-I mentioned Decision Dan to highlight the fact that he was more of a wrestler than a striker, and that he evolved into a brutal striker who could stand and grapple with anyone ring or cage. His UFC fight against Jackson was amazing. I didn't say his power magically evolved. He as a fighter did. fedor didn't.
But this is just wrong on multiple levels. Hendo is an all time great, but he had fought mostly the same way for years. Fedor wasn’t some primitive fighter, he was totally well rounded: fast, slick combinations, KO power, great head movement, solid TDD, great takedowns, incredible sweeps and scrambles, great submissions.
His style was made for the ring, and adjusting that style to the cage takes time. It seems like you’re generous to Werdum who took 12-14 years to be a really good striker, but you come down on Fedor for not having a magically evolved style for the cage when his previous 32 fights were all in a ring. It takes time, and some people (e.g. Mirko) never really adapted well.
-Watch closely. It wasn't the sole reason but he did get himself bumped against the fence which worsened his situation. He was wild, unrefined and reckless and You already admitted below he couldn't deal with the cage. it was just an obvious sign that he failed to evolve. And he may have done better in Bellator later but that's because he was no longer fighting top 5 world class HW's like Werdum and Bigfoot.
I know which sequence you mean, and it’s hard to say how much the cage played a role—but what I’m saying is that Fedor already was free of the triangle once prior to that, but failed to pull his arm fully out of Werdum’s guard. He didn’t get stuck in the triangle because of the cage, it was his declining grappling that got him stuck.
-Arlovski was not a well rounded heavyweight, he had a sambo background which he neglected. He was almost a completely pure striker by the time he fought fedor. Fedor certainly never beat a great well rounded fighter. He may have beaten a lower level well rounded opponent but never a great one. It is no surprise to me he lost to 3 well rounded great fighters in strikeforce.
But he didn’t, really. Werdum was not super well rounded at that time, and Werdum won the fight with the BJJ bat had brought him to the dance for years. Fedor didn’t perform as well because he was riddled with injuries that were taking a toll, and his grappling and striking had both declined.
-I don't disagree with you that a lot of HW's today are one dimensional. Mentioning Stipe is ignorant. He was a great grappler and used it to destroy guys on the ground like Hunt and Ngannou, and also used his defensive grappling against Olympian DC and submission threats like Overeem. Stipe IMO is still the GOAT HW and the main reason is because he was a threat everywhere except submissions I think that is forgivable in an era where subs went out of the game. You think Fedor's old tricks like his armbar was gonna work against 2010's HW's? This aint old man Coleman or Hong Man Choi inside a boxing ring. I'm talking 2010's Cain, JDS, Ubereem, Stipe, Werdum, TRT BF etc. in a cockfighting cage.
I wasn’t calling Stipe one dimensional; he could box and he could wrestle well. He wasn’t some grappling ace though, he was never a threat to submit anyone, or even sweep anyone, really.
Do you think it’s only fighters like Choi that get armbarred? Aspinall subbed Volkov with an armbar just a couple of years ago. Fedor also had guillotine submissions, Jones handled Gane easily with a gilly. Speaking of Jones, he nearly got armbarred by Vitor, and Vitor isn’t even known for subbing people off his back. Jones is lucky that wasn’t Fedor he was fighting, or Jones’ arm would be hanging over Fedor’s fireplace in Stary Oskol like a trophy. Shit, Vadim Nemkov almost armbarred Ferreira just a couple weeks ago (side choked him instead).
I’ll grant you that Fedor probably wouldn’t sub people as often, but there’s this old POV I see on Sherdog a lot that these submissions are some outdated dinosaur shit that just won’t work today, and that’s just recency bias. People get subbed all the time, even at elite levels. Sambo clearly still works very well also.
