Junior Dos Santos Disappointed By Fedor Emelianenko’s Opponent Choice

Junior dos Santos is not happy to hear Fedor Emelianenko’s final fight will come against Tim Johnson at Bellator Moscow on October 23

The former UFC champion is currently a free agent after being cut by the promotion earlier this year.

‘Cigano’ expressed an interest in signing for Bellator and fighting Emelianenko back in March. Since then, things have been pretty quiet on the fight and dos Santos’ next move.

Last week, Emelianenko’s opponent was finally announced and many people, including dos Santos, weren’t exactly thrilled by Bellator’s choice.

“I know a little about Tim Johnson — in fact, almost nothing,” dos Santos said in an interview with MMA Fighting.

“Not trying to sound disrespectful or anything like that, but at first I was very hopeful that I would be a great option for Fedor, to close his career,” dos Santos said. “My idea is that he wanted a great fight, a fight that really interested the fans and made people excited to watch. That would be the case with options like myself, Overeem, and even Werdum. I was imagining something along those lines, something that made sense in my head, but it was completely the opposite of what I was imagining.

“He ended up choosing Tim Johnson. I don’t know how the fight will go, I’m not judging anything, but I believe it would be way more interesting, or at least would get a bit more attention, if it were Overeem, Werdum, me, Josh Barnett. He’s the greatest champion in heavyweight history, I’m a fan of Fedor, but, for his last fight, [I thought] he probably wanted to gift fans with a super fight, one that called the attention of the entire world, but it wasn’t the path he followed. I don’t understand why, but it was a bit disappointing, I can’t say it wasn’t.”

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