A critical look on Fedor's career (long read)

[DarkneT]

Thank you for making an effort!

I’m the content cop around here and you have a fine to pick up.

 

[Greyscale]

What the fuck are you even on about?
Do you realise how weak the HW division is?
Especially when it was split between 2 major promotions and some minors?
We’ve got one show in town these days and yet you’ve still got JDS Overeem Arlovski and more still relevant/considered gatekeepers meanwhile discussing overachievers like Lewis Blaydes or Volkov as future champions.
You’re way off here man

It wasn't the case after 2007, right? The HW division was OK with Lesnar, Cain, JDS, Carwin and many more interesting matchups. Hell, even 70-year old Couture. Still better than Choi, Lindland and Zulu.

 

[Greyscale]

I’m the content cop around here and you have a fine to pick up.

I can change my plea to guilty, but I don't think it would stick, officer!

 

[TGArthur]

Nobody is reading your dissertation you fucking nonce.

Holy fuck I laughed way too hard at this.

 

[DarkneT]

It wasn't the case after 2007, right? The HW division was OK with Lesnar, Cain, JDS, Carwin and many more interesting matchups. Hell, even 70-year old Couture. Still better than Choi, Lindland and Zulu.

Well, forgive me if my times are a little off as one I’m replying to this half asleep and with no preparation on my mobile phone, and you clearly have done your homework.
But in the period you’re speaking of is more 2009 and onwards.
Zulu fight was a stupid fight for the Japanese to get moist over and that was in 2005? Coming off the win which cemented him as the Goat, when he out struck a prime Crocop, so let’s just ignore that comment.
When he was fighting Choi and Lindland, we had Randy as champ with Frank Mir being the uncrowned guy dealing with injurys etc and Gabe Gonzaga was considered a ‘problem’
You also had a very prime Tim Sylvia and a very prime Andrei who were having contract situations.
You seem to have left that part out?
So he ducked ‘Randy and Gonzaga’ to fight Choi and Lindland? Mate there isn’t much in that.
Considering he then blasted AA and Tim in under 5 minutes.
JDS Cain Carwin and Brock while they became viable fighters and contenders later down the road were not even uttered in the same league at this time so no you’re not having that either.

NOW!
Everyone is allowed a period in which they ‘drop off’ ‘slow down’ ‘the wars catch up with them’ ‘they get old’
I consider that the Werdum fight.
I will not discuss anything after that fight with you because I viewed that as the changing of the guard, just like when Silva lost to Bisping.

but up until that point you absolutely CANNOT deny Fedors status and you cannot use his twilight years to negate what he achieved up until that point.
During his prime when he was beating Herring, Nog, CroCop, Randleman, Coleman, Fujita, Hunt, Schilt, Sylvia and AA.
The UFC was putting on crap like AA vs Eilers and Sylvia vs Monson.
The only man in the UFC id have liked to see him fight that would have mattered would have been Randy.
We can both agree Mir would have had nothing.

Don’t talk nonsense about the freak show matches in Pride either, your long enough in the game to know there was plenty of show matches for the fans, the TK rematch the Zulu match and a few others but listen man... he handled all that accordingly.
And to echo my other statement, it’s HW.
and Pride didn’t have access to everyone.

hell it wasn’t all that long ago DC fought Derick lewis, or when Jones had that period where he had to fight Vitor and Chael (two 185lbers)
Or when Chuck fought Horn.
Or when GSP fought Dan Hardy.

It’s the nature of the beast.
Forgive my typos I’m on my phone

 

[TrueFightFan]

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.



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.

Fedor is Goat. /thread

Nobody is reading your dissertation you fucking nonce.

Nice Fedor shit thread

Me after seeing the first post of this thread -

A look at Fedor's career. (short read)
Fedor submitted God by armbar and KO'd a grizzly.
View attachment 841562

Barnett declined the fight with Fedor, that’s why he fought Hunt—not because it was “stylistically convenient” (whatever that is supposed to mean). Also Hunt didn’t fight McCorkle until later. When he fought Fedor, he was 5-1 of his previous six, with wins over Wanderlei, TK, and Mirko.
And there’s so many other false or inexplicable statements in the OP. Bigfoot capitalized on every hole that had been in Fedor’s game since the RINGS days? What does that even mean?
And how was his “vaunted ground game” not there against Rogers? Fedor’s grappling was clearly declining, but that fight was actually one of the last times his ground game *was* there: he took Rogers down, had top position, landed gnp, attempted multiple submissions... I mean, have you watched that fight ever?
Also: Fedor thought of himself as the best HW in the world? When has he ever said that? He aspires to be an entrepreneur like Conor? I mean, wtf?

Imagine putting that much effort into a Sherdog thread.

Thats a long way to say you dont like the Last Emperor. Thats ok, many before you did, many aftyer you, will. One thing will not change thou. Fedor is The Goat. Recognized by fighters, not just sherdogger of the day

I mean you pretty much summed it up. He beat a bunch of people for a long time then he lost.

