“There were times when I’d take a step in my head, but my leg wouldn’t move.” How is Emelianenko’s health?
Emelianenko continues to recover from back surgery. A few days ago, he began walking without a cane and is talking about a potential return to fighting:
"Nothing hurts. Why do you keep asking me what hurts? Have I ever said I had pain? I have neurology. Basically, the signal comes from my head, gets confused, and then goes to my legs. I didn’t have any stability, so now I’m walking without a cane. There were times when I’d take a step in my head, but my leg wouldn’t move.
Another person might have gone into a daze and stayed there. Everything comes from the head, from thoughts—all illnesses, except sexually transmitted diseases, come from the head. How you motivate yourself, how you keep your body, is how you will recover.
I’m still thinking about fighting. I go to the gym regularly, I work out, I have a wealth of experience, good form, and I’m physically in excellent shape. I just need to improve my special training, get more flexible, I can go out there, box, wrestle, and my hands fly great. My speed hasn’t gone anywhere."
According to Emelianenko, he doesn’t watch TV these days and rarely follows fights: “I just find out the results and who interests me.” Of course, he mentioned former opponents Sergei Kharitonov and Mikhail Koklyaev, but he had a more interesting comment about Vadim Nemkov from Fedor and Alexander Volkov’s team:
"Nemkov is undefeated. But he’s not interesting to watch. But Gilbert Ywell [former Pride fighter]… Pride had these conditions: if someone loses two fights, they’re fired. And he had six losses in a row. I ask, ‘How does he fight?’ They answer, ‘The crowd likes him.’ I ask, ‘Why?’ He’s sitting at a press conference, and they ask him, “What’s your style?” And he’s like, “My style is kick ass.” Outrageous.
Volkov is a very awkward fighter. He’s angular. There are fighters like that – you hit him in the liver, you’ll hit his elbow, and somewhere else. When we sparred, either Fedya or I would always get injured. He doesn’t do anything like that; he’s so angular."
“I wouldn’t want a prohibition law throughout Russia like in Chechnya.”
“I’m like an open book to everyone. I don’t live like, ‘Nobody should know this, but look – how good I am.’ That was true. But now I’m different, I’ve improved, I think. At least I’ve given up alcohol and bad habits. I lead a normal life and work at the Iman rehabilitation center.”
“When was the last time you drank alcohol?”
I don’t keep a sobriety calendar like those in rehab. They rearrange some numbers and cling to them. I don’t. I’ve been to rehab, and I’ve been through this, and I’ve had treatment, and I’ve tried everything—I’ve gotten out, and I’ve relapsed again. And my lifestyle: until it clicked in my head, I’d argue with this and that.
Now I’ve realized that it’s enough—enough of living haphazardly. I need to give up my bad habits. I’ve had my fill. Now I don’t like being drunk. I like a healthy lifestyle.
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, that you need to learn from children. Live, enjoy life, laugh, have fun, be sad, be sad. A child doesn’t live by feeling. A feeling arises within them, they don’t inflate it to incredible proportions. It flares up, they release the emotion. That’s it, they forget about it in five minutes. They move on and move on. “Do you remember the first time you tried alcohol?”
“I don’t remember, it was a long time ago. I grew up on the streets, and back then it was fashionable for guys to gather in the courtyard—they’d set up a table and play dominoes. I tried beer first, then I liked it, so we went somewhere and got a bag—there weren’t cans back then, and they didn’t sell it in stores. They had special beer windows, you’d go there, and if there was a container, you’d pour it into it, and they’d fill three-liter jars.
I started smoking in seventh grade, and I quit at 22. It was in prison, right where everyone smoked. I had cigarettes there—Marlboros, and Parliaments with filters. I mean, I had everything, but I said, ‘No, I have to give it up.’ I went to the gym all the time, quit smoking, and made a change.”
“Would you like to see prohibition in all of Russia, like in Chechnya?”
“I wouldn’t.” Now they’ll impose prohibition, and they’ll be like in Chechnya: they’ll travel outside the Chechen Republic and get drunk, and they’ll return to Chechnya as honest people.
When we had prohibition [1985-87], I know for a fact that every house had a moonshine still. Even my father made moonshine. It’s a fact that you saw fewer drunks on the streets. And they still drink, just as they did before. People are given the right to choose: drink if you want, or don’t drink if you don’t want to. That’s it, no one’s forcing them to drink alcohol, drugs, or anything else.
Introduce prohibition, then impose it, restrict people in everything. What will happen? People will start to feel embarrassed. Why were they deprived of this, deprived of that? What has democracy done for the people? What has Vladimir Vladimirovich done? He gave people the right to choose. If you want, work, earn money. If you want, go into business. If you want, be an athlete. If you want, become an alcoholic. No one will lead you by the hand. In the communist era, everyone walked the same path. Work, home, work, home. In the best of times, it was like, “Ah-ah-ah, we’ve got a travel package. Let’s go somewhere like Kislovodsk.” But now if you want, go, relax, live abroad, get a visa, and move on. People are confused; they don’t know which way to go. And they complain, life is bad.
“I’d walk around with a knife, a hammer up my sleeve, and baseball bats in the trunk.” A difficult life in the 90s
“What was life like in Stary Oskol? It was really bad. Why did I have to go out on the street to earn money? Because we couldn’t even afford white bread. Because it cost 4 kopecks more, and we’d eat it right away. And brown bread was 4-6 kopecks cheaper. But you can’t eat it right away. You’d cut off a piece, eat something, and a loaf of bread would last us a day. For the whole family.”
