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The greatest of all time is returning.
With the impending return of the last emperor, and the poor recognition of the man and his accomplishments shown by the media, I wanted to add my two cents in.
1) First of all, he’s likely undefeated in Sherdog GOAT Polls.
But you may say, what do sherdoggers know about anything?
2) He wins polls elsewhere as well. Recently, there was a big GOAT poll in major Brazil media asking MMA fans, and Fedor came out on top. Also, there also was a big fighter’s poll in Brazil with lot of Brazilian fighters in it and Fedor also came out number 1 in that as well.
But you may also say again, who do fans know about anything when Dana White says otherwise?
3) He likely has the longest list of professional fighters who claimed him as the best, GOAT at one point or another, including Chuck fucking Norris and Mike Tyson.
There has been LOTS of other fighters who claimed so, and the list is very long and the saying that Fedor’s your favorite fighter’s favorite fighter isn’t actually untrue perhaps.
Some probably might say Anderson Silva. Yet, the guys who actually trained with Anderson, like Machida, Shogun, Wanderlei, JDS, etc thinks Fedor is the one. That must mean something.
But you may say, what do fighters know about anything?
4) There have been many well known trainers who have shown great respect and admiration for Fedor.
In recent Sherdog article for example, Firas Zahabi picked Fedor and Maia as two fighters who best adapted their grappling to MMA. Given how beastly Maia is as a grappler, it’s a high praise, as well as from many well known trainers like Greg Jackson, AKA’s Bob Cook/Vasquez, Pat Militech, even Kavanagh for example, and the list goes on.
But, you may also say, being experts doesn’t mean that they are right, when it comes to something that can be rather subjective, especially when ‘being great at something’ in and out of itself can be subjective matter.
5) Then, let’s try to look at the facts, which can be difficult when it comes to judging a ‘greatness’ of a fighter.
According to statistics that was available back then, which measured strikes landed against per minute, he was the most elusive fighter in MMA even better than Machida during Machida’s undefeated period, before his decline dropping three in a row .
He has gone undefeated in a heavyweight division for ten years, fighting aggressively and taking risks, fighting top fighters, and records show he fought many top 10 fighters, a couple less than GSP and Anderson fought in their careers
Only fighter Sakuraba declined to fight in his career.
Was offered the best contract ever to sign him over to UFC according to Dana White.
Dana White ‘says’ he thinks Fedor is no good.
He never competed in UFC. However, UFC is the top dog now, and I don’t like where Bellator is going at all, but I’d like to argue that UFC isn’t the major league of MMA, unless something can be major league of anything when they were the second best less than a decade ago. Even a fighter, who UFC comically pushes really hard as the Greatest of all time, Anderson Silva, said that he thought PRIDE was better when they were around than UFC, but then UFC only after the fall of PRIDE due to their yakuza scandal.
He has wins over ADCC champion, BJJ champ, three k-1 gp champions, Judo Olympic gold medalist and Olympic silver medalist, Greco-roman Olympic silver medalist and freestyle wrestling Olympian, ncaa div 1 folkstyle wrestling champ, Ssirm wrestling champion and multiple ex- UFC champions(who has more wins over ex ufc champions than Fedor?).
Arm-barred Judo Silva Olympic medalist, and threw Greco-roman Silver Olympic medalist with uchimata.
He’s multiple time combat sambo champion, though competition level of the sports has been called into question in the past, which is still rather unclear, in spite of great individual successes in MMA by guys like Fedor and Khabib.
Also, he is an elite Judoka, though it’s not a fact that’s as well known. He’s obviously not Yoel Romero of Judo, but I would dare say that the only fighter who is a clearly better Judoka than Fedor in the history of UFC would be Akiyama. It appears that he was a heavyweight Judoka in Russia in Olympic team competing for a spot, but it also appears he had to compete with Tamerlan Tmenov, silver and bronze olympic medalist, two time silver and two time bronze world championship winner, and Alexander Mikhaylin, three time world championship winner and two bronze, and silver olympic medalist. Tamerlan Tmenov is 39, Mikhaylin is 37, and Fedor is 40 years old. And between Tmenov and Mikhaylins, they have 13 European gold medals.
He is humble in and out of the ring, against the opponents and with fans as well from the sound of things.
He was recognized as the fighter of the decade by the Sports Illustrated, Bleacher report, Fight! Magazine, valetudo.ru, About.com, and MMAfighting.com, as well as his fight with Crocop being recognized as the fight of the decade by Yahoo sports and Sports Illustrated.
6) My own 2 cents>
I find his striking in MMA can look bit sloppy and wild, his footwork doesn’t look too fluid or varied, his positional bottom ground game looks relatively lacking, , and his takedown defense isn’t probably the best around, especially when he gets taken down, due to his aggressiveness, they are so in deep on his legs it’s almost impossible to defend from there, though he fought some amazing takedown artists,and his training camps…well I hope he’s not training in some random parking lot no more, maybe Mousasi had a point when he suggested that maybe his loyalty to his trainers kept him back from evolving.
But, he hits hard and fast, great reflexes, can take a hit, is explosive on the ground and the feet, can threaten with submissions and is difficult to catch with submissions, and calm as a cucumber and cold, calculated like some Russian industrial machine. He might be the best ever when it comes to mixing his strikes with takedowns of various types, and pounding someone’s face in inside their guard. And, this guy has the heart of the warrior, spirit of the samurai, and the blood of the cyborg.
