(‘Bring me your tired, your freaks, your outmatched fools. I fight them on eve of the new year, yes?’)

The official Dream website has posted an interview they conducted with Fedor Emelianenko, but unfortunately for me it’s all transcribed in squiggly lines that I can make neither heads nor tails of. Good thing Suki came along to translate it, otherwise we might have missed this:

- Japanese fans are expected to see you fight in NYE in Japan again.

I want to fight in Japan again; however, I cannot control everything. God knows what will happen. Whether I fight or not in NYE depends on a negotiation between my manager and DREAM.

Perhaps Fedor is just blowing smoke here to keep his Japanese public happy, but that’s a very different story than the one Tom Atencio is telling. He claims to have verification from Fedor’s management that he absolutely, positively will not fight on New Year’s Eve. So, assuming Fedor is not consciously lying in this Dream interview, this means:

1) Fedor’s management is willing to rent him out to the highest bidder, regardless of whether they’ve already committed him to fight elsewhere.

2) Fedor’s management doesn’t necessarily tell Fedor everything that’s going on.

3) There are some nuances being lost in translation.

The first option seems plausible because, well, Fedor is managed by crazy Russians, according Dana White. The second option is also not too unrealistic, for the same crazy Russian reasons. Option three is especially possible since Fedor’s comments had to go from Russian to Japanese to English. In other words, yeah, we don’t know what the hell is really going on. Which probably puts us in the same boat as Fedor.

In the interview Fedor also downplayed rumors he might face judo gold medalist Satoshi Ishii, who he described as having “unrealistic” ambitions. He also said he didn’t get to see Ishii’s judo matches since he was in the U.S. during the Olympics and “the U.S. television broadcast a swimming race but not Judo.”

As for his next fight:

- Who is your rival?

I have been told that my opponent would be Andrei Arlovski or Josh Barnett in the next Affliction. Both of them were the former UFC champions and I’m sure they are strong.

No mention of Roy Nelson? Sup with that? Okay, he gets a pass since that’s all very recent news and probably developed after the interview, but still, don’t sleep on “Big Country.” He looks even more physically unimpressive than you, Fedor. So take that.