#10: Fedor Emelianenko

Photo by Tomokazu Tazawa/Getty Images

They called him ‘The Last Emperor’ but as all-time great MMA heavyweights go perhaps ‘The First Emperor’ would be a more apt moniker.

Fedor Emelianenko is undoubtedly the greatest heavyweight mixed martial artist of the sports first two decades, much like James J. Jeffries was the greatest heavyweight boxing champion in the few decades since gloved boxing became a regular occurrence.

Given that Fedor’s prime fighting years started nearly twenty years ago and ended the best part of a decade ago, and that we have seen multiple all-time greats emerge in that time, we must ask how much does that matter.

First: the facts. Fedor Emelianenko was the best heavyweight in the world. It seems stupid to say it, but there was no question at the time that Fedor Emelianenko was the gold standard. Sure, fans wanted to see Fedor take on the UFC champions that reigned during his time as the best heavyweight outside of the UFC, but I cannot stress enough that he was not the one that needed legitimising.

Fedor was so revered in his prime that Mick Hammond once wrote:

To say there are champions and then there are dynasties has become an ever-fleeting concept in sports. More so now than ever there is a parity that levels each sport’s playing field, but every once in a while there is something special that comes a long that lasts a long time. Thus is Fedor Emelianenko, the undisputed consensus number one heavyweight and pound-for-pound fighter in the world. A champion so formidable that he makes all other previous champions seem like ashes in his wake.(1)

One day, like all great champions, Fedor would be amongst those ashes.

First, the elephant in the room: Fedor was not exposed by the winds of change but by the familiar clanking of the wheels of time, his great talent falling prey to a once granite exterior crumbling into the sea, eroded by too many fights, too many hard training sessions and too many full-contact sambo tournaments.

And no, this writer does not believe the Russian’s skillset simply become superseded by modern fighters. Fedor has never been a relic. He was ahead of his time in his own time, and his arsenal would hold up just fine today in a young mans body.

File him next to Roy Jones Jr then; a fighter who had it all once his body could hold up under the duress of athletic endeavours other human beings don’t come close to, but who resembled a dandelion in a hurricane once their natural gifts ditched them.

It’s those prime years we care about. But before we can get to the prime, we must start at the beginning.

Harsh Beginnings

Growing up in near-poverty in Stary Oskul, Russia, Fedor and his three siblings shared a single room with his parents and grew up tough. Judo was an early outlet for Fedor (and later Sambo, a Russian martial art that mixes striking in with the grappling of Judo) but when he could not get funding from the government (which might not have been a problem in the halcyon days—at least for athletes—of the Soviet Union) he instead did what any number of poor young Russian men did and joined the army.

“Let me put it like this” said Fedor, “It warms my soul that I went through it (military service). I developed my character there, toughened. I went in as a boy and came out as a man with a hardened resolve”.(2)

The man that came out of the army would use his martial arts background to advance his studies, becoming a ‘Master of Sports’ in both judo and sambo, the highest level of acclaim a Russian master can achieve, and placed third in the 1997 Russian judo championships.

But with little money to be made, and without funding to compete in major international tournaments, the former soldier and accomplished martial artists did the only thing he knew to do well: fight.

RINGS

Japanese wrestling legend Akira Maeda’s promotion Fighting Network RINGS went from strong style to real fighting in the late 90s, and Fedor was one of many fighters from the former Soviet bloc that quickly made a name for themselves. Most notably, Maeda fought legendary Greco competitor Alexander Karelin, a fight that you might say blurred the lines between puroresu and legitimate fighting, much the same as other apparently shoot fights of the era in Japan.

There was nothing staged about Fedor’s fights: already an experienced sambist, to watch Fedor’s early fights is to see a fighter still figuring out his style, hampered no doubt by the restriction of ground strikes that prohibited head shots to a downed opponent. Still, Fedor started well, going 4-0 to start his professional MMA career.

RINGS had a talented roster at the time, with future legends Dan Henderson, ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira, dangerous Dutchman Gilbert Yvel, and fighters who would become mainstays of MMA over the next few decade such as ‘Babalu’ Sobral, Jeremy Horn and some skinny kid fighting out of Amsterdam called Alistair Overeem.

Fedor ran through his opponents, including Japanese wrestling standout Hiroya Takeda, but generally it seems that Fedor did not face off with the best possible opposition, matched relatively soft early to account for his lack of pro experience and unluckily missing out on the chance to advance into the later rounds of the 2000 ‘King of Kings’ tournament.

The most talented foe Fedor squared off with during his time in RINGS was undoubtedly Ricardo Arona. One of the best grapplers in the world (winning the ADCC World championships at 99kg in the same year, and repeating in 2001, also winning in the ‘Absolute’ class) the tonk Brazilian was—like Fedor—still finding his feet in the world of MMA. He was 2-0, his prior fight a split decision win over Jeremy Horn. Whilst inexperienced, Arona was not quite a fish out of water, as the crafty American already had competed over 50 times and held a win over Chuck Liddell. Pre-prime, yes, but Arona was legit.

Arona shot on Fedor early and succeeded, his smaller stature not an issue as he mounted Fedor without much hassle. Fedor showed his own grappling ability, reversing mount on more than one occasion. On the feet, Fedor was clearly better, but the ground game had left both men spent, Fedor exploding off of his back and Arona diligently working for more advantageous positions. Fedor threatened with a guillotine, but at the end of two rounds a draw was rendered, and to my eyes was absolutely fair. Thus a tie-breaker third was a necessity, and Fedor stuffed enough of Arona’s takedown attempts and dug in enough punches to the thigh and midsection that he won the round and the fight. Not pretty, but 4-0.

