"Fedor fought easy competition in Japan"

[Substance Abuse]

 

[philcrow]

Dana was a real jerk off back around this time. Still is kinda, but way worse back then. Shit on so many fighters until they had no choice but to sign with him when other orgs folded, and then he changed his tune and lied about things he said about them. He could never get control of Fedor to make money off him, and that drove him nuts. So he had to take every opportunity to shit on the guy. I think without the Dana nuthuggers repeating his bullshit for so long, it wouldn't have been an issue.

 

[MMACro]

Fedor was the best in his era,and fought the best there was until the end of his career
Fought lot of cans too
He can be great and you can say he fought cans as well.Japan was a freakshow
Both statements are true

 

[BlankaPresident]

Nice history lesson but these kids don't deserve it.

 

[Greyscale]

Time to give the boys a free history lesson, as it appears that there is a lot of new Conor era UFC fans who don't know mma history.

Let's be clear, between 2000 and 2006, Pride FC was the premier mma organisation and UFC was not even close to being on the same level. That is why Dana White was trying to co-promote with Pride, so he could build UFC brand. In 2003, he took UFC's biggest star Chuck Liddell to compete in Pride Final Conflict, eventually losing to Rampage Jackson (Rampage mauled him with brutal body shots ground and pound). Dana White who was watching ride side in Tokyo, was almost in tears as he knew the UFC was in debt to the tune of tens of millions and his biggest star was dominated really bad. The corner threw in the towel to stop the violence. To date, it's probably one of the most brutal fights I've witnessed.

Pride FC was the premier product with massive production shows backed by DSE and heavily funded by Fuji and other investors. They use to do a massive pre-show event before each show and it was amazing to watch. The fights would pull huge numbers, Pride shockwave 2002 for example had over 70,000 people in attendance. At the time UFC would have around 5000-10,000 people attending per show. Big difference. The fighters were also getting paid much bigger amounts this has been confirmed by many fighters who fought in both promotions.

UFC was very close to folding with over 40m in debt and in 2005 they survived as they got a big break from TUF1. This is what saved the UFC. If they had not got the Spike deal, I doubt the UFC would have continued. UFC managed to clear their debts as the TV show fueled the PPV shows.

Few years later in 2007, Pride folded because of the yakuza scandal leading to Fuji to pull out of the TV deal, this left Pride FC in a tough spot and they sold the company to the UFC for 70 million. At the time, Fedor was the man. He was the face of mma. UFC fighters were trying to leave the UFC to get a fight with Fedor, Randy Couture and Dana had a massive battle over it. Randy wanted to leave the UFC to go fight Fedor, and Dana took legal action against Randy to stop it. Ex UFC champs Sylvia and Arlovski both went to Affliction to fight Fedor, both were KO'd.

Ok, so what happened next? In 2009 Fedor went to Strikeforce because he got a better deal with Strikeforce, it's as simple as that. Fedor talked about how Dana lied about the numbers that he came out with in public, 30m for 6 fights or whatever Dana said at the time was not true. Fedor even said that M1 co-promotion was not a requirement, but they just needed a deal that was competitive with Strikeforce and it never came.

In any case, Strikeforce had the better HW roster anyway. Strikeforce had Overeem, Barnett, Cormier, Werdum, Bigfoot, Arlovski and many others.. UFC had Lesnar, Mir, Carwin, and Velasquez.

Fedor was essentially undefeated with 31 wins with only one loss (cut which was stopped by doctor in a fight he later avenged) from 2000 - 2009 was completely unheard of at the time. Fedor was very small heavyweight but completely outclassed his opponents with his technique. This is why he was and is considered the GOAT. At the time, he had like 6 wins against former UFC champions (Today it's 9 UFC champions). So if Fedor was fighting cans, were the 6 UFC champions a bunch of cans? Ok so the UFC had a bunch of cans as champions, got it. See the flaw in your logic Conor era UFC fan boys?

