As if it were Valentine’s Day, Georges St-Pierre dropped to one knee, bowed his head and clasped the extended right of the person in front of him with both of his hands.

The former UFC welterweight champion, among the four or five best fighters who have ever lived, hadn’t suddenly turned into a hopeless romantic who was proposing marriage.

Rather, St-Pierre was in the bowels of the SAP Center on Nov. 19 in San Jose, Calif., for Bellator 165, where he was expressing his respect for the legendary heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko.

St-Pierre attended Bellator 165 with his friend and training partner, Rory MacDonald, who’d recently signed with the promotion. Bellator president Scott Coker said Emelianenko’s presence came as a surprise to him.

“The nice thing about that was, Georges was coming back to say hello and he didn’t know Fedor was in the room,” Bellator president Scott Coker said. “We hadn’t told anyone he would be there. When he walked in and saw Fedor there, he started freaking out like a little kid who had just run into his idol.

“He kept saying, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ The respect he showed him was incredible.”

Fedor Emelianenko will return to the cage against Matt Mitrione on Saturday. More

St-Pierre’s reaction isn’t unusual, even for fighters, many of whom grew up watching Emelianenko decimate the best fighters in the world when he was the heavyweight champion in PRIDE.

Now 40, Emelianenko is well past his prime and is no longer the well-rounded executioner who could out-strike the best strikers or out-grappler the best grapplers.

He’s more of a heavy-handed brawler these days, and he’s been on the short end of a few outcomes recently.

He’s coming off a majority decision victory over Fabio Maldonado, a light heavyweight, in which the best thing Emelianenko did was agree to fight at home in Russia. The scoring was questionable and Emelianenko got every benefit of the doubt.

On Saturday at the SAP Center, he’ll meet ex-UFC heavyweight Matt Mitrione in a bout that will headline a Bellator card on Spike TV.

And while his best days are long past him, he still carries significance in the industry, both because of his popularity as well as because of what he represents.

He was the first truly well-rounded big man who excelled at every aspect of the game. All of the best heavyweights who were competing in MMA in the early 2000s were in PRIDE. Emelianenko tore through them like the UConn women’s basketball team rips through the NCAA.

Night after night, it was no contest. He went more than eight years between losses.

“Fedor was the standard and the guy in those days who set the tone,” Coker told Yahoo Sports. “He was the dominant guy fighting all of the best guys in the world. He set the tone, really, for what this sport would become.

“I remember in 2005 when Mirko Cro Cop [Filipovic] came to PRIDE from K1. And as you remember, K1 was where all of the best kickboxers in the world were. I really thought Fedor would have to take him down or grapple him. Mirko was in his prime, and let’s be honest, Fedor beat him in what essentially was a straight kickboxing match.”

Emelianenko’s impact is felt throughout MMA, but mostly at the heavyweight level, where the great athletes aren’t simply trying to use their physical superiority or a strength in one dimension of MMA to win.

Look at UFC heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic who, like Emelianenko so many years before, has worked assiduously on being able to compete no matter where the fight goes.

A prime Fedor would likely blow Mitrione out, but he’s no longer near his prime and Mitrione is about a 9-5 favorite to win on Saturday.

Because of what Emelianenko has done, he remains a huge draw and there’s little doubt that Bellator will get one of its best ratings on Saturday.

“People love Fedor for so many different reasons, but I can tell you that there is an excitement and an energy that surround his fights we don’t see too much with anyone else,” Coker said. “Part is that stoic attitude, that demeanor of his. When he’s making the walk to the cage, he has that look like the guy you see in the movies, like a killer.

“He’s fought just about everybody and he always puts on a show. When he was on CBS back in the Strikeforce days, we just did extremely good ratings and … he’s always had that appeal. He means so much to this sport, I can’t even begin to explain.”