For a little while at least. On the same card, Fedor—who already had a nick on the nose from the Arona fight—suffered the first loss of his career, when grappler Tsuyoshi Koshaka grazed Fedor with an elbow (completely unintentional) and the Russian was badly cut.

An unsatisfactory end to Fedor’s tournament, and unsatisfactory to MMA history buffs: the tournament also featured ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira and Randy Couture. The latter would be a mooted opponent for Fedor for many years, but the fight would never happen.

The former would be Fedor’s greatest rival. It would be three years before they met in the ring, and would be well worth the wait.

PRIDE FC

Fedor bounced back and won two RINGS tournaments (2001 Openweight and Absolute Class) with the best win accrued during these tournaments over the aforementioned ‘Babalu’ Sobral, the future Strikeforce light-heavyweight titlist. In spite of Fedor still working his way towards being perhaps the greatest fighting force in MMA history, his opponents around this time still speak of him in glittering terms today.

“The toughest without a doubt was Fedor. The guy who I could not…I fought, and said: “Damn bro, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do. I tried and tried some positions. I tried a footlock, but actually I was just surviving there. I was just wanting it to be over soon (laughs) I was wanting the fight to be over”(3)

So said a now-veteran Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral in 2013: a man who by this stage of his career had fought Dan Henderson, Robbie Lawler, Gegard Mousasi, Chael Sonnen, Maurico ‘Shogun’ Rua, Chuck Liddell, some of them more than once.

But for him, 6-1 Fedor Emelianenko remained the toughest of his career.

Another opponent still in awe of RINGS-era Fedor years after the fact was Aussie Chris Haseman, a BJJ black belt who was dropped with a check hook almost instantaneously.

Fedor was like a Mack Truck with no off switch. His dexterity and his punching was something else. He was very explosive. He puts everything into every punch he throws. He launches himself. He had that rotational strength that meant he could throw an under-hook and put someone on their back with just half a rotation. He does it so easily. I remember everything.
Even if you can match him kilo for kilo or pound for pound, the guy would probably out-power most. When I fought him, we’re talking about probably a 15-kilo difference. I was really up against it, but even if we had weighed the same, the difference in power and strength would have remained.”(4)

Haseman bravely battled back, Fedor having to show great hips to not be chucked to the mat, later fighting off a heel-hook attempt before battering Haseman on the feet. This frenetically violent display all took place inside of three minutes yet left a profound effect on Haseman.

“I fought Matt Hughes, Evan Tanner, even Mark Kerr in Abu Dhabi. Mark Kerr was on everything bar roller-skates, but Fedor was in a different league to all those guys. It was his dexterity that was most impressive. Fedor’s key is being a little off-tempo. His punches come from every angle. Sometimes when you fight the most practiced and technical fighter you can read what they’re going to do. With Fedor, though, that was never the case. He had a style and a rhythm all of his own. The punches would come in sets, but no two sets were ever the same. There was no chance to second guess him or get to grips with his tempo. He sets his own pace and rhythm. It’s not like any other.”(4)

These skills Fedor possessed would only become more apparent to the wider world over time. It’s something the stacked roster of PRIDE Fighting Championships would find out much sooner.

First up for Fedor in Pride was Dutchman Semmy Schilt, built like an NBA center with range for days. A Karateka who made his mixed martial arts debut in 1996, Schilt is more widely known amongst combat sports enthusiasts today for his storied kickboxing career. What goes largely forgotten is that he was a more-than-competent mixed martial artist, a former King of Pancrase boasting a 19-10-1 record and undefeated (3-0) in the Pride ring.

No match for Fedor though, who largely controlled the towering Schilt on the ground for much of the bout, picking up a hard-fought decision victory.

Next up for Fedor was Heath Herring, the ‘Texas Crazy Horse’ who became the Texas trial horse for Fedor.

A former Pride title challenger, Herring had a wrestling background but had been training diligently with famed Dutch coach Cor Hemmers around the time of this fight.

The training did not seem to rub off much on Herring though, as he started the bout with a naked kick and was tossed to the mat immediately.

Semmy Schilt had shown his ability to survive on the mat with Fedor, withstanding a neck crank, sporadic ground and pound and withstanding being mounted for much of the fight, but Herring was rag dolled in a way that would define Fedor’s prime, and something that RINGS—and to an extent the crafty Dutchman Schilt—had minimised.

Fedor danced around Herring on the ground and whipped in thudding punches and dropped smashing knees to the head. Within a few minutes Herring was busted up. Before the second round he had been stopped, suplexed and battered along the way and pulled out with a busted-up face despite gaining a more advantageous position towards the end of the round.

Four months later at Pride 25, Fedor would prove himself the world’s best heavyweight. In the opposite corner would be the Pride champion, an iron man who had survived being run over by a truck in his youth and was now seemingly capable of surviving anything.

‘Minotauro’ Nogueira was as tough as they come, and crafty too. On the feet he was competent, a basic boxing and kicking game allowing him to work at range and had underrated strength in the clinch allowing for a tiring inside game. It was on the ground that he was a master, with 14 submissions to his name and black belts in both judo and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

‘Big Nog’ (as he is affectionately known due to his twin brother ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira fighting in a lower division) had lost just once, in the final of the 1999 RINGS King of Kings tournament to Dan Henderson. Going into his title defence against Fedor he was undoubtedly in his prime, 13 wins in a row including avenging the loss to Henderson via, you guessed it, submission. Nogueira had beaten Semmy Schilt, Heath Herring, Edson Inoue, former UFC Heavyweight champion—and if you’re into that kinda’ thing the reigning lineal heavyweight champ—Mark Coleman, and Valentijn Overeem, who was coming off an impressive win over Randy Couture.

