Fedor, Sylvia, Arlovski and the Re-evaluation of Rankings

With the recent spate of Fedor articles and fanposts, there's been a lot of discussion (as there always is) on Fedor, his legacy, being ranked #1, etc. Throughout this, there's been one common thread in the comments sections of all of these posts has been "look at the bums Fedor has fought in the past few years!"

Now there's certainly some validity to this criticism. Hong-Man Choi and Zuluzinho barely deserved to be in the same ring as Fedor. In fairness to Big Z, he was undefeated at the time (with an unverifiable undefeated record in Brazil Vale Tudo), but let's be realistic here. However, people either forget or just don't know about some of the other fighters in comparison to their time frame. The first is borderline insulting, as one would hope they know better than to ignore history. The latter is simply ignorance, which there really isn't anything wrong with - people just didn't know. That can be easily corrected, hopefully by this article!

Let's rewind the time a bit starting with 2006. Through the magic of Google, we are able to look up what people thought of the various fighters at the time. Let's start.

Google "2006 MMA Rankings" and the first thing that comes up is a forum called BloodyKnux and what appears to be their own open voting top10:

1. Fedor Emelianenko (Russia/Red Devil Sport Club) - 350, 35 First Place Votes
2. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Brazil/Brazilian Top Team) - 301 Points
3. Andrei Arlovski (Belarus/Pitbull Team) - 279 Points
4. Mark Hunt (New Zealand/Oceania Super Fighters Club) - 212 Points
5. Mirko Filipovic (Croatia/Cro Cop Squad Gym) - 185 Points
6. Tim Sylvia (USA/Team Extreme) - 176 Points
7. Alistair Overeem (Holland/Golden Glory) - 166 points
8. Sergey Kharitonov (Russia/Russian Top Team) - 114 Points
9. Aleksander Emelianenko (Russia/Red Devil Sport Club) - 68 Points
10. Fabricio Werdum (Brazil/Cro Cop Squad Gym) - 41 Points

Interesting! This is March of 2006 and for a reference point for those who don't want to load up Wikipedia or Sherdog, this was a few months after Fedor's smashing of Zuluzhino. Look at how many "jokes" there are in there! Aleks? He tested positive for Hepatitis B and has been since banished to the nether regions of fighting promotions, beating people you've never heard of in places like Baku, Azerbaijan and Rostov-on-Don, Russia. Kharitonov, who Aleks beat a few months after these rankings came out? He managed to avenge his loss to Overeem later that year, but has since lost to Jeff Monson, racked up a K1 kickboxing loss and hasn't done any fighting in anything in over a year. He's recently signed with Strikeforce, so we may be able to catch a glimpse of this once-feared fighter.

One name that probably jumps off the page at you is Mark Hunt at #4. The only thing in the memories of a lot of newer fans are him getting blown up by Gegard Mousasi and Melvin Manhoef. Again, we have to go back in time. in March of 2006, Hunt was an above average kickboxer with a 30-12 record and wins over Jerome Le Banner and Gary Goodridge. He was also 5-2 in MMA with Barnett having broken his 5-fight win streak, which included a pair of split-decision wins over Wanderlei Silva and Mirko Filipovic. Yes, he'd beaten Cro Cop and the Axe Murderer. He was a legit top-10 heavyweight fighter.

That's the point of this article. It's easy to armchair quarterback now and say that Hunt is a failure in MMA after five straight losses (some very embarassing), but who else was there at the time? Again, that's the point here, and to be honest, unless you want to read more of me expounding on this point with more and more examples, you can skip down to the comments section right now.

Seriously, I'm gonna pound this into the dirt, folks. There's gonna be tons of examples, analysis and rehashing of older fights and fighters. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, don't spend the next 15 minutes reading what's to come, I won't fault you as long as the message has gotten through.

In any event, that was but one particular site's rankings and not a wholly accurate sample. Let's check out some others with our wayback machine. At the end of 2006, we can look at some Pride rankings, via the blog at MMAcritic.

Heavyweight (205 lbs +): Fedor Emelianenko

1. Mirko Filipovic
   
2. Josh Barnett
   
3. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
   
4. Fabricio Werdum
   
5. Aleksander Emelianenko

How about that. Let's start with Aleks, who spent his 2006 losing to Barnett, beating Kharitonov and losing to #4 Werdum. Fabricio would fight for the last time in Pride with that win over the lesser Emelianenko before going 2-2 in the UFC. His 2006 included a win over Alistair Overeem and a loss to Big Nog. Before continuing, it's interesting to note that Werdum's two UFC losses were at the hands of Arlovski and Junior Dos Santos: the former champ and the young up-and-comer who we now realize is pretty damned good. Anyway. Nog had a fairly pedestrian year going 3-1. He split a pair with Barnett and racked up Werdum and Zuluzhino. Barnett had a hot time back then, and was 5-1 when those rankings were posted. He would lose to Nog weeks later in their New Year's Eve rematch. Wins: Kazuhiro Nakamura, Aleks, Hunt, Big Nog, Pawel Nastula. Loss: Cro Cop. Speaking of that devil, he went undefeated that year following his '05 New Years loss to Hunt. He beat up Minowa, Hidehiko Yoshida, Wanderlei and Barnett before leaving for his first UFC run.

