Fedor Emelianenko to Face Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva February 12th, Kicking Off Heavyweight Tournament

There's finally a date for Fedor Emelianenko's next fight, and it's just on the horizon.  Mike Whiteman of Sherdog Reports:

Fedor Emelianenko will return to the Strikeforce cage on Feb. 12, as he takes on Antonio Silva in a heavyweight main event from the Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J.  Sources close to the negotiations informed Sherdog.com Sunday evening of the event’s date and location. 

This comes as a relief, as things never seem certain when dealing with Fedor's management, M-1 Global.  This will be the first quarterfinal bout of Strikeforce's heavyweight tournament, with another tournament bout between Josh Barnett and Andrei Arlovski rumored for this same event.  The last two quarterfinal bouts are expected to take place on March 5th, one of the rumored match ups being between Fabricio Werdum, and Brett Rogers.

Here's to hoping that these matches come through, and we can see this tournament finished without any hardball contract negotiations, or fight ducking.  

Update:

MMAJunkie is reporting that Sergei Kharitonov will fight Andrei Arlovski, rather than Josh Barnett, sounds like a great back up plan in case Barnett can't get licensed.

Photo via Dave Mandel, for Sherdog