But it was against the monstrous Bob Sapp that ‘Big Nog’ made his reputation: dumped on his head multiple times by ‘The Beast’, who at this point did not know his limitations and was thus a terrifying man. Nogueira must have felt like he was the boy who had been run over by a truck again, with Sapp smashing him upside the head and jumping all over him.

But that toughness won through in the end, the reigning champion snatching an armbar after Sapp gassed out trying to crush him and miraculously snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

Fedor had a lot of respect for the champion going into their first fight:

“I think he is the best fighter in the world right now. He is an incredible boxer”.

Fedor then was wary of Nog’s stand-up game, but not as concerned about going to the ground. This may have seemed arrogant, but the way the title fight played out, with hindsight we can see why Fedor was not concerned about the champ’s submission prowess.

Not that expert analysts were as confident as the Russian.

Former UFC Heavyweight champ and then Pride FC commentator Bas Rutten:

“Fedor is like a little pitbull, he’s like a wolverine. Once he gets a hold on you he’s not going to let you go and he starts punching from the mount. He’s phenomenal on the ground. What can he do against Nogueira? I don’t know. Nogueira is super-human right now, I mean he beat Bob Sapp in that unbelievable fight we saw. I don’t know”.

Nogueira candidly revealed before the fight that he was nervous, the need to retain his championship and fight for national pride adding an extra layer of importance to the fight.

With that spurring him on, it was that legendary chin and iron will that ‘Big Nog’ needed most to survive against Fedor, but there would be no Hollywood-ending for the champion.

In a bout that has received innumerable plaudits over the years, Emelianenko sat in Nogueira’s guard regularly and hammered away, leaping in-and-out dropping bombs and rearranging the face of the best heavyweight in the world.

It was ‘the greatest heavyweight fight thus far’, according to Pride commentator Stephen Quadros, who added that, ‘Most pundits felt it would be suicide for Fedor to even get close to ‘Minotauro’s’ guard. So what happened? Emelianenko dove right into Nogueira’s guard and stayed there the whole match, brutalising Rodrigo and snatching the gold’.

Ranked by Sherdog as one of the 10 greatest bouts of all time and described by the UFC as a fight that ‘sits on top of MMA’s Mount Olympus’, here we see Fedor’s versatility on the ground: not just capable of controlling and pounding on the like of Schilt and Herring, he was also capable of drubbing a crafty and hard as nails champion such as Nogueira, who managed to sweep Fedor only to get swept back and punched some more.

Emelianenko looked like the Terminator inside the ring. He bashed Nogueira on the feet, avoided his submissions and pounded the Brazilian into the mat when the fight hit the ground. The ferocity with which Emelianenko ripped into “Minotauro” on the canvas was a sight to behold; it was at times so violent that it became disturbing to watch.(5)

The now deposed champion carried himself with the class he would always be known for:

“For sure, he defended himself successfully. He was fast, too. Moreover, he kept a good position and didn’t try to pass my guard as long as there was no chance. It doesn’t mean he was passive there. He kept moving.”(6)

The new champion did not capitalise on the newfound respect and acclaim he received. Less than a month after winning the Pride championship he smashed future Bellator light heavyweight Egidijus Valavicius for old promotion RINGS, then returned to Pride, briefly being separated from his senses by hard-headed Kazuyuki Fujita before rallying to beat up and submit the limited former lineal champion. UFC and Pride veteran Gary Goodridge was then soccer kicked into oblivion in just over a minutes worth of fighting, and Fedor then stepped away from Pride to fight at wrestling legend Antonio Inoki’s disastrous New Years Eve ‘Bom-Ba-Ye’ show in an unnecessary squash match with pro wrestling legend Yuji Nagata.

Returning to Pride, Fedor faced more impressive competition again. First, Mark Coleman, who had seen better days but at least had improved since his abysmal run at the end of his UFC tenure. Since heading East, Coleman had gone 7-2, and regained the confidence he lost when the sport of MMA seemingly figured out his caveman style once and for all. Still, rushing Fedor and taking him down early is hardly the strategy for much success, and Fedor easily submitted Coleman with an armbar in the first round.

What was likely to be the most interesting fight of the 2004 Pride heavyweight Grand-Prix was Fedor taking on dangerous Croatian striker Mirko ‘Cro Cop’ Filipovic. But in one of the most stunning upsets in MMA history, former UFC heavyweight champ Kevin Randleman showed some nous in attempting takedowns early, only to use the threat of them to feint an opening for a big left hook that sat Cro Cop down, following it up with some vicious ground and pound to the throat of the fallen Croatian.

A big fight lost then (for now) but Fedor was unknowingly about to partake in perhaps the most iconic fight of his career.

You’ve all seen it: Fedor airborne, a Randleman suplex taking Fedor first through the Heavens then down into the pits of Hell, a devastating looking slam saw Fedor’s head and neck smushed into the canvas.

Moments later, Randleman is on his back, submitting to a straight armbar that must have looked as unlikely moments before as the fan man was to Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield.

Randleman was a hot-and-cold fighter: he’d suffered losses at heavyweight and light heavyweight and had been outlasted by the significantly smaller Kazushi Sakuraba (no.20 on this countdown which you can read here) but with his win over the highly-ranked Cro Cop he was relevant again, and with the success he had against Fedor he was clearly still an athlete to be reckoned with.

Not one of Fedor’s greatest wins, no, but worth mentioning and certainly one that is most indicative of his all-round skill, his toughness, his—for lack of a better term—bouncebackability.