In the 90s, such a life forced Emelianenko to join a gang: “I was one of the top five. Young, stupid. I always carried a knife, a hammer up my sleeve. Those were the times. Bats in the trunk. When [the police] stopped us, they took the bats, did nothing. We were cutting rebar. [In a conversation with the police], ‘Will you take them? Take them. We still have some.’
Were there rivals in the gangs? Just like us. We fought, cut each other, shot each other—everything. Did they shoot at me? Were they ever shot at each other. More on that later.”
When Emelianenko found himself in Japan in the early 2000s and joined Pride, he wasn’t earning much: “The fees? Nothing at all. Pennies.” I don’t remember exactly how much they were getting. I know that the minimum purse in the UFC now is $12,000—that’s not true. I recently spoke with a guy who said there are a lot of fighters there who fight for free: if they like him, he keeps fighting; if they don’t, he’s out."
“I always vote for Vladimir Vladimirovich.” About Putin
— Everyone should understand: he’s not only in charge of domestic policy, but also foreign policy, his entourage. So he seemingly builds an entourage around himself, some good, worthy people, and he trusts them. And that entourage then trusts them. And so the chain grows and grows, but he can’t [control everyone].
I recently watched a speech where the finance minister appointed someone else—[Putin] said, “I don’t even know who’s doing what there. They don’t report to me,” he said. “If there are serious, important issues—yes, the finance minister comes to me, we discuss them. Everything else they decide themselves. He stays out of it.” He has many other responsibilities that he must fulfill.
-
By the way, did you vote in 2000? For whom?
-
For Vladimir Vladimirovich. I always vote for Vladimir Vladimirovich.
-
Do you ever miss elections?
-
Whenever I can, I don’t. If I can’t go to the polls, I vote through Gosuslugi.
“I really enjoyed chopping wood. I probably broke five axes.” Three months on Mount Athos
In the early 2010s, Emelianenko visited the Russian monastic community on Mount Athos in Greece several times. There, he lived in a cell, chopped wood, baked bread, and helped with the construction of new monastery buildings.
“Have you been there since then? Was life hard in the monastery?”
“It didn’t work out. Not hard. It’s very difficult to get used to the routine there and get up early for services, and attend them constantly. It was hard to adjust to their daily routine. No one called me to prayer. I woke up on my own.”
I said to Father, “Give me some obedience.” Every monk there had some kind of obedience. Someone in the kitchen prepared food for the brothers, someone cleaned the grounds, someone looked after the water. He said to me, “Did you see that pile of firewood over there? Here’s an axe, split it all.” I split all the wood—I probably broke five axes.
I really enjoyed chopping. The first thing you’d do in the morning was chop wood. I chopped it up really quickly. Not only did I have to split it, I also had to stack it neatly so it wouldn’t just be lying around. Everything was tidy. I finished working today, grabbed a broom, and tidied up everything after myself so there weren’t any splinters left anywhere.
“How long were you there?”
“Three months, I think.” The first time I came to Athos, we stayed in that cell too, but I didn’t understand anything. We stayed there for a week. We spent the night in the cell, stayed there, and then the next day we left: we stopped at one monastery, then another. We looked around, stopped in, looked around, saw the icons, talked. Just when you’re starting out, that’s it, off you go, back again, and you’re back in the evening. I didn’t understand anything.
And then at some point, my friend Nikolai Nikolaevich says, “Would you like to go to Athos?” - “Yes. And for how long?” - “For as long as you like.” I arrived and didn’t understand at first. And then I got into it, I liked it. And so it turned out that I stayed there for three months. My visa even expired.
-
Did that stay help you?
-
At some point, it helped, but you know, when you return from a blessed place to the other world, you immediately forget where you were. You begin to lead a mundane, everyday life. Where you were—you’ve forgotten everything. The switch hasn’t flipped.
“Don’t ask me where you’re sitting.” An unexpected monologue about the roles of husband and wife in marriage
At the end of 2025, Emelianenko announced that he had divorced his wife, Polina Seledtsova. This was his third divorce. According to Emelianenko, everyone around him is now looking for a new wife, and he’s tired of it:
“My first marriage was, so to speak, when I was young. I was married for only six months. And I was in a good mood only when I left the house for a walk, or went to training, or went to training camp. But when we were together at home, they’d start asking, ‘Why is that cup standing here? Why haven’t you washed the dishes?’ A man shouldn’t wash the dishes. He’d come in, eat with a friend, and quickly leave. And they’d ask me, ‘Why is the cup in the living room instead of the kitchen?’”
Marriage is when a man has one set of responsibilities and a woman another. Then the family will be idyllic and comfortable. I shouldn’t have to do the laundry, the dishes, the floors, or handle all the household chores. That should be my wife’s responsibility. I come home tired after training, sparring, and my uniform needs to be thrown in the washing machine. And she says, “Throw it yourself, the machine keeps turning on and off.” She should just take it, put it in her bag, and iron it if she has time, so I don’t have to worry about it.
I’m already supporting my family and keeping the house comfortable. If I’m delayed somewhere, don’t call me and ask, “Where are you?” Maybe I’m sitting with people, negotiating a contract, and they start asking, “Where are you sitting?” or “Who are you sitting with?” The calls are constant. I turn off my phone, come home exhausted after the negotiations, want to rest, and then they start asking, “Why didn’t you answer me!?” “I didn’t answer because I was sitting at the table with people, talking and couldn’t answer. And you kept calling me nonstop, so I turned off my phone. Otherwise, you’re just sitting there, ringing, ringing, ringing.”
Preach king.
lolololol