Fedor Emelianenko Has Fallen, but Can He Get Back Up?

I'm not making any excuses for Fedor Emelianenko.

He knows he made a mistake and paid dearly for it last night.

Now, Fabricio Werdum, the man who a week ago was only known as "the guy Junior Dos Santos beat in his debut" is now somewhere that most fighters dream of.

He's going to be considered one of the best 265-pound fighters in the world.

Fedor's stock, as I texted to a colleague of mine, has to now have plummeted.

The Last Emperor has been dethroned.

He certainly has taken a fall.

The question now is can he get back up?

Can Fedor recover from this, the first concrete loss of his career, to a man who few gave a chance to?

Sure, he can.

All who are in the sport of MMA can beat an opponent, and all in the sport can be beaten by an opponent.

Some are phenomenal athletes, but they are human.

That said, a defeated man can make the choice to get back up though he's been knocked down by an obstacle.

Rashad Evans and Thiago Silva did it after they lost to Machida.

GSP did it after he lost to Hughes.

Cung Le avenged his only career loss tonight against Scott Smith.

Machida's going to bounce back from his loss to Shogun, the way Shogun bounced back from his loss to Forrest Griffin (bum knee and all)

If Anderson Silva can't do in Chael Sonnen — or to put it differently, if Silva loses to Sonnen — nothing would stop him from bouncing back.

Same with Rory McDonald, since he lost to Carlos Condit.

Same with Bellator's Patricio Freire since he lost to Joe Warren.

See any pattern here yet?

Formerly undefeated fighters and formerly untouchable cage phenomenons have had their hot streaks extinguished by someone who caught them.

Never mind if the phenomenon in question overcomitted to a game plan to the point of not expected said game plan to have its flawed exploited, and never mind if the fighter was fighting a near-perfect fight before being caught with an unforgiving shot.

The fact of the matter is that the fighter got caught.

As a writer, I find no reason why I should find shame in a fighter getting caught.

Every fighter gets caught in a fight, plain and simple.

Even Cain Velasquez and Shane Carwin are going to face a loss in their careers, even if it's not anytime soon.

All fighters can face defeat, but what makes a man a legend is the courage to get back up.

What'll bring Fedor back to the throne that I think he may have lost hold of tonight is his ability to rebound from this loss against a man who I have to admit was simply the smarter fighter and proved to be the better man.

Actually, Werdum was quite classy if I recall. He actually opened up to the idea of a rematch with Fedor.

I'd love to see that, and maybe we'll see if Fedor can come into the fight with a much wiser approach to the fight.

To me, Fedor losing the title of "pound-for-pound Heavyweight king" was inevitable.

Losing to Fabricio Werdum was a surprise.

Still, there's no question that Fedor can and will bounce back from the first legit loss of his now 35-fight career.

The only true question is, how long will it take for Fedor to be crowned Emperor again?