No, not really, but this is a funny bit of commentary that up until now I was going to steer clear from posting on BJPENN.COM. However, as it seems, this bit of news is not going away anytime soon and with the recent response from Silva’s camp I would not be doing my job if I didn’t share this with Penn Nation.

When talking to the Russian media at Lifesports.ru one of Emelianenko’s trainers really said the following when asked about his star pupils loss…

"It seems to us that all isn't this simple and certain technologies might have been used - certainly, not the ones that would be visible to an open eye. Most likely, they were psychological technologies that influenced both fighters from the distance of the crowd. For this reason Fedor simply wasn't himself during fight. Fedor's behavior was very strange to me, and he did exactly the opposite of what we have practiced and discussed before the fight. All of us were in shock! He has never done or behaved this way before. We will wait a week or so, for things to calm down and afterwards we will try to figure out what has happened. However, I might add that the loss has not broken his psychological stability and Fedor will be more than ready to return to the ring. Because of the loss, he is ready to rip apart his next opponents and we will be training three times as much."

The following is the response from “Bigfoots” manager Alex Davis, written up by BJPENN.COM’s George C. Matthews…

With the recent statements from Fedor's coaches about "psychological technologies" being used to gain an advantage this past weekend, Antonio Silva's manager (Alex Davis), has a rebuttal to the claims, as he detailed on MMA.tv

"Jeez, I got caught. I will have to come out with the truth now. I hired a Macumbeiro (Brazilian witch doctor) and we killed a black chicken on the crossroads. After this, over a few beers, I showed the witch doctor Fedor’s fights, and he was worried that a chicken wouldn’t be enough, so we went out and killed a black goat just to make sure. Very potent stuff. Really messed Fedor’s brain waves up."

"We wanted to try that other military stuff Voronov is talking about, but it’s expensive technology and we were broke. The chicken and the goat came out way cheaper. Witch doctor is a friend; he did it for a few beers and an autograph."

Obviously Alex's statements were made in jest, but one has to wonder whether Fedor and his camp truly believe these ideas.