How good was Fedor really? Was he truly elite?

[MMAK]

Lewis only lost by getting caught by big hitters when he got lazy. He never gassed. Vitali's eye was a bigger danger to vitali than Lewis's gas tank was to Lewis.

Lewis was visibly tired and bullied around the ring by Vitali during the round before the fight was stopped.

 

[Arete9]

Yes, he was that good. You have to do more research than reading a Wikipedia entry and/or record.

 

[moreorless87]

The answer is yes. You don't know shit about Pride bro. Pride was literally started as a professional wrestling organization with the differentiation that the fighting would be more real than WWF, but the outcomes equally as scripted and fixed. That is why it was so f'n entertaining, because it was specifically crafted that way and we know it was controlled by Yakuza that informed fighters if they valued their life or that of their family they would honor the fight outcomes that were expected I would appreciate if someone could show me statements otherwise but I don't think Pride ever even claimed to be anything other than what it was.

There is also a very distinct pattern of dominant Pride fighters not having near the same level of success in other organizations after it was dissolved despite claims of having such a superior level of competition.

Pride started out as an outgrowth of Takada's pro wrestling career(which was going badly, UWFI had folded, New Japan jobbed him out and the Gracies beat several ex UWFI fighters) basically built on the idea that a match with Rickson would be real because Gracies wouldnt do works. The very early stages some of the other fights looked questionable but honestly I think the fact they looked questionable tells you that pro wrestling could never pass as MMA, look at Takada vs Kyle Sturgeon and it looks a lot like a UWFi shoot style pro wrestling match just pushed a bit more towards realism and much shorter, look at the worked RINGS matches like say the Volk Han/Tamura fights and its clear this isnt real fighting.

Past the very early Pride shows I don't think theres any question of there being pro wrestling matches on the cards, there is some question of fixed matches, Coleman/Takada tends to be viewed as such but honestly people could see that pretty easily as well and the fix was not kept under wraps at all, Gary Goodridge claimed Ogawa's corner tried to pay him to drop the fight(althougbn Gary clearly didnt, you can see he's trying to KO Ogawa) as well so really you can't stop people speaking out.

Really to me the issues with bias in Pride are not much different from the UFC, potential bias in terms of match making and reffing/judging. In Fedor's case though I would argue he was never really Pride's chosen son until very near the end of his career, Nog was more popular back when he won the title and Mirko was more popular afterwards, you look at the judging and reffing in Fedor's fights and nothing looks dodgy to me in Pride, every decision is a clear win for him and no questionable reffing calls, indeed the most questionable calls arguebly went against him when the ref stood up the Mirko fight quite often in rounds 2/3.

Plus of course the idea Fedor started loosing as soon as Pride ended or as soon as he came to the US is nonsense, he didnt loose until 3-4 years after those things, he beat 2 of the 3 biggest name UFC HW's and when he lost it was to another ex Pride HW.

 

[krelianx]

Can we stop with these exorbitantly moronic fucking questions? Yes, of course Fedor was elite.

He beat Mirko, Nog, Arlovski, Hunt, Herring, Schilt, Sylvia, Coleman, Randleman, Babalu...

No, he isn't the GOAT, since there are guys who had more impressive records. But to ask if he was elite is absolutely retarded. Nobody who beats Nog like he did, when the latter was in his prime, is not elite. Same with Mirko.

 

[Greyscale]

He was elite for like 4 years while his career spanned over 20

 

[Mind Mine]

He was elite for like 4 years while his career spanned over 20

I must have caught him at year 5

 

[Doctor Grudge]

How could he not be? He was the best HW for a long time.

 

[drphil]

How good was Fedor?

I have a hard time genuinely believing that Fedor is truly elite and up there with goats such as

GSP
Anderson
MM
Jones
DC

Fedors record was too padded he fought in such a different weak era and when Fedor came up against semi modern MMA fighters he got beaten badly and could not hang

Some say that he could not hang because of his age. I do not believe this one bit. The real issue was he came up against modern MMA fighters. Isn't is such a coincidence he only started to lose once he faced true elite HWs and all of a sudden he was "out of his prime."

Anderson wrecked Hendo, Fedor a HW got wrecked by Hendo.

Werdum stopped Fedor

And I believe prime Fedor would lose to

Poatan
Anderson
Cain
DC
Aspinal
Gane
Nganu
Black Beast
Jones
Overseen


Fedor has such a padded record and had huge holes in his game

Fedor had poor Boxing, poor fight IQ, poor bottom game. Jones would take him down and elbow him to oblivion.

Fedor was a good fighter but should not be compared to the true elite.

Fedor's myth is more folk lore and myth. His best wins are Cro cop and Nog. Cro cop and nog are good but have glaring holes in their game.

This sherdog bro.
As soon as he lost...he was never good.

 

[mattemate]

Lewis was visibly tired and bullied around the ring by Vitali during the round before the fight was stopped.

