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separates Fedor Emelianenko and Vladimir Klitschko from the rest of the pack in their respective sports? Vladimir Matyushenko: I don't think the success of those fighters has anything to do with country of origin. Everyone bleeds the same blood. It has everything to do with how hard a fighter is training. Klitschko travels all over the world and trains in a bunch of different places with the top fighters and coaches. It's the same thing with Fedor; he doesn't necessarily only train in Russia. He travels to different places like Holland and France to train with the best of the best. If you take Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida; the reason why those two are so good is because they train together and push each other. It's the same thing with any fighter at the top level. Nationality doesn't have anything to do with it.
FiveKnuckles.com: Can you talk a little bit about your time spent in the International Fight League?
Vladimir Matyushenko: The league folded not long after I became the light heavyweight champion. I defended my title only one time. I think the concept of the IFL was really good and it was a big step for the sport at the time because there was much less risk involved for the fighters. The fights were scheduled ahead of time and compensation was there as well. If you were injured you could survive to fight another day and that's a good thing in this sport. That's why the UFC is very successful. I see more and more where they are taking care of their fighters. Even if a fighter loses, the UFC stays behind them and encourages them, especially the young guys because they're the future of the sport.
The IFL was a good opportunity for me because I was at the point where I didn't know if I wanted to fight anymore. At that time, I had been fighting for ten years and was semi-retired. I was training the young fighters and beating them up when we trained so I figured to give it another shot. I had five fights in 2007 and won them all. That brought me back to the reality that I could be a successful fighter. As things progressed, I knew something was going wrong because there were too many people in charge that didn't know what they were doing. They were spending a lot of money. They couldn't pay the fighters because they were spending money on things that were not relevant to fighting. It was obvious to me that something would go wrong and I wasn't surprised when the league collapsed, but that didn't stop me from doing my job while I was there.
FiveKnuckles.com: You were also involved with Affliction which also folded. How disappointing is it to a fighter when a whole organization collapses?
Vladimir Matyushenko: It is very hard to train in those situations. I was under an exclusive contract with the IFL in 2008. I couldn't fight at Affliction's first event in July of that year because I was scheduled to defend my belt in August. The IFL folded in late July so I was completely left out. I kept training because there was a chance to fight in Elite XC in November, but that fight was cancelled when Elite XC went down....
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