The semi-finals of the 2004 Pride GP saw Fedor take on 7-0 Japanese judoka Naoya Ogawa. A four-time World champion and 1992 Olympic silver medalist, Ogawa had fought sporadically in MMA since 1997, and while you would never mistake him for a world beater, the way Fedor beat him down in their fight is extremely impressive. Early in the fight the legendary judo player grabs a hold of Fedor but finds himself coming up short and finished shortly after. Sure, Fedor was an experienced judoka himself, but just how did he manage to shuck off Ogawa so easily?

Bloody Elbow grappling analyst Tom Rampley:

Ogawa is trying to do a form of tan otoshi, although it’s a little hard to say as it’s so chaotic. Fedor’s counter doesn’t really have a name, he basically twists his upper body so that as he falls he’s chest-to-chest instead of chest-to-back.

Fedor shows how gifted he is here, turning a potentially bad position into a good one. Capping it all off, he submitted the far more experienced grappler in less than a minute. Was Ogawa even a decent professional mixed martial artist? Looking at his other bouts, this writer would have to say no. But Fedor coming off better in Ogawa’s chosen range is impressive, and it’s something that elevates Fedor amongst the great fighters even if you could argue that his era was not as great as the one that would follow.

Remember when I said earlier that ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira was lineal champion when Fedor first defeated him? Rewind a second.

The lineal heavyweight championship is passed around a lot at the end of the 90s into the start of the new millennium: Mark Coleman is out-thought and out-fought by Maurice Smith, Maurice Smith is beat up and drops a decision to Randy Couture, Randy Couture ditches the UFC and ventures to Japan, losing to Enson Inoue, Edson Inoue comes up short against ‘The Smashing Machine’ Mark Kerr, and ‘The Smashing Machine’ gasses out trying to finish off Kazuyuki Fujita, who had a chin as dense as an Easter Island head and a heart as big as Mount Fuji.

This is where things get a little tricky.

Owing to the beating he took at the hands of Mark Kerr, Fujita’s team wisely threw in the towel when Fujita came back out later that night to fight Mark Coleman. If you believe this to be enough to pass on the ‘lineal’ championship, so be it. If that is the case, then Coleman lost to Big Nog and Fedor claimed the title in their first go.

If you don’t line up with that way of thinking, then Fujita’s subsequent two losses to Mirko Cro Cop (one called off early when Fujita was busted open off a knee counter, the second a decision win for Cro Cop) meant that by the time Fedor came round to rematching Nogueira at Pride Final Conflict 2004 the lineal heavyweight title was not held by Emelianenko but arguably held by…

‘Minotauro’ Nogueira.

The former Pride champ had been a busy boy.

Minotauro Rematch (And Rubber Match)

Subsequent to his devastating loss to Fedor at Pride 25, ‘Big Nog’ had bounced back with five victories: the first a controversial decision win over former UFC champ Ricco Rodriguez, and the second an impressive submission over the arguable lineal champ Mirko Cro Cop.

The fight with Cro Cop is especially interesting as in Fedor’s decision to fight on the Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye show and an injury suffered after that forced Pride to create an interim heavyweight championship in his absence. Nogueira beat Cro Cop, then advanced through to the finals of the 2004 Grand-Prix by defeating Heath Herring (for the second time) and Sergei Kharitonov.

Thus the highly-anticipated rematch between Fedor and ‘Minotauro’ was to unify the Pride heavyweight title and unify two possible claims for the lineal heavyweight title.

Disappointment followed: Fedor, in attempting one of his signature leaping guard passes to strike Nogueira, clashed heads with his great rival and the fight was stopped prematurely.

They tried again four months later, and this time the rematch would deliver. The two gentlemen carried on with the same vein of mutual respect they had shown first time round:

“As of right now, I’m called the best fighter in the world. But I think in order to prove that I need to face more tough fighters like Nogueira.” — Fedor
“If that fight happened yesterday I was ready to fight. That accident happened and he had a cut, I’ll be ready to fight him anytime he wants. I’m a hundred percent confident in myself. I got a lot of respect for this guy, he’s a very tough opponent, a very good athlete, the biggest challenge I ever had” — Minotauro

Fedor was explosive early, landing a sharp right low kick and quickly firing off punches to the head, utilising Nogueira’s confusion to throw him to the mat and ending up in his guard: familiar territory for both. Fedor postured up and went about attacking a prone Big Nog with stomps through the guard, Nogueira attacked an ankle, and both men got back to their feet, an exhilarating opening few sequences which included all facets of mixed martial arts.

Fedor shot over an overhand right and immediately changed levels, taking the interim champ down before leaping to his feet and launching a soccer kick at the Brazilian’s head. Back on the feet, ‘Minotauro’ cut a Fedor body kick, before trying to clinch up—one of the stronger aspects of his game—only to be shrugged off and thrown to the mat by the Russian champion like an adult throwing an infant into a ball pit. Big Nog tried a double leg takedown and Fedor reversed, ending up on top.

Fedor was dominant, not just on the ground in the action that followed, but for the rest of the bout. Fedor seamlessly mixed striking with grappling, displayed a mastery of the stand-up and ground games, and beat a more experienced, better prepared and yet still-prime Nogueira. With his hands held low like a turn-of-the-century boxer, Fedor’s feints opened Big Nog up for jabs, Fedor timed his right hand down the pipe like a world class boxer from any era, he strategically picked his spots when his opponent was on the floor, kicking the legs of Nogueira, working inside his guard, and knowing when to allow his man to stand up. When Nogueira tried to get his own offence off he would find himself punched in the mouth by a ghost, Fedor’s quick feet and reflexive head movement taking him well out of position to be countered.

