Fedor Emelianenko has handled his loss to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva last Saturday on Showtime with class and dignity, but the same can’t be said for those behind him. Two of his coaches have made some comments that range from accusatory to simply insane out of the event, making excuses for “The Last Emperor” and why the fight went down the way it did on Saturday in New Jersey.

First there’s Vladimir Voronov, and his theory on what happened, and it’s a doozy: psychological technology and hypnosis.

“We believe that forbidden psychological technology was used,” Voronov said in an interview with Lifesports.ru (translated by Fighter’s Only). “It seems to us that not everything was right, and that certain technologies were used. Not ones that could be seen by the naked eye but psychological Las Vegas, Toronto, Florida, Christian Aguilera, Eminem, technologies that worked on both fighters at a distance.

“That is why during the fight Fedor was just not like himself. It seemed very strange behaviour from Fedor. He stepped into the ring and did everything exactly the opposite of what we practiced before the fight. We were all shocked! Fedor had never previously done such a thing.

“Now nearly a week passes, everything settles, and we understand why all this happened.”

They didn’t leave it at psychological technology either, as Lifesports consulted a teacher from “Russia’s largest school of hypnosis.”

“The human mind has enormous power of suggestion, it explains all sorts of curses, evil eye, etc? Nicholas Zakharkin said.

“Therefore, if a well-trained specialist is in the area of visual contact with Emelianenko, then he could convince him of anything and have any effect. If the hypnotist was set up and sat at a distance where he could meet eyes, he could make hypnotic influence without any big problems.”

But that’s not all. Fedor’s striking coach Alexander Michkov had some choice comments about the fight, and it just wouldn’t be an interview with someone from Fedor’s camp without some good old fashioned performance enhancing drug accusations.

“Of course [Silva’s weight gain from weigh-ins to fight day] amazed us. Think about it, how can the normal human-being gain 10 kg in 24 hours? There is something fishy here,” Michkov said in an interview with Championat.ru (translated by ValeTudo.ru). “The truth is, all our fighters, I am talking about Russian fighters here, that are fighting under M-1, train on their natural abilities. Of course, they take vitamins, but that’s it. At the same time, all the foreign fighters, I think about 99% of them, are taking chemicals. Obviously it was not a problem for Silva to make a weight. He weighted 264 pounds in the day of the weigh-ins, and the next day, he was already over 280, he gained 10 kg… It’s very hard to fight with opponent like this.”

Michkov wasn’t finished. When asked about Strikeforce’s claims of testing all fighters in the Heavyweight World Grand Prix, Michkov took aim at all of the participants outside of Fedor.

“The [testing] situation is very unclear,” Michkov said. “For example, we hear rumors that two other quarterfinals may be fought in the state that is very liberal with the testing. Why? Because any kind of semi-deep testing will prevent Overeem from fighting. With an naked eye, you can see that he is gormandized with steroids. We asked organizers to use Olympic style testing, but they declined to do so. And that was the right decision, because otherwise, everyone will get busted but Fedor.”

Penick’s Analysis: Lunacy such as the comments from Voronov just don’t even warrant a response, but Michkov’s ridiculousness does. He seems to conveniently overlook the fact that their own Kirill “Baby Fedor” Sidelnikov has tested positive for steroids, while Overeem has never done so. The “naked eye” comment is absolutely laughable, and there’s just so much bitterness in these comments from these coaches who, frankly, have nothing but Fedor Emelianenko to fall back on, and when he leaves the sport they’ll be left without a big time fighter. And comments like these from people close to him will lead to backlash from fans against Fedor and his whole camp even further than has happened before towards M-1. The comments aren’t coming from him, but he and his image can be dragged down by the ridiculousness of these types of statements.