Is the Last Emperor coming to town? ESPN Chicago reports:

“The mixed martial arts promotion Strikeforce is in talks with Illinois’ athletic commission to sanction its Nov. 7 bout featuring Fedor Emelianenko, according to sources close to the negotiations. The bout, which will be nationally televised by CBS, would be held at the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates. A decision from the commission could come as soon as Friday.”

The Sears Centre has hoted MMA events before. Adrenaline has been there, as has the IFL. It’s a solid venue for the event. It’s a fairly new building, easily accessible, no downtown traffic to worry about it and plenty of parking.

Needless to say that we will be all over this story. The bigger question: will other local media? We worked for a local TV station when the IFL was here in May of 2007 and we did a piece on it. Most recently CLTV (local cable news) did a piece on Chicago cop Mike Russow and his UFC debut victory.

But when Anderson Silva was in Chicago fighting at UFC 90 in October of 2008, the local media gave it a huge collective yawn. If Fedor comes to town for a nationally-televised bout, will their be any coverage? We know of one place there will be local coverage: CBS. That’s who will be televising the Strikeforce event.