Fedor had no fear fighting wherever the fight took place. When Fedor was taken down he reversed. When Nogueira tried to clinch up he was met with a sharp knee, dissuading him from pursuing that strategy any further. And it goes without saying that when Fedor wanted to pound ‘Minotauro’ on the ground, he did it with ease. Most of the time, Fedor dictated where the fight took place and what happened there.

When the fight was over a breathtaking performance by Fedor was awarded a unanimous decision, unifying both strands of the Pride heavyweight championship, both lineal title arguments, and the Pride GP.

If Fedor’s ground assault was impervious to even the skilled Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, who could possibly hope to defeat the Russian champion?

Fedor’s increasing confidence in his striking game meant there was only one fight MMA fans wanted to see.

Cro Cop

“If he wins”, mused Bas Rutten during Fedor’s decisive victory over Nogueira in their third fight, “I would love to see him against Cro Cop”.

Mirko Cro Cop had used the first four years of his MMA career as somewhat of an education. The former amateur boxer-turned-pro kickboxer had continued to fight in K-1 during his MMA career, twice a bridesmaid at K-1 Grand Prix events.

In MMA, he suffered some early struggles, submitted by ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira (in a bout where Fedor was supposed to be the opponent) and destroyed by Kevin Randleman: one cost him the interim Pride heavyweight championship, the other a fight with Fedor Emelianenko. Fedor was Cro Cop’s whale.

But Cro Cop bounced back, displaying his ever-increasing mastery of mixed martial arts: an excellent sprawl, an expanding knowledge of the ground game, and even submissions, such as a tight guillotine that saw him avenge his loss to Randleman.

In a little over a year, Cro Cop had gone from being wasted inside of two minutes in shocking fashion, to a five-fight win streak, three of which came against former UFC Heavyweight champions (a KO of Mark Coleman and a freak injury suffered by Josh Barnett being the others in addition to Randleman)

He also destroyed Fedor’s brother, Aleksander.

Cro Cop was in his prime, but even before he had started to put it all together his early career reads like a who’s who of the best fighters in MMA at the time: fighting Fujita in his debut, he also put the pride of the heavyweight division on his back, fighting the best light heavyweights (or rather Pride middleweights) of the day in Kazushi Sakuraba and Wanerlei Silva. He proved himself the most dangerous stand-up fighter in the division when he wiped out Igor Vovchanchyn. He dismissed Heath Herring more easily than even Big Nog and Fedor had managed.

Their fight was one of the most highly-anticipated in the young life of mixed martial arts. By the end of the first round Fedor had been stunned by a quick flurry from the sharp-shooting Croatian, blasted with a patented left kick to the liver, and wore a crimson mask.

Not that Fedor hadn’t had his moments: he’d spent some time on the ground with Cro Cop, but found his opponent a decent defensive fighter when he had him there.

In the second round, Fedor was faced with a seemingly impossible task: when clinching up with Cro Cop, he found him harder to budge than judo black belt ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira. If Fedor was going to win the fight and keep his title, he would have to win the striking battle with a decorated kickboxer known for sparking opponents out as easily as breathing.

So that’s what Fedor did; he masked punches with kicks, kept on the front foot and kept Cro Cop from setting his own feet, feinted to keep Cro Cop guessing, offered a target so he could slip Cro Cop’s punches and fire back with sharp counters of his own. Late in the second Fedor got Filipovic down with an inside trip but could not pass his guard. Thus he would restart the third and final round on the feet with the most dangerous knockout artist in the sport.

Straight off the bat Fedor had to check a leg kick, firing back with a right hand upstairs then to the ribs. Fedor opted to close the distance, not giving Cro Cop extension for his high kicks. Cro Cop again reversed Fedor’s attempts to clinch up with him, but just as he did with Naoya Ogawa, Fedor reversed mid throw and ended up on top. Thudding ground strikes followed, even when Cro Cop attempted a Hail Mary armbar. Cro Cop was later handed a ‘yellow’ card for inactivity on the ground, and when the fight was stood up again Fedor found the challenger more suggestible to being taken down.

With both men trying to work on the ground the fight was stood up and Cro Cop was handed another yellow card, perhaps harshly as he was trying to dig some shots into the body from the bottom at the time. Perhaps Pride FC’s want to see some late round drama in arguably the biggest single fight they had ever staged.

They didn’t get it: Cro Cop desperately swung his left kick at Fedor’s liver, but the champion shrugged it off, his strategic approach sapping Cro Cop of his energy and removing any chance he had to win the fight.

Fedor had emerged victorious via decision, not only beating a man who was pegged to be his toughest challenger, but beating him at his preferred game. Fedor might have been Cro Cop’s whale, but the Croatian went the way of Ahab.

The fight might not have been quite as thrilling as pre-fight billing, but years later fans and pundits alike still talk about it as a heavyweight classic, the fact it even happened giving it cause to still be relevant.

Sherdog’s Mike Frinley wrote upon the 10th anniversary of the meeting:

“Following two years of forum chatter and industry back-and-forth, planet Earth’s two best heavyweights met on the sport’s biggest stage and very few left disappointed. In my eyes, it was MMA’s grittiest warrior in Fedor versus the game’s most explosive athlete and dangerous finisher in ‘Cro Cop’ -- two styles that coalesced to produce a bout we’re writing about 10 years later.”

Next year will be the 15th anniversary of Fedor vs. Cro Cop. I’m willing to bet that I’ll be talking about it 15 years from then.

