Fedor: Afraid? No. But everyone respects me.

And this is the answer from a person who's opponents refuse to enter the ring...

Fedor: They were only refusing to fight me in combat sambo. The level of fighters there is much lower, than in Mixed Martial Arts. And some fighters from other countries, who don't want to get injured, sometimes quit the competition.

In the old days opponents of Karelin would say to him before the fight: "Just don't do the "reverse belt"(Have no idea what this means). Do they approach you too?

Fedor: Quite often. They ask, that I would hit softer to the head.

How do you react?

Fedor: If I see that the opponent is in fact much weaker, I try not to offend him.

What do you mean "not to affend"?

Fedor: Not to injure him. When we fight in Russia, sometimes their friends come up, that's understandable. When I fight in another country some unkown fighter tries to come up to you, and that's a little suspicious. You're thinking that he's trying to trick you. You always have to be suspicious.

Feels like you had a sad experience.

Fedor: Last time there was an unpleasant situation with a Korean fighter on the President's Cup. He trained in our team, we taught him a bit. Before the fight he came up to my coach. Asked that I don't hit him too hard. But then came out for a fight and started to swing his arms wildly right away - with a clear goal to knock me out. I'm not gonna lie, it was very unpleasant. But still I did not start to hit this Korean very hard. I just made one move, held him down with my hands. Collected the needed amount of points and finished the fight before the time ran out.

Did you get burned in life as well by someone?

Fedor: Who doesn't get burned? At first I had a situation with my manager, who tried to fool me and my brother. Even turned into threats. And recently I parted ways with one of my trainers. As it turned out he was a one of a kind con-artist.

What did he do?

Fedor: He lied to young fighters. Took a bigger percentage.

Your very good friend, Mike Tyson, almost beat up his manager, who tried to fool him.

Fedor: I didn't try to beat the manager nor the trainer. I just wanted to cross out these people from my life as soon as possible. The manager also threatened to expel my younger brother from the team. But luckily it wasn't up to him. My brother won the Russian championship, which automatically insured his seed in the European championship.