Without a doubt, Fedor is one of the most revered figures in hardcore MMA community. A legend with a cult following, a transcendental figure with an eerie otherworldly aura. Which, in my opinion, prevents them of getting a more clear view on his actions and achievements. And not see his career as it really is: a tragedy, a history of failed potential, missed opportunities and bad choices.
What I see as Fedor's biggest career achievements? He remained undefeated for alomost a decade. The same is true for Jon Jones and Jose Aldo. But while Jon and Jose faced top opposition in UFC, the level of Fedor's opposition is rather uneven, to say the least.
Having started his career at RINGS almost 20 years ago, Fedor immediately attracted attention with well-rounded game and flashy Sambo throws. That said, he threw around hapless guys with .500 or even negative win ratios. He also won against Arona and Babalu, who will go on and make waves at 205.
Then he beat Heath Herring to a stoppage and Semmy Schilt to a decision. He faced Big Nog for the title and that's when we saw the signature GnP. But that also tricked us into thinking Fedor is some ground machine. In fact, he displayed same holes in his ground game throughout his career. His groundwork is extremely overrated. "Fedor by armbar" is only guaranteed when someone is as clueless and tired as 40-42 year old Mark Coleman or Kerry Schall. The next BJJ black belt he faces would tap him in a minute.
After taking the belt from Nog Fedor faced Valavicius at RINGS. What's in facing a 4-2 opponent in agonizing promotion for a PRIDE HW Champ? That's a question that would keep emerging throughout his career.
Then he fought Fujita who at that time had already been mauled twice by Mirko Cro Cop, who was absolutely merciless toward pro wrestlers. However, Fujita surprised the crowd by making Fedor do chicken dance which only Fabio Maldonado would subsequently be able to replicate. He then faced Garry Goodridge who at that time had lost to every heavyweight not named Oleg Taktarov. And he capped his championship year with a traditional New Year circus show beating a 0-1 Yuji Nagata. This poor fella was victimized by Cro Cop as well, though, to Mirko's credit, it was his own 3rd MMA fight. Fedor fought Nagata being a 16-1 world champion.
Fedor's 2004 campaign opened with a win over 40-year old Mark Coleman, whose best days ended in 1997. Then a memorable win over Kevin, also at the dusk of his career and having returned to HW after years at 205. Then came Olympic silver medalist Ogawa, who boasted a win over Giant Silva himself. Finally he defended the title against Nog, reiterating what we already knew: he was better than Nog in almost every aspect. Between his first fight win Nog and his title defense against Nog he scored seven wins against clearly subpar opposition. Over the same period, Nog faced much more dangerous opponents: Herring, Cro Cop, Ricco Rod (officially a win, I'm not a judge), Sergei.
He then faced another pro wrestler Kohsaka. I assume we all know that fight made sense so let's just leave it be. The legendary Cro Cop fight followed. While the majority of Cro Cop's menacing aura came from viciously beating pro wrestlers and middleweights, he scored a couple of wins over respected heavyweights in Barnett and Igor, though the latter's time was largely over at that point. To this day, this win is considered the best by many. Indeed, Fedor showed the ability to adapt to a tough stylistic matchup and face a dangerous opponent on his territory. Still, two years later, after Mirko's UFC fiasco, this win would seem a little less historical from a legacy standpoint.
And the last fight in busy 2005 year was the classic beatdown of Zulu.
After that Fedor defended his title against a stylistically convenient Hunto. Not only he was coming off a loss to Barnett, at that time in his career he was subbed by everyone, including Sean McCorkle. And, after a few scares when Fedor couldn't pull of his fabled armbar and instead was threatened with americana, Fedor added his name to that long list.
Why not face Barnett instead? At that time, they were talking about being "friends." As the time would tell, men are known by the company they keep.