Post-Pride and Post-Prime

The end of Fedor’s time in Pride FC was largely pointless: a pointless rematch with Mark Coleman, an absolute smashing of the useless Zuluzinho, and a harder than it needed to be submission win over Mark Hunt, who has probably been dangerous since the day he came out the womb but definitely improved his overall approach to MMA the further along into his career we look.

With the dissolution of Pride—and it’s acquisition by Zuffa—the anticipation of Fedor’s arrival in the UFC was all anyone was talking about in 2007. It is a saga that has been covered ad infinitum elsewhere, so I won’t touch on it here except to say that as of 2019, Fedor has yet to step inside the Octagon.

Fedor just went about his business. Unfortunately, as is the way with his post-pro Cop fights in Pride, his business seemed to be fighting over-matched opponents.

Matt Lindland was a Pan-Am gold medalists in freestyle wrestling and an Olympic silver medalist in Greco-Roman, and a perfectly decent mixed martial artist.

He was also a middleweight. Fedor’s victory over him was somewhat of a homecoming with BodogFIGHT staging the match in St.Petersburg, but the result was no surprise, a Fedor submission coming in the first round.

In the wake of Pride’s demise, other promotions sprung up hoping to challenge the UFC’s likely looking monopoly of the sport.

First, former Pride staff and M-1 Global teamed up to stage their own Japanese New Years Eve card. Headlined by Fedor taking on the gargantuan Hong-Man Choi (in what is only fair to be described as a ‘freak show’ fight) it is notable only for the comically outsized Fedor losing out on a takedown attempt by virtue of Choi just being huge. After surviving some (admittedly painful looking) ground and pound, Fedor locked in an armbar for the win.

Fedor took his licks in that one, but he was fighting a big guy. No one saw a decline coming.

Affliction were Fedor’s strongest suitors and they actually put on some decent cards. Some dude with stupid hair from The Apprentice was seen ringside, and a colourful cast of well-known MMA veterans populated the few cards they staged.

Fedor even managed to fight some decent competition, defending the WAMMA (World Association of Mixed Martial Arts) title, given to him by the independent board as a symbol of his lineal championship.

To modern eyes, revision of Tim Sylvia’s career does not show us a great heavyweight. In his prime he was a big guy who had decent enough striking (in the context of heavyweight MMA during this era) and had beaten some decent fighters, among them Ricco Rodriguez and Andrei Arlovski.

He had also been dropped and out-hustled by an ancient Randy Couture and submitted by the great ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira in his last bout.

Still, Sylvia was a former UFC champion, and without stepping into the Octagon, Fedor had to beat whatever UFC heavyweights he could manage to get into the ring with him.

And at least looking at Sylvia’s prior bouts with UFC-calibre opposition, we can ascertain that he had probably never been treated as badly as he was when he faced Fedor Emelianenko.

Thrash legends Megadeth played live before the fighters came out but Fedor’s performance was more akin to the guttural grindcore of Napalm Death’s ‘You Suffer’, with Sylvia clattered to the canvas in the opening exchange and forced to tap to a deep rear naked choke. The fight was over as soon as it started.

“I truly thought I was going to beat him. I really thought I had a chance to knock him out. I actually thought I could have submitted him. He got off before I did. I just had a bad performance. I wish we could do that fight all over again and I could have a good performance to see actually what would have happened. I actually don’t feel like I got beat.
“We could have gone five rounds and he would have beat the ever-loving s**t out of me, you never know. It’s just a fight I’d have liked to have back and have the performance I was capable of. I had a great training camp. I got caught real quick. I trained for that position, but I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I got caught and he capitalized on it. All heavyweights hit hard, but I was surprised by his speed. He was faster than I was expecting.”(7)

Fedor’s next bout for Affliction was against Tim Sylvia’s former foe Andrei Arlovski, a talented striker with a penchant for heel-hooks. Arlovski had seen ups-and-downs in his MMA career, but had been training with famed boxing coach Freddie Roach, sharpening up his hands.

It showed: contrary to predictions, Arlovski competed admirably against Fedor, backing him up to the ropes with quick punches and kicks, marking up the best heavyweight in the world quickly and landing on him frequently.

Then, perhaps the greatest knockout in heavyweight MMA history: Fedor, under duress, slightly wobbly at the knees, sagged into the ropes. The Belarusian smelt blood and moved in for the kill and what would have been an improbable victory to everyone looking on.

Fedor, the purest fighting force in the world at that point, an excellent improvisor and counter-puncher, used the ropes to push off and launched his deadly overhand right at the leaping Arlovski, who woke up moments later to find out he had not finished Fedor once and for all, but had face-planted in front of the Las Vegas faithful.

Fedor was described as sluggish but at this point in time commenters were in unison in crowning Fedor the greatest fighter in MMA history.

Fedor’s next bout for Affliction would have been another good-looking win on his resume. Former UFC Heavyweight champ and Pride FC veteran Josh Barnett was a big, strong grappler who came to fight, on a four-fight winning streak and well known as a dangerous submission artist.

Barnett failed a drugs test, the fight fell out of bed and Affliction folded.

Strikeforce

If Fedor’s brutal knockout of Andrei Arlovski papered over the cracks, his first fight in Scott Coker’s Strikeforce promotion only served to show those cracks were wider and deeper than first thought.

Brett Rogers (10-0, 10 finishes) was a big guy, with relatively heavy hands, but outside of that you would be hard pressed to put him in the class of someone like Derrick Lewis (for an example easily recognisable to modern MMA fans).

Yet the limited Rogers gave Fedor a very tough first round. There was always a wildness when Fedor swung his wide punches towards the target, but there was a method behind the madness: forcing a fighter towards a shorter shot, changing up the speed of his shots to confuse, using his punches to mask something else.

Now, just madness.