You can name any fighter and I can nitpick their resumes and find ways to make their accomplishments sound like they arent impressive or good. We witnessed it, he was awesome. Hes a legend, let it fuckin rest man

Just a long rant about "wasent a good win because he was 40, wasent a good win because he lost after that, wasent a good win because he had already given up on fighting, wasent a good win because so and so beat him". Just sounds foolish

I just want to touch on the start of his career as there are a lot of a narrative that isn’t true in your post but I’ll just hit this quickly.
Fedor fought arona. Babalu and TK. Within a year of turning pro. Along with the first 3 opponents he faced. As ya know. He was 0-0 at one time.
Schilt ,herring ( who they were favored over fedor at the time). noguiera came in his third year along with probably fujita.

pride was always awesome as they would do a stay busy fight so you could see all of the stars fight at least 4 times a year.
It’s basically just a stay busy
Here’s money and fans can enjoy it too.

I’ll respond more in depth sometime this weekend.

lovely image from the old days

TS can go eat shit

Look, Dana, I'm glad you got it all off your chest but you gotta let it go, man....you weren't able to sign him, you fucked up, now move on, for all of Sherdog, it's fucking embarrassing, man.

 

[Greyscale]

Look, Dana, I'm glad you got it all off your chest but you gotta let it go, man....you weren't able to sign him, you fucked up, now move on, for all of Sherdog, it's fucking embarrassing, man.

As far as I know, Dana's doing fine, and still leading the world's #1 promotion. It's Fedor's career that failed miserably in every department over the past 10 years.

 

[TrueFightFan]

As far as I know, Dana's doing fine, and still leading the world's #1 promotion. It's Fedor's career that failed miserably in every department over the past 10 years.

Dana, your avatar speaks volumes...it's not good to dwell on the past, kitty-kat.

 

[Greyscale]

Dana, your avatar speaks volumes...it's not good to dwell on the past, kitty-kat.

Retrospective is a serious business, ya know. Besides, a lot of Fedor threads still pop up to this day, why not put my two kopecks in.

 

[TeenageMutantLesnarTurtle]

Lol the sheer amount of mental gymnastics and nitpicking in the OP to try and scrape together a narrative.

 

[Greyscale]

Lol the sheer amount of mental gymnastics and nitpicking in the OP to try and scrape together a narrative.

I assure you, Fedor fans won't be able to put together a narrative beyond "Fedor is the GOAT!" or "Fedor by armbar" or "PRIDE was better!".

 

[ThunderL1ps]

 

[Greyscale]

View attachment 841811

Actually I can show you about 10 photos like this courtesy of Pedro Rizzo, Tim Sylvia, Brett Rogers, Sergei and even Viacheslav Datsik.

 

[lafkabij]

Interesting take; at least comprehensive.

The thing about a critical look at anything is that, if you want to, you can make Fedor look like an unbeatable god-figure who would walk through every HW even today. If you want to, you can make him look like a can-crushing weeb totem. You can excuse his losses, or you can excuse his wins. You can excuse anything if you know where you want to get to.

Not having much of a dog in that race (I didn't see Fedor's career as it happened; I've seen many of the fights, but well after the fact, and that does change things), and without wanting the result to be one thing or the other, here's my impression:

He was the best HW of his era, clearly. The best state-side competition at the time were Arlovski and Sylvia, whom he finished once he did get around to them, even if it wasn't the best moment for either fighter. Just taking his A-rated fights, he did basically clean out the division, against a variety of fight styles, and was a prolific finisher. And undefeated. That makes him the best HW of all time. At least until very recently, if not still.

His record also does include a lot of padding. Which doesn't make him worse, but doesn't make him as good as if he had had similar results against more consistent competition. Of course, they are still fights, all of them. How many of them were bigger reaches than Matt Serra vs GSP (some of them, surely, but not close to all)? Anything can happen in a fight. Except against Fedor, for a decade. Maybe that's somewhat statistics and luck (I don't personally think Fedor's clout should diminish much had he had a Werdum-like loss in the middle rather than after that stretch), but it's still a freaking achievement. As much of an achievement had he done so in a UFC-like environment, where he was routinely expected to fight the top guy as they peaked (at least in theory)? Well, no. Probably not.

And his management of his career certainly did take away opportunities to further prove his point, or protect his legacy from being tarnished, depending on your perspective, and that in itself is a negative.

He's an all-time great. I think he can be surpassed/joined, even if his mystique might never be. Not sure how long someone would have to lock down the HW championship to surpass the "undefeated against mixed competition for ten years" streak. But I don't think it's ten years. Maybe somewhere around half that, depending on the competition. But I don't judge a loss here and there as harshly as some. Avoiding losses is great, but I'd rather someone risk the loss, or take one and come back, than add a win in a relatively safe fight.

 

[Sad Dad]

Fedor was turning into a sloppy brawler by the arlovski fight. His grappling prowess and hips dropped significantly after his pride days. But from an overall aspect fedor, during his glory moments, was the best to ever do it. No one had the aura fedor had. It was already gone for me by the arlovski fight and especially the Rogers fights. It seemed he had lost some of his edge by then.

