recent interview<\/a>, Emelianenko ruled out coming back to MMA but said it would be a \u201creal dream\u201d to box Ngannou, a former UFC champion who stopped Philipe Lins with ease on the first MVP MMA card this past May after a pair of boxing matches versus Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n\u201cIf MVP wants to offer [Emelianenko] a boxing fight, I think that\u2019d be good for the fans, too. He\u2019s ready,\u201d Nemkov told MMA Fighting through a translator. \u201cBelieve it or not, he\u2019s still very fast on his feet, very explosive, heavy punch. It\u2019s not easy to hit Fedor, he moves a lot, he has a really good ring movement, so I think he has really good chances against Francis if they box. I think Fedor will win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemkov was very dominant as a heavyweight in Bellator and now PFL, riding an 14-fight unbeaten streak against the likes of Renan Ferreira, Yoel Romero, Corey Anderson, Phil Davis and Ryan Bader. Emelianenko was the greatest heavyweight all-time in PRIDE, and Nemkov feels blessed to have him as a mentor and coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big honor really to be able to train with him, to be able to be coached by him, to get his knowledge and his experience,\u201d Nemkov said. \u201cIf you think about it, he\u2019s such an accomplished fighter, such a legend. There\u2019s people out there that are just excited to shake his hand or take a picture with him, you know, and I get to train with him and learn from him and get his wisdom, so it\u2019s a huge honor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemkov defends his PFL throne No. 14 against Bilostennyi, his final title defense before the company continues under the MVP MMA brand in 2027. Bilostennyi won four of five fights since moving on from Bellator to PFL, and Nemkov was present when he was last beaten.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cornered [Valentin Moldavsky] for that fight so I kind of have a game plan, I was already kind of game planning how I would fight Sergey when I was cornering Moldavsky,\u201d Nemkov said. \u201cMe and Moldavsky have a different style so not necessarily the things he did might work for me and vice versa, but I have a plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nemkov said Bilostennyi is \u201cvery worthy of a title shot\u201d after finishing Karl Williams and Renan Ferreira since that night in May 2025, but the goal is to stop him inside the distance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always train for five rounds because you never know how the fight\u2019s going to go,\u201d Nemkov said. \u201cBut I\u2019m also always looking for a finish. If I get a finish, I\u2019m ready to go for it whether it\u2019s on the ground, submission, knockout. Whatever it is, I\u2019m always looking for a finish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PFL heavyweight champion Vadim Nemkov is confident that his mentor Fedor Emelianenko still has enough left in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":963358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,5963,7613,85],"class_list":["post-963357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/963358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}