When Mike Tyson lost to Buster Douglas in 1990, that was the end of the Tyson era before Tyson even knew it.. He was a train wreck heading into that fight with Douglas.. He was going through a divorce with Robin Givens, geting arrested it seemed like on a bi-weekly basis and his camp was a disaster with changing of trainers and so on and so forth... After that fight with Douglas, he went to jail for rape in 1992 and in 1999 for a road rage incident, the infamous ear biting incident with Evander Holyfield and the incident in New York at the press conference to kick off the tour for his fight with Lennox Lewis in 2002...
Fedor Emelianenko is considered the MMA version of Mike Tyson.. He is the baddest man in MMA... He was beaten a whose who in MMA... Mirko Cro Cop, Minotauro Noguiera three times, Josh Barnett, Matt Lindeland, Kevin Randleman, Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia and the list goes on... He was 31-1 and that lone loss was due to bad cut he suffered in the first 15 seconds back in 2000... So, Emelianenko was undefeated in his career... When you are undefeated, you are the baddest man on the planet and you are the best P4P fighter in the world today, no questions asked...
The knock on Fedor in the last 5 years is that he hasn't beat anybody since Cro Cop... He beat Matt Lindeland and yes he was a middleweight, but he only weighed 15 pounds less than Fedor going into that bout.. Then, he faced Hong Man Choi, who infamously faced former baseball star Jose Canseco... Then fights with Arlovski and Sylvia in Affliction and people said they were washed up since they weren't in the UFC anymore...
The only fight that he shouldn't have taken is the fight with Choi and he will admit that it was a freak show fight and shouldn't have done it... His management team, M-1 Global, which is a minority owner of, pulls a lot of the strings when it pertains to his career.. They are the reason he hasn't fought in the UFC and accepted their contract offer and has never had a face to face talk with UFC President Dana White.. I think if that happened, then he would be in the UFC...
And, this leads us to Saturday night as Fedor took on Fabricio Werdum... Everyone thought, including myself, that Fedor would easily walk over Werdum and then getting the highly anticpated matchup with Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion, Alistair Overeem... But, Werdum is a 2 time Brazilian Ji-Jitsu World Champion, which is nothing to laugh about...
And within the first 30 seconds Fedor knocked down Werdum with 2 left hands and a short right uppercut which rocked Werdum and knocked him down to the mat and Fedor went for the kill... But, he made a simple mistake and got caught as Werdum used his superior Ji-Jitsu and locked Fedor in a traingle choke and armbar and the rest is history... The great Fedor Emelianenko lost truely for the first time...
As always, Fedor was gracious even in defeat.. He gave credit to Werdum and said he needs to work on some things and hopes their will be a rematch in the near future.. That rematch needs to happen and that would be the best thing for Strikeforce.. This is a matchup you can put on pay per view... People like seeing rematches and especially with the way it happened, a lot of fans will want to see the matchup...
Could we see him retire? He says no and he will finish his fight contracted fight with Strikeforce... I think he faces Werdum and then signs a one fight contract with Strikeforce and face Overeem... Then, if he beats Overeem, then we will see his long and anticipated debut with the UFC towards the end of next year... But, Fedor needs to be making these decisions and not M-1 Global management... With this loss, Fedor will be more motivated than ever and went to cement his place as the greatest MMA fighter of all time... We will not see a Mike Tyson story, as the best is yet to come for Fedor Emelianenko...
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