurasia Fight Nights 50 earlier this year, defeating UFC veteran Fabio Maldonado via controversial decision.
Rizin officials seemingly want to get Fedor back on their shows, because a report coming from Izvestia.ru out of Russia is claiming that Rizin has offered Fedor $2 million to face PRIDE/UFC veteran Wanderlei Silva at their year-end event. Fedor recently went back into training, which was reported just a few days ago on this site, but Fedor’s coach said that they did not have a fight date set in mind, although Fedor did state through his camp that he wanted to fight once more this year.
Of course, there are also the longstanding rumors that Fedor is finally coming to the UFC, but those have been going around for many years now.
As for proposed opponent Wanderlei Silva, he has not competed in a few years due to the whole situation between himself and USADA/NSAC, where the fighter supposedly ran from drug testers prior to a proposed fight with Chael Sonnen in the UFC. Silva is currently signed to Bellator MMA as well, his debut date with the promotion has not been set as of this writing.
Bellator MMA also has a relationship with both Fedor and Rizzin, as the owners of Bellator MMA, Viacom, promoted the comeback fight of Fedor and aired the fight stateside.
