Fedor Emelianenko To Run For Senate, May Retire From MMA

Middle Easy broke the news originally at close to 10:00pm Thursday night:

Huge news. Massive. Just received an email from a very reliable source from Russia that Fedor will be running for a congress seat in Russia for the pro-Kremlin party 'United Russia'. The party is dominant in the country and holds around 80% of the seats in the senate and Fedor will be representing his region. That's a fact. Just wait for the official announcement which will probably come at the end of this week if not in the next few hours. Now the accompanied rumor is that after Fedor fulfills the last two fights in his Strikeforce contract, he will retire from MMA.

This is obviously huge news as Fedor is arguably the best fighter in the history of MMA and is, without a doubt, the greatest heavyweight in the history of the sport.  If he isn't going to sign with the UFC at the end of his Strikeforce contract than there really wouldn't be much of a reason for his career to continue.  The number of challenges left for him outside the world's biggest promotion will be basically nonexistent.

M-1 Global confirmed the news, at least the running for congress part, via a press release:

The regional political council of the party "United Russia" approved the list of candidates for internal party elections - the primaries. In the list of 58 candidates. No less than 10 000 United Russia vote will determine the best, and who will receive the first place in the party list in the upcoming October elections in the Belgorod Regional Duma.

The list of early voting have 24 newcomers who have never participated in elections to the legislature. One of the achievements was the inclusion in the list not only members of United Russia, but also simply to party supporters and even non-party candidates. This is for example the managing director Combine KMA Ruda Vladimir Tom and CEO JBK-1 Yuri Selivanov. They are not only members of the party, but also by working in obldume fourth convocation, not included in the United Russia Duma faction.

Among the most notable candidates, in addition to the deputies (Anatolia Zelikow, Victor Filatov, Vadim Cage, Valeria Skruga, Ivan Kulabuhova, Vladimir Kulikovsky) - a famous athlete Fedor Emelianenko, the new director of Belarusian State Technological University Sergey Glagolev (by the way, non-partisan), director of the Institute of Public and municipal government BSU Alexander Mamatov.

The remaining career arc for Fedor if he retires after his next two fights will be his June fight against Fabricio Werdum and then hopefully a massive fight against Alistair Overeem.  Beating those two would be the best wins he can get outside the UFC.  If he's going to go out, a win over Overeem would be a hell of a way to do it.

We will have more on this story as it develops.