Fedor barely set up his looping overhand right, and Rogers looked the general, walking Fedor into a sweet straight jab that busted his nose open, claret freely flowing.

Fedor spent long periods against the fence, Rogers’ uncultured style no less a problem due to his lumpy frame, and when Fedor got Rogers on the floor he was reversed by a man who possessed none of the nous of a Nogueira and none of the tools of a Mark Hunt. Fedor was being put in positions that were not of his own doing and—even worse—that were avoidable.

When Rogers had his back to the cage Fedor swung wild combinations at him, the feints and set-ups long gone. Salvaged in the second round by a beautifully well-timed overhand right that had Rogers reeling, it seemed all was fine in the world so long as Fedor Emelianenko kept winning.

That all changed in his next fight against UFC washout Fabricio Werdum, another fight in which the final outcome was said to be elementary.

The Bloody Elbow team certainly saw it that way, unanimously voting for a Fedor victory in their preview.

Analyst Luke Thomas went as far to say:

I just don't see a way for Werdum to win here. Submission is the most likely course to any sort of victory, but Fedor has phenomenal defense. His timing and use of weight distribution is unreal. Back when he was king, no one just sat up out of Nogueira's triangle...except Fedor of course. He can create scrambles from small openings and reverse positioning in the blink of an eye. At some point Fedor's going to put it on his chin. That's all there is to it.

Those predictions looked to be accurate early on in the fight. A flurry of punches sent Werdum to the canvas. Compare Fedor’s approach to Werdum to how he carefully outmanoeuvred ‘Big Nog’ a few years earlier: gone is the first look, gone is the careful rearranging of limbs to create a clearer path, gone is the knowledge of when to allow a fallen fighter to stand.

Instead, Fedor leapt into the guard of one of the most talented big men to ever put on a gi and despite having ample opportunity to use that vaunted fight IQ, Fedor found himself constricted by Werdum’s legs, the blood flow cut off to his head, his arm bent at angles no human enjoys. He tapped out, the first legitimate loss of his career.

He would suffer many more after that. But as we said at the beginning of this dive into Fedor’s career, it’s those prime years we care about.

Legacy

“He definitely had an aura. He was a ten-year, undefeated champion. His ability was incredible. Ten years without getting beat, the man had something going for him. He could do it all. Everybody wanted to talk about his looks or his physique. You don’t have to be chiseled and ripped to be a great athlete. It didn’t matter; the guy was super strong. He had the whole package. He could stand. He could ground-and-pound. He was so dedicated to the sport. He was so prepared every time he fought. He was just flat out great. He put in his time and made himself a superstar. In my opinion he was the greatest of all time.”—Mark Coleman (9)
“He’s a hell of an athlete. He’s very fast, he’s very strong, and he hits hard as hell. It was an honor to get in the ring with him. I can honestly say he’s the best all-time heavyweight. Randy (Couture) was a great heavyweight champion but he didn’t have that knockout power Fedor did.” — Tim Sylvia (10)
“Fedor Emelianenko, my favourite of all time…I’ve never seen an athlete like him, fighting, as far as a fighting athlete.” — Mike Tyson (11)

For nine years and 28 fights Fedor Emelianenko could not be beaten, a truly historic run regardless of the era. As of right now—depending on who you ask—Fedor Emelianenko is either the greatest heavyweight of all time or somewhere in the top three. Anyone saying outside of the top five should be treated not just with caution but hostility.

But as we at The Fight Site have alluded to on a few occasions in this series, MMA is still a young sport. Will Fedor’s legacy remain strong in decades to come, or will he be an afterthought when we talk about the all-time greats?

And I’m not just talking pound-for-pound, like the series you’re reading an installment of right this second. I’m talking heavyweights.

It seems unfathomable that Fedor Emelianenko has not punched his slightly paunchy mug into MMA’s heavyweight Mount Rushmore. On this list alone, he is the highest ranked heavyweight, and I’m sure if you did a rudimentary search online you will find him higher in other lists.

Consider the legacy of James J. Jeffries upon his retirement as the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion of boxing in 1905.

Jeffries had “not a rival in pugilism today” according to the Police Gazette, and even legendary champion John L. Sullivan said, “I never saw the man that I thought could stand a chance to lick Jeffries”.

Historians agreed for much of boxing’s early history.

Nat Fleischer, founder of The Ring magazine:

As I have had it listed in The Ring Record Book for some years, my all-time rating of heavyweights is as follows: 1. Jack Johnson, 2. Jim Jeffries, 3. Bob Fitzsimmons, 4. Jack Dempsey, 5. James J. Corbett, 6. Joe Louis, 7. Sam Langford, 8. Gene Tunney, 9. Max Schmeling, 10. Rocky Marciano.

I started the annual ranking of heavyweights in the 1953 with only six listed: 1. Jack Johnson, 2. Jim Jeffries, 3. Bob Fitzsimmons, 4. Jack Dempsey, 5. James J. Corbett, 6. Joe Louis.

This was in 1971. Fleischer goes on to argue that Cassius Clay (and he calls him Clay, not Muhammad Ali) was not yet worthy of a top-ten all-time heavyweight ranking. Granted, Ali had yet to turn the trick on Joe Frazier or beaten the terrifying George Foreman, but he already had a stacked resume.

You could compare it to Stipe Miocic today: are we as historians failing to recognise what a superb resume Miocic has? Certainly more than one member of The Fight Site team has Stipe ranked as the greatest heavyweight in mixed martial arts history. Will this become consensus in years to come?

Back to James J. Jeffries, the seemingly unbeatable ‘Boilermaker’: today, with well over a Century passing since his prime, we have more fighters, more champions, more all-time greats, more data to look at.