My man vitali had a vagina on his eye.

That could have ended his career if it went on.

Get over it.

 

[Cartiac]

Pride started out as an outgrowth of Takada's pro wrestling career(which was going badly, UWFI had folded, New Japan jobbed him out and the Gracies beat several ex UWFI fighters) basically built on the idea that a match with Rickson would be real because Gracies wouldnt do works. The very early stages some of the other fights looked questionable but honestly I think the fact they looked questionable tells you that pro wrestling could never pass as MMA, look at Takada vs Kyle Sturgeon and it looks a lot like a UWFi shoot style pro wrestling match just pushed a bit more towards realism and much shorter, look at the worked RINGS matches like say the Volk Han/Tamura fights and its clear this isnt real fighting.

Past the very early Pride shows I don't think theres any question of there being pro wrestling matches on the cards, there is some question of fixed matches, Coleman/Takada tends to be viewed as such but honestly people could see that pretty easily as well and the fix was not kept under wraps at all, Gary Goodridge claimed Ogawa's corner tried to pay him to drop the fight(althougbn Gary clearly didnt, you can see he's trying to KO Ogawa) as well so really you can't stop people speaking out.

Really to me the issues with bias in Pride are not much different from the UFC, potential bias in terms of match making and reffing/judging. In Fedor's case though I would argue he was never really Pride's chosen son until very near the end of his career, Nog was more popular back when he won the title and Mirko was more popular afterwards, you look at the judging and reffing in Fedor's fights and nothing looks dodgy to me in Pride, every decision is a clear win for him and no questionable reffing calls, indeed the most questionable calls arguebly went against him when the ref stood up the Mirko fight quite often in rounds 2/3.

Plus of course the idea Fedor started loosing as soon as Pride ended or as soon as he came to the US is nonsense, he didnt loose until 3-4 years after those things, he beat 2 of the 3 biggest name UFC HW's and when he lost it was to another ex Pride HW.

Very good post man. I don't completely disagree with your sentiment , but I believe you are heavily downplaying the reality of corruption in Pride. There is pretty clear evidence that the legitimacy of Pride in any aspect got much worse over time, not better. We know that because after the gangsters had taken complete control over it all, there was no more room to cut anyone else in so they ended up cutting each others' throats fighting over control of Pride due to it being such a lucrative gambling racket.

What started as legit pro wrestling style scripted fights turned into something much darker pretty quickly. Very shady things started happening in the early 2000's and became very clear in 2003 with Naoto Morishita's death. There were obviously different levels and methods of how fights were controlled and some of the fights were completely real because the racket is not going to last very long without some semblance of legitimate competition, but it is impossible to identify which fights were controlled and which were not. It is also impossible to deny Fedor and Mirko's knowledge of what was happening based on their own manager's stories about how they started in Pride and everything else that went on.

It was also only 2 years in the US before Fedor started getting beaten badly. Of course after getting easily finished 3 times in a year he goes back to being unbeatable the next 5 years fighting in Russia and Japan. I am not a Fedor hater, I suffered in person through all of his horribly produced retirement event, but I have to agree with the OP that his greatness is much more mythology than reality.

 

[NenadRS]

Fedor losing 4th fight after pride was combination of things, he was out of the prime physically (33/34 vs Werdum), and got caught in submission. That was his 34th fight, not to mention all the Sambo fights that are similar to MMA fight. He also had many injuries by then, completely left ground game because of that (in the interviews he mentioned back/hip injury), and fought against guys on TRT/Roids, I know he fought against them in pride, but he was in his physical peak then and it did not matter too much.

Pride had corruption and some shady things, to keep stars on winnign streak, etc... But Fedor seemed not to be on that end, he was mostly underdog in bigger part of Pride career.

 

[HHJ]

it was clear PRIDE wanted Mirko as champion more than Fedor


BUT THEY COULDNT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

SKYNYET HAS SPOKEN

 

[jsbx45]

Fedor was the best fighter in the top Org for a decade. Anyone who tries to rationalize that he WASN"T elite is just hatin'.

 

[HereticBD]

Of course he was elite. Hell, Sean Strickland is elite. When you're hanging with the big dogs at the top(let alone winning championships), you're elite.

 

[moreorless87]

Very good post man. I don't completely disagree with your sentiment , but I believe you are heavily downplaying the reality of corruption in Pride. There is pretty clear evidence that the legitimacy of Pride in any aspect got much worse over time, not better. We know that because after the gangsters had taken complete control over it all, there was no more room to cut anyone else in so they ended up cutting each others' throats fighting over control of Pride due to it being such a lucrative gambling racket.

What started as legit pro wrestling style scripted fights turned into something much darker pretty quickly. Very shady things started happening in the early 2000's and became very clear in 2003 with Naoto Morishita's death. There were obviously different levels and methods of how fights were controlled and some of the fights were completely real because the racket is not going to last very long without some semblance of legitimate competition, but it is impossible to identify which fights were controlled and which were not. It is also impossible to deny Fedor and Mirko's knowledge of what was happening based on their own manager's stories about how they started in Pride and everything else that went on.