With the impending return of the last emperor, and the poor recognition of the man and his accomplishments shown by the media, I wanted to add my two cents in.
1) First of all, he’s likely undefeated in Sherdog GOAT Polls.
But you may say, what do sherdoggers know about anything?
2) He wins polls elsewhere as well. Recently, there was a big GOAT poll in major Brazil media asking MMA fans, and Fedor came out on top. Also, there also was a big fighter’s poll in Brazil with lot of Brazilian fighters in it and Fedor also came out number 1 in that as well.
But you may also say again, who do fans know about anything when Dana White says otherwise?
3) He likely has the longest list of professional fighters who claimed him as the best, GOAT at one point or another, including Chuck fucking Norris and Mike Tyson.
There has been LOTS of other fighters who claimed so, and the list is very long and the saying that Fedor’s your favorite fighter’s favorite fighter isn’t actually untrue perhaps.
Some probably might say Anderson Silva. Yet, the guys who actually trained with Anderson, like Machida, Shogun, Wanderlei, JDS, etc thinks Fedor is the one. That must mean something.
But you may say, what do fighters know about anything?
4) There have been many well known trainers who have shown great respect and admiration for Fedor.
In recent Sherdog article for example, Firas Zahabi picked Fedor and Maia as two fighters who best adapted their grappling to MMA. Given how beastly Maia is as a grappler, it’s a high praise, as well as from many well known trainers like Greg Jackson, AKA’s Bob Cook/Vasquez, Pat Militech, even Kavanagh for example, and the list goes on.
But, you may also say, being experts doesn’t mean that they are right, when it comes to something that can be rather subjective, especially when ‘being great at something’ in and out of itself can be subjective matter.
5) Then, let’s try to look at the facts, which can be difficult when it comes to judging a ‘greatness’ of a fighter.
According to statistics that was available back then, which measured strikes landed against per minute, he was the most elusive fighter in MMA even better than Machida during Machida’s undefeated period, before his decline dropping three in a row .
He has gone undefeated in a heavyweight division for ten years, fighting aggressively and taking risks, fighting top fighters, and records show he fought many top 10 fighters, a couple less than GSP and Anderson fought in their careers
Only fighter Sakuraba declined to fight in his career.
Was offered the best contract ever to sign him over to UFC according to Dana White.
Dana White ‘says’ he thinks Fedor is no good.
He never competed in UFC. However, UFC is the top dog now, and I don’t like where Bellator is going at all, but I’d like to argue that UFC isn’t the major league of MMA, unless something can be major league of anything when they were the second best less than a decade ago. Even a fighter, who UFC comically pushes really hard as the Greatest of all time, Anderson Silva, said that he thought PRIDE was better when they were around than UFC, but then UFC only after the fall of PRIDE due to their yakuza scandal.
He has wins over ADCC champion, BJJ champ, three k-1 gp champions, Judo Olympic gold medalist and Olympic silver medalist, Greco-roman Olympic silver medalist and freestyle wrestling Olympian, ncaa div 1 folkstyle wrestling champ, Ssirm wrestling champion and multiple ex- UFC champions(who has more wins over ex ufc champions than Fedor?).
Arm-barred Judo Silva Olympic medalist, and threw Greco-roman Silver Olympic medalist with uchimata.
He’s multiple time combat sambo champion, though competition level of the sports has been called into question in the past, which is still rather unclear, in spite of great individual successes in MMA by guys like Fedor and Khabib.
Also, he is an elite Judoka, though it’s not a fact that’s as well known. He’s obviously not Yoel Romero of Judo, but I would dare say that the only fighter who is a clearly better Judoka than Fedor in the history of UFC would be Akiyama. It appears that he was a heavyweight Judoka in Russia in Olympic team competing for a spot, but it also appears he had to compete with Tamerlan Tmenov, silver and bronze olympic medalist, two time silver and two time bronze world championship winner, and Alexander Mikhaylin, three time world championship winner and two bronze, and silver olympic medalist. Tamerlan Tmenov is 39, Mikhaylin is 37, and Fedor is 40 years old. And between Tmenov and Mikhaylins, they have 13 European gold medals.
He is humble in and out of the ring, against the opponents and with fans as well from the sound of things.
He was recognized as the fighter of the decade by the Sports Illustrated, Bleacher report, Fight! Magazine, valetudo.ru, About.com, and MMAfighting.com, as well as his fight with Crocop being recognized as the fight of the decade by Yahoo sports and Sports Illustrated.
6) My own 2 cents>
I find his striking in MMA can look bit sloppy and wild, his footwork doesn’t look too fluid or varied, his positional bottom ground game looks relatively lacking, , and his takedown defense isn’t probably the best around, especially when he gets taken down, due to his aggressiveness, they are so in deep on his legs it’s almost impossible to defend from there, though he fought some amazing takedown artists,and his training camps…well I hope he’s not training in some random parking lot no more, maybe Mousasi had a point when he suggested that maybe his loyalty to his trainers kept him back from evolving.
But, he hits hard and fast, great reflexes, can take a hit, is explosive on the ground and the feet, can threaten with submissions and is difficult to catch with submissions, and calm as a cucumber and cold, calculated like some Russian industrial machine. He might be the best ever when it comes to mixing his strikes with takedowns of various types, and pounding someone’s face in inside their guard. And, this guy has the heart of the warrior, spirit of the samurai, and the blood of the cyborg.
