The DREAM Official website posted a new interview with Fedor Emelianenko. Nothing really earth shattering or anything new from what was said at DREAM.6. Fedor wants to fight in Japan on New Years’ Eve but gave no specifics. Assuming reports that he’ll be fighting on a rescheduled Affliction card in January are correct there’s really no way he can do both. Fedor is a cyborg, but even he needs more than 10 days between fights.

Right now the likely opponent for a New Years’ Eve fight in Japan would be Olympic judo gold medalist Satoshi Ishii. Ishii is a bad dude and publicly called out Fedor after his gold medal win but realistically wouldn’t have a prayer against the Russian fighting god in his first MMA bout.

Fedor also mentions his next fight in the US, giving Josh Barnett or Andrei Arlovski as likely opponents. With Arlovski fighting on Saturday’s EliteXC card as well as reports that the Barnett/Arlovski fight would take place as planned at the rescheduled Affliction show who knows who Fedor will be fighting next. Barnett would likely be a better matchup, but Arlovski might be more marketable and particularly if he puts on a good performance against Roy “Big Country” Nelson.

Fedor also has the World Sambo Championships on deck, which take place in Saint Petersburg, Russia in mid November.

Here’s a better translation of the interview from the indispensable SukiMMA. She speaks the language a lot better than I do and from her translation Fedor is sure making it sound like a New Year’s Eve fight in Japan won’t be forthcoming. That’s good news for those of us here in the US if that is the case since it means he’ll almost certainly be at the next Affliction show.

All of us here at THE SAVAGE SCIENCE have the utmost respect for judo practitioners and as a public service for Satoshi Ishii we present this photo of Fedor vs. Tim Syvlia from Affliction: Banned as a reminder of why he doesn’t want a piece of “The Last Emperor”.