“The Last Emperor” and “Rampage” are coming home.
It’s been a lifetime since Fedor Emelianenko and Quinton Jackson emerged as superstars in Japan’s hallowed PRIDE Fighting Championships, though the two have made the occasional return to the country. It was in Saitama that Emelianenko ended a three-year retirement to defeat Jaideep Singh at a 2015 RIZIN show, and also where Jackson fought Ryan Bader at UFC 144 in 2012, which would be one of his last appearances for that promotion.
Now under the Bellator banner, the two former champions headline a joint Bellator-RIZIN show that looks to be both rich in nostalgia and also a chance for some of the promotion’s best to get their long-awaiated taste of JMMA glory.