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But he kept fighting. In April, he won a quarterfinal match for the heavyweight championship of Bellator, the biggest M.M.A. promotion after the U.F.C., defeating Frank Mir, to form U.F.C. heavyweight champion. The fight was reminiscent of his battles of yore: a knockout in 48 seconds. Now he is two fears away from the Bellator title. The fight will be telecast on Paramount Network in the United States, starting at 9 pm, Eastern time.
Bellator has its share of up-and-coming mixed martial artists, but also marketed veteran fighters who made their names in the U.F.C. The champion Benson Henderson, Timothy Johnson and Cheick Kongo are all on Saturday's card. Matt Mitrione, Roy Nelson, Jackson Rampage, Wanderlei Silva and Rory MacDonald are among the former U.F.C. who have fought in Bellator this year.
Sonnen in an Uncle Sam-style outfit, with modern allusions to Russian "meddling." "I felt ridiculous, He said later.
When he was not clowning, Sonnen acknowledged the challenge ahead of him: "I've never dealt with power like I'm going to have a deal with Fedor."
For his part, the taciturn Emelianenko responded to Sonnen's taunting, including remarks about his physics, through an interpreter. "I agree that my body is not the bodybuilder's body. In the cage, there are different measurements, "he said with chilling calmness.
How much longer can Emelianenko keep going into the ring? The hard truth is, as Sonnen put it, "Every fighter's career ends the same, which is face down and embarrassed."
"We do not speak about retirement at the moment," was the taciturn Emelianenko would say of the matter. The consensus is that Emelianenko is far from done: He is more than a favorite.
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