It also ignited a few questions in my mind.

1. What is his name and how did he see that coming?

In the buildup to the event, reporters who covered Affliction 2 delivered factoids about Fedor Emelianenko’s mysterious life and tried to pry insightful tidbits from the reserved Russian champion. As a result, we learned a lot about him that could not be gleaned by watching him declare naptime for Andrei Arlovski in the middle of an ill-advised, first-round leap on Saturday night.

Such as, the Baddest Man on the Planet drives a Toyota. He trains with the basic necessities, sometimes in extreme cold. He eats three meals a day just like we do and forsakes vodka during preparation. He does, actually, get nervous. He’s a fan of Bruce Willis and a friend of Vladimir Putin. He enjoys reading to his two kids. And he’s a mama’s boy.

One elusive detail remains, though, despite the onslaught of publicity:

How in the hell do you pronounce his first name?

If we were to believe Affliction’s numerous talking heads, there are more ways to enunciate “Fedor” than there are ways for him win a fight.

Leading up to Emelianenko’s title bout with Arlovski, I heard the WAMMA champion’s name articulated at least four ways: Fay-door, Fee-ah-door, Fah-door and Fee-door.

To top it off, all of those pronunciations were used at some point either by employees of Affliction or reporters who commented in Affliction-produced video material.

To me, this is dumbfounding. Here we have the man who is touted as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world and arguably the sole reason Affliction remains in the MMA promotion business, yet the company hasn’t even decided how to uniformly pronounce his first name.

I can understand if “Fedor” had one alternate pronunciation, similar to names like David (Day-vid; Dah-veed) or Benjamin (Ben-jah-min; Ben-ha-meen). But four? Honestly, when ineffectual color commentator Tito Ortiz referred to him as “Fee-a-door” (rhymes with “Theodore”) early in the broadcast, it took me a few seconds to figure out who he was talking about.

Affliction should make it a point to pick one pronunciation, i.e. the correct one – whether it’s Russian or English.

And there’s a simple way to decide: Dispatch one of your media-relations lackeys – not Ortiz – to ask Emelianenko. This might seem like a trivial matter, but for a promotion that wishes to rival the almighty UFC, it’s not wise to clutter the presentation of the one true megastar Affliction can build its entire image around. Confusing consumers is never good.