That definitely plays its own role. However, Fedor Emelianenko has been worshiped and adored in USA (I can't understand how the American media allowed that) like no other MMA fighter in history. One way or another, Vasily may be the greatest boxer in the history of the sport. He's definitely a top 2 amateur boxer of all time (I have really hard time to rank him ahead of the greatest boxer to ever live in my opinion, the GREAT Laszlo Papp) and is on his way to become one of the greatest if not the greatest professional boxer of all time. Looking at Loma, Usyk, Klitschkos etc. I can't help but wonder how different boxing history would be if the likes of Laszlo Papp, Boris Lagutin, Oleg Saitov (what a phenom he was), Valeri Popenchenko, Vyacheslav Lemeshev and so many, many more incredible boxers from the former Eastern Bloc could compete on a professional level back in the 50's and 60's and 70's. I can only guess that Ali, Sugar Ray Robinson, Hagler and the rest of them would now be considered "bums" ala Chris Byrd, Jeff Lacy and Jermaine Taylor, while those now "golden" eras of boxing would be considered weak, right? I guess they would would have to go back to Jack Johnson, Joe Gans and Joe Louis to claim their nonsense. The same prime Joe Louis that was destroyed by Max Schmeling, also known as the "human punching bag" in USSR, as he had an unofficial record of 6 wins and 21 losses to Soviet boxers in amateur European tournaments/meetings way before USSR enters the Olympics. If Max could beat Joe Louis, imagine that the Soviets would have done to him.