By 2010 Fedor was a decade into his career with over 30 fights and multiple surgeries on his hands. He became champion in 2003 and had the biggest title defense of his career in 2004 and 2005. Naturally his coaches were openly saying that he was slowing down in 2008 and it was true.
This was around the same time Fedor finally lost in Combat Sambo which was unprecedented because when Fedor was at his peak guys were forfeiting after making it to the final round to avoid fighting him for free. So when he lost in Sambo it was obvious that he had peaked and that mixed results were not far away.
It's no coincidence he struggled with Rogers and AA around this time and won those fights with old tricks which looked like he was pulling a rabbit out of his hat. Dont get me wrong Fedor was still good and very dangerous and had lots of experience but his skills had regressed.
At his peak he could box, kick box, brawl, wrestle, grapple, scramble and submit at very high intensity and flow seamlessly from one to the other with high endurance. As he accumulated injuries and got multiple surgeries he couldn't wrestle, grapple and scramble with the same intensity so he relied less on that and more on head hunting. This was the Fedor of 2010 who signed with Strikeforce. Anyone objective could see this wasn't the guy from 2003-2005. Not physically or mentally. It's not shocking he started losing fights around this time.
On top of the mileage and injuries
Fedor was also going through a lot of personal problems off the field. He went through a divorce and his wife at the time nearly died and almost had a miscarriage while Fedor was on the flight to fight Hendo.Fighting Hendo so soon after the CTE he took from Bigfoot was a big mistake. Fedor never made excuses for these losses but these losses were explained by his coaches in a recent documentary.
Kattar took a year off after the beating he took from Holloway. Fedor got hammer fisted in the skull by a juiced up, 290lb Bigfoot for 5 minutes and then tried to fight the deadliest version of Hendo ever 5 months later and of course his chin didn't hold up and he got stopped for real for the first time in his career.
So how would this version of Fedor do against prime Cain, prime JDS, prime Lesnar, Carwin, Ubereem and young DC? Any objective Fedor fan has to admit that he wasn't fit to beat all of them. Chances are he would have mixed results. Some epic wins and probably some epic losses.
How would McGregor had to do if he had to fight nothing but elite LWs of today one after the other? He'd win some and he'd lose some.