And then PRIDE collapsed. The competition between two biggest promotion didn't revolve solely around who had the better fighters. It was one business model against another. PRIDE was entertainment first and foremost. Sometimes it was the best against the best, but "the best" mostly were spectacularly dismantling horribly overmatched opposition. It's like Russian economy. Several big conglomerates join forces and launch a united offensive against small and medium enterprises instead of competing with each other. Hence lack of doping control, fixed and freak fights.
In UFC fair competition is at times sacrificed for the sake of entertainment. Think no further than undeserved title shots of Conor and Brock, free belt for Rousey. But you can't possibly imagine Stipe Miocic fighting Zulu, Nagata or Choi.
In 2007 Fedor validated his top HW status with a win over a 37-year old middleweight Matt Lindland and yet another freak fight with Hong Man Choi.
By that time most PRIDE stars had already settled in UFC, but not Fedor. Allegedly Dana's refusal to allow him Sambo tournaments was the problem. Back then, many believed in that. And no one ever raised question why on Earth would a world heavyweight champion destroy amateurs at Sambo championships. However, as Blagoi match would soon reveal, you have to actually prepare even for amateur tournaments.
The PRIDE collapse opened a new page in Fedor's life. He started to think of himself not only as the best heavyweight in the world, but also as an entrepreneur who has enough clout to dictate terms to the biggest promotions in the sport. It's not like he had to come to the promotion alongside Georges, Anderson and Nog, it's like UFC had to come to him to get him on board. Fedor aspired to be McGregor without being remotely as popular in the West.
People whose first MMA experience was PRIDE tend to overlook one harsh truth: Fedor has never became global MMA star. He was popular in Japan and Korea, he still has a couple of thousand fans in Russia and on Sherdog. He was the favorite among the press. But stateside, where the largest market is, he's never had any kind of star power. At the peak of his competitive career, he drew meager 150k PPV buys in the US. To have promoters grovel at your feet, you have to do 10-20 times better than that.
Snubbing UFC was a mistake in every respect. From a competitive standpoint, top fighter should figth in the top league. Fedor likely thought he had already proved everything by his impressive wins over Cro Cop and Big Nog. But he had a total of three title defenses against credible opponents and a dozen fights with middleweights, non-fighters and circus artists.
From a promotional standpoint, signing with UFC was the only logical move. Because without that he couldn't even make a video trailer for his event, since UFC owned all his PRIDE fights. From financial perspective, only for a Lesnar fight he was reportedly offered nice $2m. With PPV buys probably getting a huge boost from Lesnar, Fedor's total gains from this match could be many times more. He fought Sylvia at Affliction in 2008 for disclosed $800k, and there was not much to warrant a bonus from paltry PPV figures. A business model like that would soon prove critically faulty. That proved once again: you can't build an organization around a single figther. That's a reason why EliteXC went under when Kimbo Slice lost and UFC survived Conor and Ronda fallouts.
Of course, Fedor had to make some commitments that come with signing. He probably had to forget about Chois of the world. He would have to fight 5-rounders on a regular basis with mean and hungry opponents like Carwin, JDS or Cain. All this looked like a nightmare for Fedor.
Why is that? The ugly truth is, he never truly loved the sport. It's just a fact, it's not an opinion. He doesn't like to watch or discuss fights. We know a lot of fighters who couldn't imagine their life outside of the cage. Fedor's never been among them. He was just better at this than many others and it paid more handsomely than being a welder in Stary Oskol.
They say Fedor never said he was the best. I think that's demureness, since he probably wore a sweatshirt with his face and "Fedor #1" and "No one can beat me" while saying he wasn't. Not only did he consider himself better than everyone, he thought there was a rift between him and UFC roster.
And that's what eventually spelled his end. In 2008-2009 he already stop training seriously, which he admitted. He surrounded himself with priests and stooges. He didn't even bother to bring a cage to the kindergarten Rainbow where he trained. Why learn cagework if no one would survive your overhand in the center, right? Or subdued by armbar.
