Matt Mitrione Wants To Steal Fedor Emelianenko’s Reputation

In an interview with MMA Fighting, Matt Mitrione spoke about his Bellator 172 fight against Fedor Emelianenko on February 18 in San Jose, California. Here are highlights:

On not being bothered by Fedor’s reputation: “I’ll have no problem trying to throw my fist into Fedor’s face. None. That’s my job, that’s what I’m getting paid to do, that’s why they brought us both together is because we’re both exciting-ass fighters. Fedor’s a huge legend and a massive name and I’m in the process of trying to make myself a legend. So I’ll have no problem throwing hands on him and doing as much damage as possible to try to steal any kind of reputation he has and put it on my own.”

On not taking him lightly: “Honestly he took a couple years off, right? I think those are probably tuneup fights. I would expect to see the best Fedor possible when I fight him. I expect him to get back in and knock off the rust, get used to the adrenaline dump and moving around and the excitement of it. Fedor even cracked a smile on a staredown, faceoff. I think it’s just getting back in the swing for him, getting used to it. I’m sure he’ll be back on the grind and his murderous cabbage patch kid self again soon.”

On enjoying being a part of Bellator: “They’ve given me a lot of freedom, they’ve really let my personality blossom, which I think is really cool. If anybody asks me my feeling on the UFC vs. Bellator, Bellator is really, Scott Coker is really in the process of building the brand off of building the fighters name. He wants to have people there, he wants to have fighters who have drawing power and so its never been Bellator over everybody else, it’s hey, let’s publicize these guys everyone is interested in who we want to put our money behind and support them … Whereas the UFC, the UFC is the biggest thing [as opposed to] their fighters.”