Why doesn't Werdum get credit for beating Fedor?

[Iroh]

I don't think he was completely past it, but also pretty far from his prime. Maybe like 60% past it?

Anyway, he underestimated Werdum and Werdum had a great gameplan to bait Fedor. So that's what it really came down to, IMO. Not so much whether he was past it or not.

 

[HP_Nut]

Because Fedor is over rated. If he was all that he would have accepted the offer to fight real compitition in the UFC. Instead he selected the "b" level fights to finish out his career.

Lets say i agree with you hypothetically. During the entirety of Fedors reign as Pride HW champ, UFC had 3 HW champs. Mir, Sylvia, & Arlovski. So at worst, Fedor was still the best HW of his era, those are his contemporaries. This idea that UFC was always the best is delusional, Pride and then later Strikeforce had deeper HW divisions. Only after absorbing SF was UFC Hw division best

 

[blaseblase]

He does? One of the best wins in MMA. Feels like you made up a straw man to vent against.

 

[lweiberg]

Funnily enough - and this says a lot about the magnitude of the Fedor/Werdum upset, the world-upending impact of Fedor losing after so much dominance for so long - no, I can't remember another time. I know that it did happen other times because when it happened after Fedor lost it wasn't the first time that I'd experienced it and so I wasn't surprised or confused. Off the top of my head, I'd guess that it might've happened after GSP lost at UFC 69 and/or after Chuck lost at UFC 71. And, in all honesty, I wasn't as permanent a fixture on the forums after 2012-ish, so I might also just not be able to give you more recent instances that others could point to. But the only one that's stuck in my memory, and is still a vivid memory where I can recall seeing the fight and trying to access the forums and having to wait for the forums for what felt like an eternity, is Fedor losing.

Yeah man, to me, the forums going down was almost at the magnitude of Fedor losing!

 

[BFoe]

You really don't see the disconnect in pointing out that Fedor was still so physically and technically good he could win gold medals in sambo up until 2012?

It's almost like he should've still been winning in MMA but was fighting like an idiot.

His golds from 2008-2012 were national championships, not world. I don’t think he won a world championship gold medal past 2007 (he got silver in 2008 after being outpointed by Blagoy, and I’m not sure he medaled in worlds again after that).
Still super impressive, sure, and yes his grappling was still very good in those later years. But certainly from 2009-2012 it wasn’t what it used to be.

That’s not the only element of decline though. Striking getting sloppier, not gameplanning as well or sticking to them, being impatient…those are all signs of decline too. Also adapting his style to the cage was a factor…there’s lots of factors, but I don’t really see how someone who followed his career can think the Fedor of say, 2011 is the exact same fighter as the 2003-2005 peak version.

 

[BFoe]

I don't think he was completely past it, but also pretty far from his prime. Maybe like 60% past it?

Anyway, he underestimated Werdum and Werdum had a great gameplan to bait Fedor. So that's what it really came down to, IMO. Not so much whether he was past it or not.

I kind of agree but I think he made really reckless mistakes in that grappling exchange with Werdum. Although Fedor was always an unorthodox and risky grappler, he usually had the athleticism to pull it off. But that fades of course over time.

 

[Reapzz]

Fedora was my favorite fighter. Ivr always given Werdum credit. He lured Fedor in perfectly. It was around that time you could tell Fedor started slacking a bit in his lifestyle/training. He was really heavy into that religious bs with his priest. Werdum was a great fighter. If he had worked on his stand-up more, earlier in his career, and been a bit younger, he could possibly still be in the UFac

 

[laleggenda27]

Lol.

If Fedor had instead won by 50 second KO like he thought he had in the bag when he dropped Werdum you wouldn’t be saying he was clearly slowing down.

I was already saying it before the fight.

 

[fzoid4454]

Because people like saying Fedor was undefeated. But Werdum did beat Fedor legitimately, and there wasn't really anything about Fedor's performance that suggested it would have went differently if he had fought him a year before that. People try to lump Fedor's performance with Silva with Werdum. Fedor was past it after Werdum.

People like to have their cake and eat it too. Just yesterday in another thread guys were talking about how ferocious and aggressive Fedor was in his prime. But the usual arguments to discredit Werdum's win is that "Fedor was wreckless and too aggressive". Werdum tricked him, and people don't like admitting when athletes they have turned into heroes have flaws.

I've also heard utterly bizarre arguments that say the reverse about Fedor's prime, that Fedor was omega calculated and would never fight someone in their strength, even though he literally did do that all the time. Fedor even did that with another grappler who was famous for submitting people off his back in Nogueria.

And that's not to mention Fedor legitimately thought he hurt Werdum, so hit wasn't like he was just a rabid animal, he was using his killer instinct because he thought he was going to win.


Werdum is one of the best HWs ever, and was just mislabeled as a "tier 2 guy" because he had a few losses in the big leagues when he was not in his prime yet.

People call Werdum a level-2 guy? He's an all-time great, IMO.

 

[ModernMatt]

I think Werdum’s status as an all time great is mostly due to this win, and his win over Cain.

....but that wasn't against sea level Cain

 

[Intermission]

Nobody really gives him credit. Everyone downplays his win by saying Fedor was past his prime. Fedor was 32 when he lost for the first time. At heavyweight that is young. When Fedor lost to Bader I could say he was truly past his prime and washed... but for Werdum? He's slightly past his prime at best. Some could argue he was still at his best. Yet no one gives credit to Werdum for figuring out Fedor and laying out a trap that Fedor fell right into.

Because it looks like a one-off. He tricked Fedor. Sort of like Conors win over Aldo

 

[WildShrimper]

He did get credit when it happened, it was a huge deal and the end of Fedors streak

 

[Elvis.]

Everyone who knows what their talking about gave him credit, everyone else was just really sad and didn’t want to admit it so they tried to justify it anyway they could