For five minutes, Fabio Maldonado appeared on his way to a victory over a legend. Ten minutes later, it seemed like he could at least settle for a draw. Then somehow, it all slipped away.

If ever a man had a right to be bitter, the Brazilian slugger had it, but Maldonado refuses to complain.

“So many Russians were coming to me saying I won,” Maldonado (22-10) told MMAjunkie just after Friday’s EFN 50 headliner against Fedor Emelianenko (36-4) in Russia. “But what matters is what I did in there. I don’t care what the judges saw. What matters is that I worked hard. I’m happy, and that’s it.”

Maldonado and Emelianenko’s bout streamed on UFC Fight Pass from Sibur Arena in St. Petersburg. “The Last Emperor,” once considered the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet, was a massive 10-1 favorite, but Maldonado pounded him from the opening bell while delivering a barrage of punches that had Emelianenko flopping around the cage.

In what seemed like a show of favoritism for the Russian legend in his home country, Emelianenko was allowed to fight on. He somehow survived the round, and the momentum took a decided shift over the final two frames.

“I declined,” Maldonado said. “I got tired in the first and got worse after that. I got tired, so I slowed down in order to not lose any stability.

“At some point, he was throwing me out of balance with slaps. He slapped me and threw me off. He’s so tough. What a tough guy.”

Emelianenko outworked Maldonado over the final two rounds, and both men were battered and bloodied over the course of the 15-minute affair. In the end, a draw seemed the right call, with Maldonado taking a 10-8 in the first and Emelianenko getting a subsequent pair of 10-9 rounds.

However, only one judge saw it 28-28. The other two had it 29-28 for Emelianenko, who was granted a majority-decision win.

“I don’t agree with the decision,” Maldonado said. “I need to re-watch it. I’m sure I didn’t lose. I don’t know if I won. I need to re-watch it, but I thought it was either a draw or a win for me.”

Questionable decisions are nothing new in MMA. Maldonado seems to have an additional gripe that the fight could’ve been stopped in the first round. However, the 36-year-old Brazilian said Emelianenko’s efforts over the final two rounds proved the referee made the right call.

That said, he doesn’t completely agree with how the flow of action was handled.

“They shouldn’t have stopped the fight,” Maldonado said. “The ref didn’t stop it, and he did good because Fedor … turned it around.

“But the ref made a big mistake by putting his mouthpiece back in. That was my time. He was groggy then. The referee shouldn’t have done that.”

Maldonado said he was still bleeding hours after the fight after taking significant damage in a toe-to-toe battle with one of the greatest fighters the world has seen. And after such a competitive fight, the 11-time UFC veteran thinks his future probably lies at light heavyweight.

“I’m all cut,” Maldonado said. “My nose is cut. I’m all bruised. I didn’t want to stand in the middle of the cage because I thought I might get dropped. I wanted to either be pressured or pressure against the cage. Because then, even if I got pressured, I could land. I knew that if I hit him with a cross it’d be tough for him. And he endured it well. The man has got a great chin.

“My power is different at heavyweight. I’m not a guy who cuts weight well. If I do come back to 205, I’m going to start walking around at 211 pounds in order to cut the least amount possible because I don’t do it well.”

Maldonado doesn’t know what comes next, though after a valiant effort, more options will likely be on the table than prior to what was expected to be a one-sided fight.

Maldonado said he’d actually like to box next, and he called out a 7-foot-tall former WBA world champion in Russian heavyweight Nikolai Valuev.

“I want to box him here in Russia,” Maldonado said. “I challenged him at the presser. He was a boxing world champion. I want to fight him at boxing. I’ll fight him under boxing rules if he wants. I’ll fight in many divisions in boxing, in MMA. I don’t even care. I press the ‘(expletive) it button,’ and whatever happens, I’ll do it. People who get punched a lot don’t really think straight.

“I don’t want to think about the future. This loss doesn’t feel like a loss. I’m dying to see my family and my children. I need to rest a little. Take some time off from contact training. By Friday, I’ll be back to some light weight training. All good.”

With just a cursory look at his record, Maldonado seems to be in a bad spot. After all, he’s currently mired in a three-fight losing skid and is just 1-3 in his past four fights.

But if ever a fighter gained something from a loss, that, too, is Maldonado. And the result of Friday’s fight will do nothing to tarnish his reputation. Instead, it only put a fresh shine on “The Iron Hillbilly.”

“It was a cool fight,” Maldonado said. “A lot of people said he was old. Man, he’s 39, and I’m 36. If he needs to quit, I need to quit, too.

“What we do today stays in history. That’s why I train hard. I don’t back down because when my children grow older, that’s what I want them to hear about me.”