It was also only 2 years in the US before Fedor started getting beaten badly. Of course after getting easily finished 3 times in a year he goes back to being unbeatable the next 5 years fighting in Russia and Japan. I am not a Fedor hater, I suffered in person through all of his horribly produced retirement event, but I have to agree with the OP that his greatness is much more mythology than reality.

Pride had Yazuka money men involved with it from the start and honestly they always had strong involvement in pro wrestling going back decades, look at the death of Rikidozan which was supposedly tied up to his shooting on Kimura, just as money men though I'm guessing there would be very few Japanese pro wrestling or MMA orgs which havent had some Yazuka involvement.

Sorry but I just don't thin you really know what your talking about here, your just falling back to Sonnen like claims that masses of fights were being fixed without really considering what that means. As I mentioned when dodgy stuff did happen in Pride like Coleman/Takada it was called out almost right away and Mark himself has pretty much confirmed they got him to throw the fight in order to gain entry to the 2000 GP. The idea that Pride could have been fixing masses of fights during the 00's involving big name MMA fighters and yet nobody has called them on it just isnt realistic to me.

The truth is I would argue that Pride had to be legit because thats what the public wanted, very overt fixes would be found out and called damaging their credibility. Some booking and official bias I thin was arguably present all the way though but honestly the same is true in the US IMHO.

 

[Number 8]

He was never my friend - Dana
Can crusher - Sherdog

 

[Cartiac]

Pride had Yazuka money men involved with it from the start and honestly they always had strong involvement in pro wrestling going back decades, look at the death of Rikidozan which was supposedly tied up to his shooting on Kimura, just as money men though I'm guessing there would be very few Japanese pro wrestling or MMA orgs which havent had some Yazuka involvement.

Sorry but I just don't thin you really know what your talking about here, your just falling back to Sonnen like claims that masses of fights were being fixed without really considering what that means. As I mentioned when dodgy stuff did happen in Pride like Coleman/Takada it was called out almost right away and Mark himself has pretty much confirmed they got him to throw the fight in order to gain entry to the 2000 GP. The idea that Pride could have been fixing masses of fights during the 00's involving big name MMA fighters and yet nobody has called them on it just isnt realistic to me.

The truth is I would argue that Pride had to be legit because thats what the public wanted, very overt fixes would be found out and called damaging their credibility. Some booking and official bias I thin was arguably present all the way though but honestly the same is true in the US IMHO.

You might want to do some more research my friend. There are bits and pieces from fighters out there talking about the truth and we also know what was found with the UFC purchase, but most clearly, tt was all called out by Miro Mijatovic, Fedor and Mirko's manager. He clearly explained it all even using one of Cro Cop's fights as a specific example.

 

[KO Shotz]

The casuals & new aged MMA fans are so annoying.

PRIDE Fedor was one of the baddest mfers ever.

 

[moreorless87]

You might want to do some more research my friend. There are bits and pieces from fighters out there talking about the truth and we also know what was found with the UFC purchase, but most clearly, tt was all called out by Miro Mijatovic, Fedor and Mirko's manager. He clearly explained it all even using one of Cro Cop's fights as a specific example.

Point me to examples of fighters saying they fixed fights, point me to the fights you think were fixed, if this happened on the mass scale getting worse and worse as you claim then that shouldnt be hard.

Again your just falling back to these kind of vague "oh it wasn't sanctioned so it was all fixed" talk than someone like Sonnen used to get attention. Pride outright fixing fights on a mass scale would lead to fights we can call out as dodgy in the action, it should lead to fighters claiming they were asked to fix.

Honestly even someone like Mirko who Pride really liked and did favour a bit I would argue the favouritism is actually much less extreme than we've seen Jon Jones benefit from in the last 5 years.

 

[Cartiac]

Point me to examples of fighters saying they fixed fights, point me to the fights you think were fixed, if this happened on the mass scale getting worse and worse as you claim then that shouldnt be hard.

Again your just falling back to these kind of vague "oh it wasn't sanctioned so it was all fixed" talk than someone like Sonnen used to get attention. Pride outright fixing fights on a mass scale would lead to fights we can call out as dodgy in the action, it should lead to fighters claiming they were asked to fix.

Honestly even someone like Mirko who Pride really liked and did favour a bit I would argue the favouritism is actually much less extreme than we've seen Jon Jones benefit from in the last 5 years.

I'm not your mommy bro, I'm not to hold your hand and coddle you. It is very easy to find. If you actually are interested in learning the craziness that was happening over there I again highly recommend looking up Miro Mijatovic he explains it all first hand and it is wild stuff.

Why do you think Pride died?

Also what is with your Chael obsession? The guy has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at all but you can't stop talking about him, that is getting weird.