Mineev: “The fight with Shlemenko is history. Fight with Fedor? He is my leader, how will I fight him?

AMC Fight Nights middleweight champion Vladimir Mineev spoke about the significance of a possible confrontation with Alexander Shlemenko.

“The fight with Shlemenko is one of the most interesting fights that can happen in 2022 in the industry of our martial arts,” Mineev told reporters after a seminar at the Datsiev Club in Saratov. – Alexander has a difficult challenge ahead – this is a championship fight with Faridun Odilov. If everything works out and he wins the belt, I think … This is primarily interesting for me, because this is an opportunity to combine two belts [EFC и AMC Fight Nights — Прим. «СЭ“] domestic organizations. This was not the case in Russia, and this is a definite story. This is my motivation“.

Mineev also answered the question of whether he would like to fight with Fedor Emelianenko.

“He is from a different weight category, but in general … In general, an interesting story, of course,” Mineev noted. – If you think, fantasize, then defeat [от Федора Емельяненко] can really affect [на карьеру], and the victory is nothing like that … The point is not that it will not give anything, but that we all understand that Fedor Emelianenko, who was 10 years ago, and today’s Fedor … He is, of course, a legend, but These are two different Fedoras. I have great respect for him. First, he is my leader. How can I fight him?”

Shlemenko is expected to fight for Khabib Nurmagomedov’s EFC league belt next March against middle division champion Faridun Odilov. In his last fight, which took place in October at the EFC 42 tournament, Shlemenko defeated Artur Huseynov by unanimous decision.

On October 16, in the main event of AMC Fight Nights 105, Mineev won a TKO in the third round against Magomed Ismailov.