Anyway, Orlovski and Sylvia fights went favorably for him. Sylvia, who probably lost all motivation after failed UFC title bid, was cut down by overhands and choked out. Orlovski bout went not so well. It was a tough stylistic matchup. But Orlovski believed in renaissance of his career so much and his newfound boxing prowess. Early in the fight things didn't look too good for the Last Emperor. But Orlovski made one grave mistake when he jumped on Fedor as if he was jumping on a couch. Fedor, who was shooting a shitty C-movie instead of training, bounced once more.
After Affliciton's collapse he faced tyre worker Brett Rogers. He was a classic one-hit wonder. A stark reminder that a huge athletic guy with no skill still could make it to the top in heavyweight division.
It was a perfect matchup for Fedor, at least on paper. A bubble with clean sheet and top ranking. But the match didn't exactly end in a rout Brett would later face courtesy of Barnett or Overeem. Fedor struggled with the size of his adversary and was clueless when pressed against the fence. His patented grappling and ground game weren't there to help.
The far-sighted opponent picking continued. Next in line was Fabricio Werdum, a fellow PRIDE veteran not known for anything worth mentioning in particular, but seemingly a dream matchup for Fedor and only recenlty being demolished by surging Dos. Today people like to say, in hindsight, that Fedor allegedly chose the stronger opposition in Werdum that what UFC had to offer in Lesnar, Carwin and others. But at the time Werdum was released from the UFC and lost his spot in the top 10. Anyway, everyone expected Werdum to go sleep early once more.
About what transpired next, someone would say "Fedor was way past his prime." I don't think 34 years is "way past his prime" for a HW. Wedum went on to win the title at 37. One can't argue that over Fedor's career, he received vicious beatings from Nagatas and Zulus, which were at least as many as even mildly dangerous opponents. In fact, Fedor defense was statistically good, and besides being rocked in Fujita fight, he'd never been knocked down. He wasn't ran over by a truck like Nog or recovering from terrible accident like Mir. I also doubt he had routinely been knocked out by training partners such as Sidelnikov.
I understand if JDS vs Cain shaves 10 years off competitive career. But Fedor's problem was that he actually deteriorated over his 10 undefeated years and never made any progress. Werdum learned to strike by 40, Hunt and Junior boosted takedown defense. But Fedor's grappling was a distant memory of early 2000s and even his standup tactics became confined to hunting for that one overhand right. Everything above was on display in his next fight with Bigfoot.
Again, just like in Rogers fight, his incompetence in dealing with cage and problems with size. Unlike Rogers, Silva was able to capitalize on every hole that was there from the RINGS days. After diving under a telegraphed overhand at the start of the 2nd, Silva took Fedor down and kept him there until doctors showed mercy.
That makes me wonder, what would Fedor look like after five minutes of work from Carwin, Lesnar or Cain.
Going into his next fight against 40-year old middleweight Fedor probably thought: "This one I still can knock out." But, as it turned out, the man touted as the very best over last 10 years immediately lost all competitiveness.
What was Fedor's main takeaway from this? Did he switch camps, found decent sparring partners or at least fixed up a cage in the Rainbow kindergarten? No, he retired after demolishing a couple more washed up fighters to work as an advisor to the notorious minister Mutko, a key figure in future 2014 Winter Olympics PED scandal.
He also lead the newly formed Russian MMA Union with apparent aim to tap some cash flows. Not only this organization is a useless parasite, it was responsible for things like the decision in Maldonado fight. Obviously Fedor's idea of co-promotion with the UFC was making those honorable judges score his title fights there, too.
At any rate, Fedor's future today is murky at best. He failed to convert his star power into true success in global MMA, business, movies or politics. Every organization built around him is now dead. Can he honestly be declared heavyweight GOAT? I think, no. He never even faced the majority of top heavies of his generation - Lesnar, Carwin, JDS, Cain, Alistair, Sergei, Barnett. Yeah, Barnett scuttled one matchup. Still, they had 20 years to make it happen. Besides, he lost to Werdum and Silva. Fedor's reign over heavyweight division is marked by legions of smashed cans, middleweights and washed up fighters.
