As a MMA competitor, Aleksander Emelianenko is both blessed and cursed. On the one hand his primary training partner is Fedor Emelianenko (the best fighter on the planet), on the other, Aleksander is Fedor’s younger brother and, therefore, will always find himself obscured by Fedor’s Atlas-like shadow.

Doomed to always be compared to and eclipsed by Fedor, it has been somewhat difficult for Aleksander to make a name for himself in the fiercely competitive world of MMA.

Hampered by a lack of focus and ongoing legal troubles, which have made it nearly impossible for him to fight in promotions outside of Europe and Japan, Aleksander has yet to reach his true potential as a fighter.

Possessed with wondrous hand speed and tremendous striking skills, Aleksander has all the tools to become a dominating force (perhaps even a champion) in whatever organization happens to sign him. Yet, for some reason, Aleksander has been unable to break into the ranks of the world’s perennial top ten heavyweights, perhaps because the majority of his opponents have not been among the greatest that MMA has to offer.

A two-time world Sambo champion, Aleksander shares many of the same characteristics that made his brother, Fedor, such an unparalleled success, among them, incredible speed, precision punching power, and outstanding grappling prowess.

Still, it should not be assumed that just because Aleksander routinely trains with Fedor that their fighting styles are at all similar. Whereas Fedor is known as a submission specialist, who often beats his opponents into a state of total insensibility while on the ground, Aleksander is a prototypical brawler and enjoys trading punches whenever possible.

With his relaxed hand-down stance and Ali-like footwork, Aleksander is one of MMA’s most unusual strikers. His apparent indifference to his adversary’s strengths is only overshadowed by his obvious belief in his own. Rarely engaging in ground-and-pound wars of attrition, Aleksander prefers to a unleash a rapid serious of strikes against his opponents which, more often than not, leave them sprawled unconscious on the canvas.

Yet, what separates Aleksander from garden variety knockout artists is the fact that he is continuously able to land overwhelmingly powerful strikes with pinpoint precision. (For an excellent example of this, see Aleksander’s fifteen second destruction of Brazilian “mutant” Ricardo Morais). 

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