Fedor Emelianenko defeated Chael Sonnen in the main event of Bellator 208, placing himself in the finals of the Bellator Heavyweight World Grand Prix.
Some chatter has surfaced about the main event fight being fixed, but Bellator MMA President Scott Coker says that all the rumors are simply rubbish.
“I mean, come on – that doesn’t even deserve a response to the people that are saying it,” Coker told MMA Junkie. “Listen, Chael got clipped. He told me, he said, ‘Man, he hit me, and he hit me really good.’ And he was done. That’s it. With Chael, the thing with Tito (Ortiz), ‘Oh, he let him go,’ or something. Come on. Why would you do that? You’re a professional athlete. You’re a fighter. He wants to continue, he wants to go to the next round of the tournament. That’s just all rubbish.”
Emelianenko will now fight Bellator MMA Light Heavyweight Champion Ryan Bader in the finals of the grand prix, which is set for this January.
Coker can’t even figure out why some people would spread lies like that about the Bellator 208 main event.
“I don’t know (why people say that),” Coker said. “To me, they see Chael, he’s got this character and they just feel like with Chael he’s this character, so maybe that’s what they’re thinking (it’s fixed). If you had Fedor punching you and kicking you and kneeing you like he was doing today – that was real. That was not fake.”
It should be noted that neither Sonnen or Emelianenko have addressed the rumors that their encounter was a fixed fight.