Now, let's go back to Pride. I have no idea where this narrative has come from where people think that the competition in Japan was easier. I've compiled a list of Pride FC fighters, I'm sure I missed a whole heap of fighters.. but I'm just trying to make a point here that Pride had the superior fighters in the early and mid 2000s. All the big names were signed to Pride, not UFC. The UFC only surpassed Pride when it folded in 2007.

So, it's safe to say that heavyweights who stayed with the UFC were ducking Fedor by fighting easier competition in the UFC. The list below of Pride fighters is much better than the UFC had at the time.

Pride FC fighters:
Alexander Emelianenko
Alistair Overeem
Anderson Silva*
Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira
Chuck Liddell*
Dan Henderson
Don Frye
Fabrício Werdum
Fedor Emelianenko
Gary Goodridge
Gegard Mousasi
Gilbert Yvel
Hayato Sakurai
Heath Herring
Hector Lombard
Igor Vovchanchyn
James Thompson
Josh Barnett*
Josh Thomson*
Kazushi Sakuraba
Kazuyuki Fujita
Ken Shamrock*
Kevin Randleman*
Mark Coleman
Mark Hunt
Mark Kerr
Mauricio Rua
Melvin Manhoef
Mirko Filipović
Murilo Rua
Paulo Filho
Quinton Jackson
Ricardo Arona
Renato Sobral
Ricco Rodriguez*
Robbie Lawler*
Royce Gracie*
Semmy Schilt
Sergei Kharitonov
Shinya Aoki
Takanori Gomi
Valentijn Overeem
Vitor Belfort*
Wanderlei Silva

* Had fights in both UFC and Pride between 2000 - 2006.

That's the kind of bullshit fedortards usually bring up. 9 "UFC champions" and all. Yes, when he fought them (2-11 years after they lost their belts) they were indeed mostly a bunch of cans. Mark Coleman was putting up Takada, Quinton Jackson was a blob and Frank Mir was tapping to strikes standing.
It's really impressive that Pride FC had Mark Kerr, Valentijn Overeem, Ken Shamrock, Josh Barnett, Gilbert Yvel, Igor Vovchanchyn, Kharitonov and others. But when we look at Fedor's resume it becomes clear that he preferred to fight Yuji Nagata, Egidijus Valavicius, Zulu and Choi instead of them.

 

[Fedorgasm]

Fedor was the best in his era,and fought the best there was until the end of his career
Fought lot of cans too
He can be great and you can say he fought cans as well.Japan was a freakshow
Both statements are true

That's actually not true either though.
He didn't fight a lot of cans, he fought a few. Pretty much zuluzhino, nagata, and hong man choi. All on a new year's eve event.

 

[Koro_11]

No one is going to read all that shit, let the dummies, who don’t know, remain clueless.

We who were around during that time know that Pride was superior, and that Fedor is heavy weight GOAT.

Connor era nobs are not worth addressing or educating, let them think what they want.

 

[BlankaPresident]

That's actually not true either though.
He didn't fight a lot of cans, he fought a few. Pretty much zuluzhino, nagata, and hong man choi. All on a new year's eve event.

It's funny that people hold the freak fights against Fedor as if he fought them instead of legit fights, when it was in addition to them.

If you just erased them, Fedor still would have a busier fight schedule than any UFC champ.

 

[chinarice]

The Babyfaced Assassin would have beat him

 

[Cletus Fertitta]

You should be banned for this post. Maybe @BFoe is busy making breakfast or something, but hopefully your time will come.

oh god no anything but that. How could I possibly go on.

 

[Cletus Fertitta]

This is a common way people try to discredit Fedor. They'll point to a time where he fought someone that wasn't a contender.

But of course they're missing the context for these fights as well.

There was a tradition in Pride to put on the biggest new year's eve events, and they were loaded with what they considered fun fights, or what we might call freakshow fights.

This is why Fedor fought zuluzhino, and hong man choi.

They weren't meant to be serious fights against top ranked guys.

Also, people act like Fedor was taking these fights instead of fighting the best guys. But in reality he was taking these fights on top of fighting the best guys.

