Aleksander Emelianenko Tries Boxing

Aleksander Emelianenko, the MMA fighter best known as the younger brother of world heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko, has been appearing in small shows around the world over the last year since failing to get medical clearance to fight in California in August of 2008. But on Saturday he tried something new: Instead of appearing on a small MMA show, he appeared on a small boxing show, fighting opponent Hizir Pliev to a four-round draw.

Fighting the same weekend that his more famous brother got married, Emelianenko struggled in the early going but got better as the fight went on. He told Russia Today:

"Halfway through this fight I realized that I'm not at home in my bed and I have to move around much more and box. I don't think I let a lot punches land on me and I had complete control of everything that was going on. ... I was boxing much better after the second round. In the third I saw my opponent getting back a little. He had somewhat of a chance in the first two rounds but then began his retreat. If there was more time, my opponent would have been knocked out in the fifth or sixth round."

The judges scored it two rounds for Emelianenko and two for Pliev. Both fighters were making their professional boxing debuts and now have records of 0-0-1.

The rest of the fight is below. Part 2:

Part 3:

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

10-05-2009 @ 10:45AM

Eric said...

Many will look at this and say that MMA fighters suck at boxing, but really this fight shows just how different punching in MMA and boxing really are ... People who know AE know that he is excellent with his hands in MMA, but as you can see Aleksander is much less effective in a boxing match.

AE isn't able to control the range (ring also looked small which didn't help), he isn't able to slip punches through the guard as he normally would with the small gloves, and most of all he didn't show the head movement necessary to avoid the straight jab.

Bottomline - unless he is going to completely devote himself to boxing, stick with MMA Aleksander.