Some Quick Thoughts on the Greatness of Fedor Emelianenko Before His Strikeforce Fight With Brett Rogers

via www.emelianenko.co.uk

Fedor Emelianenko could very well lose tonight and if he does it could be in utterly humiliating and devastating fashion. That is a very unlikely outcome of tonight's fight, but it is a very real possibility. Brett Rogers has demonstrated many times that he hits with sufficient power to knock out any man if he can connect square.

But regardless of what happens tonight, Fedor Emelianenko will remain the greatest heavyweight fighter in the history of MMA for the foreseeable future. Only one athlete has a comparable resume -- Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira -- and Fedor has beaten Nogueira convincingly twice.

But for those of you who were not watching Fedor through out his career I wanted to lay out a couple of things that will hopefully put his accomplishments in contest. And lay to rest any thoughts that Fedor's resume is reliant on having beaten a number of former UFC champs and freakshow opponents.

  1. Fedor rose to the top of, and thoroughly dominated the PRIDE heavyweight division from his entry in 2002 to the collapse of the organization in 2007. The PRIDE heavyweight division was by far the best ever assembled in MMA up to that time. Remember this was in an era when the UFC had enormous financial difficulties and had multiple champions walk away from the belt due to financial disputes. The PRIDE division was built off the back of the 2000 PRIDE open-weight Grand Prix which brought together many of the most highly regarded fighters of the day and did much to establish a clear pecking order in the division. Fedor didn't participate in the tournament, but he did beat the winner, Mark Coleman in 2004.

  2. Fedor emerged from Akira Maeda's RINGS organization, one of the key transitional organizations in the evolution of Japanese pro-wrestling into MMA. While RINGS was late to abandon "worked" matches (pre-determined outcomes), they practiced a very "stiff" form of pro-wrestling that incorporated many actual kickboxing and submission techniques. By the time Fedor began in RINGS they had gone to almost 100% "shoots" (actual sporting matches with no pre-determined outcome). RINGS is most important in MMA history for two reasons: 1) Maeda's recruitment of Volk Han, a Sambo master who brought a flood of Russian fighters along with him, including Fedor but also Mikhail Illioukhine and others; and, 2) the two mega King of Kings tournaments Maeda mounted in 1999 and 2000. Those tournaments brought together with the PRIDE Grand Prix of 2000 established a very firm pecking order for the heavyweight division by assembling most of the best fighters from Japan, America, Brazil, Holland and Russia and using the tournament format. Fedor would go on to beat the winner of the 2000 King of Kings tourny, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.

  3. During his run at the top, Fedor has beaten exponents of all the major styles to so far dominate in MMA. He has beaten Olympic caliber wrestlers. He has beaten top K-1 kickboxers. He has beaten Olympic medal winning Judokas. He has beaten the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu MMA fighter in the history of the game. He has beaten numerous former UFC champions. While he hasn't always fought the best and there will always be challenges remaining to be met, Fedor's run at the top has no equal in the history of the game.

There are flaws in Fedor's game. He has been rightfully criticized for sometimes fighting less than the most worthy opponents. He will not remain at the top indefinitely. But the buzz around him is for real. It's something he earned the hard way, by facing and beating a who's who of the best MMA fighters in the game at the time he fought them. We'll see if he can impress an American mass audience tonight.

A couple of other Fedor stories worth reviewing if you missed them:

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