For instance, when he fought Yugi nagata on new year's eve, Fedor had already fought 4 times that year. When he fought Zuluzhino, he'd already fought 2 times that year. UFC champs almost never fight a third time in a year anymore.

So these NYE eve fights were just a cherry on top, they were never there on lieu of real competition.

What do you mean bro? Hong Man Choi was a decorated kickboxer and elite grappler.

 

[JKS]

Eye roll. Why do you Fedor people have to have everyone agree with you guys. Haven’t you guys made enough polls? Haven’t there been enough threads? Defending this guys honor constantly like he’s your fucking grandma.

Hey why isn’t Hong Man Choi on that list.

In fairness, most of these threads by Fedor fans are in response to criticism of him and his legacy. Every so often someone in the media, either a fighter or journalist say something to criticize Fedor. This week it was Daniel Cormier who came out and said his legacy was a myth. Which triggers a series of threads going back and forth. If critics are out there talking negatively about him, his fans have the right to respond back.

And it's pretty much this pattern all the time where it's initiated by someone being critical of Fedor.

 

[CasualBot]

 

[JBJ was here]

It's funny that people hold the freak fights against Fedor as if he fought them instead of legit fights, when it was in addition to them.

If you just erased them, Fedor still would have a busier fight schedule than any UFC champ.

Fedor defended his championship less than once a year. Not all the non-title fights were freak-show fights, but most of them weren't against then-currently-high-level fighters either, and none of them, even including the title defenses, were against HWs with a solid mix of MMA grappling and striking skills.

 

[Fedorgasm]

The Babyfaced Assassin would have beat him

I like Barnett and he was very good, but I don't see him beating Fedor.

He went 1-1 against Nog, while Fedor was 2-0 vs Nog.

And he went 0-3 vs Mirko, while Fedor went 1-0 with Mirko.

At best you could say Barnett was the number 3 or 4 HW in the world at the time.

 

[BlankaPresident]

Fedor defended his championship less than once a year. Not all the non-title fights were freak-show fights, but most of them weren't against then-currently-high-level fighters either, and none of them, even including the title defenses, were against HWs with a solid mix of MMA grappling and striking skills.

Many of his high level fights were in GPs and thus didn't count as belt defenses. That's the way Pride worked back then. GPs were as prestigious, if not more, than divisional belts.

 

[Savage]

Time to give the boys a free history lesson, as it appears that there is a lot of new Conor era UFC fans who don't know mma history.

Let's be clear, between 2000 and 2006, Pride FC was the premier mma organisation and UFC was not even close to being on the same level. That is why Dana White was trying to co-promote with Pride, so he could build UFC brand. In 2003, he took UFC's biggest star Chuck Liddell to compete in Pride Final Conflict, eventually losing to Rampage Jackson (Rampage mauled him with brutal body shots ground and pound). Dana White who was watching ride side in Tokyo, was almost in tears as he knew the UFC was in debt to the tune of tens of millions and his biggest star was dominated really bad. The corner threw in the towel to stop the violence. To date, it's probably one of the most brutal fights I've witnessed.

Pride FC was the premier product with massive production shows backed by DSE and heavily funded by Fuji and other investors. They use to do a massive pre-show event before each show and it was amazing to watch. The fights would pull huge numbers, Pride shockwave 2002 for example had over 70,000 people in attendance. At the time UFC would have around 5000-10,000 people attending per show. Big difference. The fighters were also getting paid much bigger amounts this has been confirmed by many fighters who fought in both promotions.

UFC was very close to folding with over 40m in debt and in 2005 they survived as they got a big break from TUF1. This is what saved the UFC. If they had not got the Spike deal, I doubt the UFC would have continued. UFC managed to clear their debts as the TV show fueled the PPV shows.