Even before Fleischer’s revised list, Charley Rose also ranked Jeffries in the top five of all-time.

Where does Jeffries rank today amongst historians?

Well, this historian ranks him outside of the top 15, even recognising his reputation amongst contemporary sources. Bert Sugar, a boxing historian whose opinion I do not respect, ranked Jeffries outside of his top 10 even with his fervent defending of the old-time champions.

Matt McGrain of The Sweet Science—then writing for Boxing.com—also ranked Jeffries outside of the top ten in 2014:

It was (heavyweight great Jack) Johnson who unmanned Jeffries in the end, coming out of retirement during the former’s absolute prime and absorbing a beating terrible in its humiliation. Karma, perhaps, had the final word here – had Jeffries not insisted upon drawing the color line in 1904 and instead met Johnson he would likely have taken Johnson out six years before Johnson would have had a chance to lay a glove upon him, possibly changing history forever.
As the man once said, it is not in the stars to hold our destiny.

Will we be saying the same about Fedor’s management failing to secure him a fight with Brock Lesnar in decades to come? About the oft-mooted ‘super fight’ with Randy Couture? It is unthinkable now that Fedor will not always be near the top in the pantheon of great heavyweights, but the same would have been said about Jeffries a hundred years ago.

It is pointless to look into the future just now though. When looking at a fighter’s legacy I believe there are two main questions we need to answer: who did they beat, and when did they beat them?

It is easy to look back at Mirko Cro Cop’s failed UFC tenure and assume he must not have ever been that good. But look at his bouts in Pride FC, look at the flashes he has shown even post-prime, look at his longevity, and you will see a fighter that has always been at least respectable, and—at the time Fedor faced him—one of the most feared heavyweights around. Contemporary reports back up the significance of this bout:

There is a lot more at stake than just a title, the winner will further cement himself in the history of MMA because this fight has legacy written all over it. What would Royce Gracie be without Ken Shamrock, or Wanderlei Silva be without Kazushi Sakuraba, in order to be great one must have a great nemesis, and Fedor and Mirko can each be that one springboard to the other’s ultimate destiny in the sport.(12)

Modern fans might assume that Cro Cop was washed up immediately after fighting Fedor, but that would be a classic example of revisionist history.

Cro Cop went on to win the 2006 Pride Open-Weight Grand-Prix, adding two wins to Josh Barnett to his legacy, ending the prime of the fearsome Wanderlei Silva, and somehow remains relevant today despite some worrying losses and long periods of poor performance. As of September 2019, Cro Cop is on a ten-fight winning streak, sometimes beating men considerably younger than himself. He even went back to K-1, unfathomably winning the 2012 Grand Prix (even beating future top ten ranked professional boxer Jarrell Miller, who was kickboxing at the time). Mirko Cro Cop is an undeniable heavyweight great.

‘Minotauro’ Nogueira’s move into the cage coincided with the end of his prime, but he still managed some respectable results: sure, he suffered the only submission losses of his career once he moved to the UFC, but was the competition really better? Beating former champs Tim Sylvia and Randy Couture (the latter for the ‘interim’ UFC title) looks good on paper, but neither man was up to much at that stage. Brendan Schaub and Dave Herman were not impressive fighters, but it is impressive to me that a shot, old Nogueira managed to still win fights at that stage of his career. Fabricio Werdum was one of the greatest heavyweights of all-time, but when he submitted ‘Big Nog’ in 2013 he was only evening up the score, a decision loss to Nogueira already on his record. Frank Mir stopping the Brazilian is perhaps the only thing you could really hold against him, but in battles between veteran big lumps anything is possible. The only way one would come away with the opinion that Nogueira was not a great heavyweight is if you believe that the only fights that matter are in the UFC. The footage, and the purveying opinion of the time should dispel this notion.

The rest of Fedor’s career doesn’t amaze, but he beat former champions (the best of them Mark Coleman, Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, the latter of whom is somehow still winning fights in the UFC today) and even on his retirement tour—which sadly seems like it will never end—he gave us an indication of what might have happened had he moved over to the UFC, destroying Frank Mir in 2018 in a fight that was long overdue and somehow managed to be fun despite us never really needing to see either man fight again.

But as a boxing historian will tell you, we only need to judge fighters past their prime when they’re doing something impressive. That is what is extraordinary, not a previously great champion losing to fighters he would have easily beaten in his prime.

For much of Fedor Emelianenko’s prime he was seen as the pound-for-pound best in the sport. He could out grapple the best grapplers, out strike the best strikers, and submit pretty much anyone who dared get close to him.

Whereas the heavyweight boxing champ was seen for decades as the world’s best unarmed fighter, the advent of mixed martial arts meant that was no longer true. In Fedor’s pomp, he truly was the baddest man on the planet.

A top ten ranking in The Fight Site top twenty should not be questioned, it should be a given.

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Sources

(1) PRE PRIDE: CRO COP VS FEDOR EMELIANENKO, MMAWEEKLY.com

(2) Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting, Jonathan Snowden, 2008

(3) “Babalu Sobral on fight with Fedor: I was wanting it to be over”, YouTube.com

(4) Fighting Fedor: Chris Haseman, Fightersonlymag.com

(5) Total MMA: Inside Ultimate Fighting, Jonathan Snowden, 2008

(6) Sherdog’s Top 10: Best MMA Fights of All-Time, Sherdog.com

(7) Fighting Fedor: Tim Sylvia, Fightersonlymag.com

(8) 'Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum Predictions’ BloodyElbow.com

(9) Fighting Fedor: Mark Coleman, Fightersonlymag.com