In comparison, that same place's UFC rankings at the time were as follows:

Heavyweight (265 lbs): Tim Sylvia

1. Brandon Vera
2. Andrei Arlovski
3. Jeff Monson
4. Marcio Cruz
5. Gabriel Gonzaga

We have the champ, Tim Sylvia, who beat Assuerio Silva, Andrei Arlovski twice and Monson that year. This was what critics (like myself) like to call Sylvia's boring period and the beginning of his fall from grace. Aside from his TKO over Arlovski to capture the belt, his other fights were very defensive and fairly dull. He seemed to fight not to win, but rather to ensure that he didn't lose. This is some of the same criticism leveled nowadays at fighters like GSP, Anderson Silva, Jake Shields and Jon Fitch for example. Let's face it, most of us like a balls-to-the-wall fight and devil-may-care attitude over a conservative, staid approach. Why else does the Korean Zombie resonate so well with us?

Continuing, we have Brandon Vera, the undefeated, much-hyped up and comer who had recently demolished former champion Frank Mir. That's right he was 8-0 when he first lost to Sylvia. Arlovski was 0-2 that year at the time of the rankings with those pair of losses to the Maineiac, but did manage to salvage a win over hotshot Marcio Cruz, who was a touted Gracie BJJ black belt with a win over Frank Mir as part of his resume and his only loss a split-decision to Monson. Monson spent his '06 seeing his 16-fight win streak broken at the hands of Sylvia that November. Gonzaga was the big young stud sporting a 6-1 record and would extend that to 8-1 culminating with his highlight leg-kick KO of Cro Cop before being demolished by Couture.

Guys, there wasn't this magical depth. The only people we can really argue about that Fedor never fought were Couture and Barnett. If you really want to argue a spot in rankings, Josh Barnett is the one to complain about. He sports an 0-3 record against Cro Cop, 1-1 against Big Nog with the win being a split-decision and the loss being unanimous just months later, 1-1 against Pedro Rizzo and his victory against Couture is mostly nullified because he tested positive for Boldenone, Fluoxymesterone and Nandrolone later. Translated? Steroids, a sadly common theme in his career.

Let's take a quick interlude and look at Mark Coleman and the merits of his rematch with Fedor in October of that year. First off, Coleman was never a prolific fighter. Unlike many contemporaries, he went his entire career never fighting more than twice a year save once: 1999, which included his fixed fight with Takada. Following his 2000 open-weight GP win, he took almost 11 months off before beating Allan Goes in '01, 6 months off before losing to Big Nog, 21 months before returning to beat Don Frye, 10 months off before losing to Fedor, another 10 before losing to Cro Cop, 8 before beating Milco Voorn, a sparse 4 before beating Shogun Rua in that arm-break disaster and then another 8 before the Fedor rematch. To sum up the reason why Coleman earned or deserved or even unjustly got the title shot back against Fedor; he had gone 9-3 in his last 12 fights, with the losses coming to Nog, Cro Cop and Fedor.  Fedor had gone 2-0-0-1 against Nog and had just recently beaten Filipovic in their epic war.

Seriously, who else can we complain that Fedor never faced between 2000 and 2007? Don Frye? Pedro Rizzo? Paul Buentello? Igor Vovchanchyn? Wesley Correira? Travis Wiuff? Are we really upset that he never fought Ken Shamrock, Kimo, Tank Abbot or Gan McGee?

Let's head on back to rankings and take a look at 2007, the year that Fedor fought what was almost certainly his weakest year of fights, Matt Lindland and H.M. Choi.

The first Google result for "2007 mma rankings" is a particular blog called, fittingly, MMARankings. Their January rankings are:

1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
3. Mirko “CroCop” Filipovic
4. Josh Barnett
5. Fabrico Werdum
6. Andrei Arlovoski
7. Tim Sylvia
8. Aleksander Emelianenko
9. Mark Hunt
10 Sergei Kharitonov

Pretty much the same thing. Couture was still retired at this point, which explains his absence from these rankings, but yea, it's standard. In a piece days before Couture's match against Sylvia, the L.A. Times put out their rankings and came up with:

1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Mirko Cro Cop
3. Antonio Rodrigo Noguiera
4. Josh Barnett
5. Tim Sylvia
6. Fabricio Werdum
7. Brandon Vera
8. Andrei Arlovski
9. Sergei Kharitonov
10. Jeff Monson

Remember, this was before Cro Cop got Cro Copped by Gonzaga.

Let's check in on Sherdog's August rankings, remember this is post-Couture unretirement:

1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Randy Couture
3. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
4. Josh Barnett
5. Gabriel Gonzaga
6. Tim Sylvia
7. Andrei Arlovski
8. Fabricio Werdum
9. Cheick Kongo
10. Mirko Cro Cop Filipovic

Their later December rankings would be nearly identical, save for Sylvia moving up two spots after mauling Brandon Vera.

MMAWeekly's October rankings:

1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
3. Josh Barnett
4. Randy Couture
5. Tim Sylvia
6. Gabriel Gonzaga
7. Andrei Arlovski
8. Mirko Cro Cop
9. Fabricio Werdum
10. Aleksander Emelianenko

I'm going to stop here in what is already probably one of the longest Fanposts here at Bloody Elbow. With the exception of the four new UFC heavyweights in Lesnar, Carwin, Velasquez and Dos Santos there is almost no ranked opponent over the past decade that Fedor hasn't fought outside of Couture and Barnett. We do love to bag on people like Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski for their recent failings both in and out of the ring, but we need to recognize that they were dominant in their era. The Green Bay Packers of the 1960s would be a joke team in the NFL today. Lou Gherig and Babe Ruth - lifetime .340 and .342 hitters would barely scratch the surface of .300 (if that) against today's pitchers. MMA is unfortunately a very new sport with only a couple of decades since its inception so the time-frame which we have to work with is smaller, but let's not forget that this is an evolving sport, where only a few people seem to really be at their full complete potential. Writing people off for one or two performances is a bad habit that leads to this overall discrediting of earlier fighters. Understand where people were in relation to their competition and people will have a better understanding of the sport.