 

[gono btw]

Can you imagine Jon Jones ravaging Matt Hamill several years after their first fight? That would look nothing but pathetic. If anything, his beef should've been with idiots who put stupid rules into place.

Gonna tell ya what is truly pathetic: bums like ya pretendin´they know somethin´about that era.

Callin´a legend like TK a mere 'pro-wrassler' only shows how clueless you are, mate.

It iz what it iz.

 

[Greyscale]

Gonna tell ya what is truly pathetic: bums like ya pretendin´they know somethin´about that era.

Callin´a legend like TK a mere 'pro-wrassler' only shows how clueless you are, mate.

It iz what it iz.

Yeah, sorry, I forgot every pro wrestler who lost every meaningful fight in his career is a legend in Japan.

 

[laz0001]

Fedor beat everyone who was put in front of him, for 10 years, at championship level, at HEAVYWEIGHT. No one else has surpassed that.

You can’t compare him and the level of competition to today’s athletes. Fedor beat the best at the time - who DIDN’T he beat during that 10 year run? Barnett and Couture are the only ones I can think of. But along the way, he beat 5(6?) other UFC champions.

I would put Aldo, Jones and GSP, (maybe DJ?) equal to him, and probably, if Jones does well at heavyweight, he takes the crown - but Fedor is by far the greatest HEAVYWEIGHT MMA we have seen.

 

[ThunderL1ps]

Fedor was turning into a sloppy brawler by the arlovski fight. His grappling prowess and hips dropped significantly after his pride days. But from an overall aspect fedor, during his glory moments, was the best to ever do it. No one had the aura fedor had. It was already gone for me by the arlovski fight and especially the Rogers fights. It seemed he had lost some of his edge by then.

Arlovski landed one strike on Fedor in that fight: a push kick. Everything else was slipped.

 

[TrueFightFan]

Interesting take; at least comprehensive.

The thing about a critical look at anything is that, if you want to, you can make Fedor look like an unbeatable god-figure who would walk through every HW even today. If you want to, you can make him look like a can-crushing weeb totem. You can excuse his losses, or you can excuse his wins. You can excuse anything if you know where you want to get to.

Not having much of a dog in that race (I didn't see Fedor's career as it happened; I've seen many of the fights, but well after the fact, and that does change things), and without wanting the result to be one thing or the other, here's my impression:

He was the best HW of his era, clearly. The best state-side competition at the time were Arlovski and Sylvia, whom he finished once he did get around to them, even if it wasn't the best moment for either fighter. Just taking his A-rated fights, he did basically clean out the division, against a variety of fight styles, and was a prolific finisher. And undefeated. That makes him the best HW of all time. At least until very recently, if not still.

His record also does include a lot of padding. Which doesn't make him worse, but doesn't make him as good as if he had had similar results against more consistent competition. Of course, they are still fights, all of them. How many of them were bigger reaches than Matt Serra vs GSP (some of them, surely, but not close to all)? Anything can happen in a fight. Except against Fedor, for a decade. Maybe that's somewhat statistics and luck (I don't personally think Fedor's clout should diminish much had he had a Werdum-like loss in the middle rather than after that stretch), but it's still a freaking achievement. As much of an achievement had he done so in a UFC-like environment, where he was routinely expected to fight the top guy as they peaked (at least in theory)? Well, no. Probably not.

And his management of his career certainly did take away opportunities to further prove his point, or protect his legacy from being tarnished, depending on your perspective, and that in itself is a negative.

He's an all-time great. I think he can be surpassed/joined, even if his mystique might never be. Not sure how long someone would have to lock down the HW championship to surpass the "undefeated against mixed competition for ten years" streak. But I don't think it's ten years. Maybe somewhere around half that, depending on the competition. But I don't judge a loss here and there as harshly as some. Avoiding losses is great, but I'd rather someone risk the loss, or take one and come back, than add a win in a relatively safe fight.

Extremely well put, especially since at HW, anything can happen. You mentioned GSP/Serra and we have seen freak losses/wins happen in all weight classes but for Fedor to pull off a 10 year streak is absolutely incredible. A couple of freakshow fights weren't such freakshows when they occurred, Hong Man Choi and Zulu both looked like killers until Fedor showed that they weren't. He was tremendously undersized in both fights and one well placed or lucky shot by either man would have knocked his head clean off but still, he took that chance. Nothing to gain from those fights and we see fighters walk away from "nothing to gain" fights all of the time (most recently, jon jones). During his undefeated reign, the top guys in the UFC were Sylvia, Arlovski, Mir, Buentello, Monson and it really goes downhill after Monson, so he wasn't "avoiding top competition" outside of his organization. Steroids and no-weight-limits be damned, Fedor accomplished something amazing that may never be replicated.

Hopefully, another great HW with that aura comes along but I don't see it now and I haven't seen one since, in spite of the UFC's best efforts to promote "GOAT" fighters.