Few years later in 2007, Pride folded because of the yakuza scandal leading to Fuji to pull out of the TV deal, this left Pride FC in a tough spot and they sold the company to the UFC for 70 million. At the time, Fedor was the man. He was the face of mma. UFC fighters were trying to leave the UFC to get a fight with Fedor, Randy Couture and Dana had a massive battle over it. Randy wanted to leave the UFC to go fight Fedor, and Dana took legal action against Randy to stop it. Ex UFC champs Sylvia and Arlovski both went to Affliction to fight Fedor, both were KO'd.

Ok, so what happened next? In 2009 Fedor went to Strikeforce because he got a better deal with Strikeforce, it's as simple as that. Fedor talked about how Dana lied about the numbers that he came out with in public, 30m for 6 fights or whatever Dana said at the time was not true. Fedor even said that M1 co-promotion was not a requirement, but they just needed a deal that was competitive with Strikeforce and it never came.

In any case, Strikeforce had the better HW roster anyway. Strikeforce had Overeem, Barnett, Cormier, Werdum, Bigfoot, Arlovski and many others.. UFC had Lesnar, Mir, Carwin, and Velasquez.

Fedor was essentially undefeated with 31 wins with only one loss (cut which was stopped by doctor in a fight he later avenged) from 2000 - 2009 was completely unheard of at the time. Fedor was very small heavyweight but completely outclassed his opponents with his technique. This is why he was and is considered the GOAT. At the time, he had like 6 wins against former UFC champions (Today it's 9 UFC champions). So if Fedor was fighting cans, were the 6 UFC champions a bunch of cans? Ok so the UFC had a bunch of cans as champions, got it. See the flaw in your logic Conor era UFC fan boys?

Now, let's go back to Pride. I have no idea where this narrative has come from where people think that the competition in Japan was easier. I've compiled a list of Pride FC fighters, I'm sure I missed a whole heap of fighters.. but I'm just trying to make a point here that Pride had the superior fighters in the early and mid 2000s. All the big names were signed to Pride, not UFC. The UFC only surpassed Pride when it folded in 2007.

So, it's safe to say that heavyweights who stayed with the UFC were ducking Fedor by fighting easier competition in the UFC. The list below of Pride fighters is much better than the UFC had at the time.

Pride FC fighters:
Alexander Emelianenko
Alistair Overeem
Anderson Silva*
Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira
Chuck Liddell*
Dan Henderson
Don Frye
Fabrício Werdum
Fedor Emelianenko
Gary Goodridge
Gegard Mousasi
Gilbert Yvel
Hayato Sakurai
Heath Herring
Hector Lombard
Igor Vovchanchyn
James Thompson
Josh Barnett*
Josh Thomson*
Kazushi Sakuraba
Kazuyuki Fujita
Ken Shamrock*
Kevin Randleman*
Mark Coleman
Mark Hunt
Mark Kerr
Mauricio Rua
Melvin Manhoef
Mirko Filipović
Murilo Rua
Paulo Filho
Quinton Jackson
Ricardo Arona
Renato Sobral
Ricco Rodriguez*
Robbie Lawler*
Royce Gracie*
Semmy Schilt
Sergei Kharitonov
Shinya Aoki
Takanori Gomi
Valentijn Overeem
Vitor Belfort*
Wanderlei Silva

* Had fights in both UFC and Pride between 2000 - 2006.

Anyone who was around during that era would agree.

 

[Ibm]

He would have still cleaned the UFC division at that time, maybe its true he fought easy fights but does not necessarily mean he was overrated.

 

[MMACro]

That's actually not true either though.
He didn't fight a lot of cans, he fought a few. Pretty much zuluzhino, nagata, and hong man choi. All on a new year's eve event.

I would say definitely more then just those 3

 

[chinarice]

I like Barnett and he was very good, but I don't see him beating Fedor.

He went 1-1 against Nog, while Fedor was 2-0 vs Nog.

And he went 0-3 vs Mirko, while Fedor went 1-0 with Mirko.

At best you could say Barnett was the number 3 or 4 HW in the world at the time.

Would have loved to see it. I was always a big fan of Josh Barnett even from his 1st UFC stint. Obviously he would have been a huge dog but Barnett was a great fighter who could give fits to the majority of HWs.