Strikeforce Fedor Vs. Silva Aftermath: Is Fedor Emelianenko Still Best HW Ever?

Last night’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva event may have changed the course of MMA history forever as it is now up for debate whether or not Fedor Emelianenko is actually the greatest heavyweight MMA fighter of all time.

Emelianenko, whose career record still impresses at 31-3-0, has now lost each of his last two fights in Strikeforce including a loss to Fabricio Werdum last June and last night’s punishing loss to Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.

This dominant fighter was widely regarded by most publications as the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter for the better part of the last decade since he defeated Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira to become the Pride heavyweight champion back in Mar. 2003.

At the time, “Minotauro” Nogueira had a 19-1-1 career record and looked to be practically unstoppable. Fedor used vicious ground-and-pound to dominate the fight while avoiding Nogueira’s highly respected submission skills, earning what may go down as the biggest win of his MMA career.

But Fedor was a fighting champion who would not only fight the top fighters at his own weight class, but also won numerous fights against men who were significantly larger than him.

At only about 230-pounds throughout his career, Fedor has always been considered a small heavyweight. When you add to that the fact that he is not in particularly great-looking physical shape at 230-pounds, it makes his dominant run against men who were often much larger than him even more impressive.

To put that into proper perspective, that is the weight most of the top light heavyweights walk around at. Rashad Evans recently stated he began his last camp at 236, Rampage Jackson turned down a title fight with Mauricio "Shogun" Rua as he regularly balloons up to 240-250 pounds in between fights, and one can presume Forrest Griffin is in the same boat as Rampage, as Dana White and analysts cannot ever utter Forrest's name without also mentioning how he is "one huge light heavyweight."

Fedor never lost his Pride Heavyweight championship, having held the belt for over four years when the company closed its doors in 2007.

It was at this point that many believed that the world’s top heavyweight fighter would be signing with the world’s biggest MMA organization, the UFC. But it was not to be.

Citing numerous contractual difference that supposedly ranged from financial disputes to Fedor’s desire to compete in Sambo tournaments; Emelianenko and the UFC never came to an agreement.

Instead, in 2007, Fedor fought once in Bodog Fights and once at the Yarennoka! event before signing a deal to fight for Affliction in 2008.

During this time, fans and experts alike began to get restless.

Though he fought former UFC champions Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski in back-to-back fights for Affliction, everyone wanted to see him test his skills against the current fighters in the UFC.

Perhaps no one wanted this more than UFC President Dana White himself.

"This Fedor thing has gone on and on and on," White said in the post-UFC 100 press conference. "Eventually, Fedor's going to be here. I want Fedor. I want him to come to the UFC.”

Afflication eventually stopped having fight card as well, which gave Fedor yet another chance to sign with the UFC. But just like before, contract disputes prevented the two sides from coming together.

Fedor instead signed with Strikeforce, a company which had been growing into the second-largest MMA organization in the world. Though there were some good opponents for Fedor in Strikeforce, most of us were very disappointed as we wanted to see some dream fights.

Fedor vs. Lesnar, Fedor vs. Couture, Fedor vs. Mir—these fights and others were all ones we wanted to see.

But Fedor made his debut for Strikeforce in Nov. 2009 when he knocked out borderline top-10 fighter Brett Rogers in the second round of their fight after a very tightly contested first round.

Though Fedor won the fight in highlight-reel fashion, many of us were surprised to see him struggle so much with a relatively young, inexperienced fighter like Rogers. Was Fedor starting to slip, or was Rogers just that good?

Our questions were answered with each man’s next fights. While Brett Rogers was violently knocked out early in the first round of his fight with Alistair Overeem, we were all shocked by what happened to Fedor.

On June 26, 2010, Fedor lost his first fight in over eight years when he was submitted by Fabricio Werdum. Though Werdum is a very talented fighter in his own right, he was a massive underdog for the fight.

The Fedor mystique was broken—but many of us still believed.

He had a chance to redeem himself last night at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva in the first round of the Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament, but as we all now know, he fell short in that task as he was pounded into a doctor stoppage by Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.

The Fedor hype train came to a screeching halt as critics rushed to their computers to hammer the former world champion and his fans who believed that he was still the greatest heavyweight champion of all-time.

UFC President Dana White added to this speculation late last night as he completely unleashed on Fedor fans via Twitter.

Certainly we now know that Fedor Emelianenko is no longer the best heavyweight fighter in the world today. Whether it’s his size disadvantage, his age catching up to him, or just a general lack of preparation nowadays, Fedor is simply not the fighter that he was back in 2005 when he defended his Pride Heavyweight championship against Mirko “Cro Cop” in one of the greatest MMA fights ever.

So if Fedor isn’t the best now, is he still the best of all time?

To answer this overlying question, we really need to answer three smaller questions:

1. Does a fighter have to be in the UFC to be considered the best in the world?
2. He went without a loss for years but were his wins against good enough opponents?
3. If he’s not the best of all time, who is?

To answer the first question, I think we really need to look at the current Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament. The UFC clearly has the other MMA organizations dominated in other weight classes but Strikeforce’s current heavyweight roster actually very much competes with the UFC’s.

With fighters like Fedor, Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, Sergei Kharitonov, and Josh Barnett; Strikeforce currently houses at least six of the top-15 heavyweight fighters in the world.

While Cain Velasquez is currently ranked No. 1 overall in most rankings, I do think that there is a case to be made that if Alistair Overeem can win the tournament, he will overtake Velasquez as the top heavyweight in the world.

While Strikeforce’s heavyweight division is very good right now, it may not even be as good as Pride’s was from around 2004 through 2006. During that time, Pride housed as many of the world’s top heavyweights, if not more, than the UFC did.

In fact, during that time, the UFC’s top heavyweights were Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia—two men who Fedor has since destroyed in crushing fashion.

So again, does a fighter have to be in the UFC to be considered the best in the world? No.

But were his wins good enough?

Many critics of Fedor claim that he padded his record against lesser talent and that he did not have enough wins against top-tier fighters. I’m here to dispel those rumors.

During his amazing run, Fedor defeated many of the world’s top fighters—and almost all of them were in their prime when he did it. Just taking a quick look at his record, we can see that he defeated Ricardo Arona (albeit in a controversial decision early in his career), Babalu Sobral, Heath Herring, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (twice), Mark Coleman (twice), and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic in Pride.

He then dismantled Tim Sylvia who was the UFC Heavyweight champion just a year prior, and Andrei Arlovski who was a consensus top-3 fighter at the time of their bout.

Simply put, the man’s record is amazing. He was 29-1-1 before he went to Strikeforce with his only “loss” coming in the form of an extremely controversial cut that he suffered from an illegal elbow—a fight which most experts don’t even acknowledge against a fighter he later dismantled.

So were his wins against good enough competition? Absolutely.

But even if you disagree with the above statements (and how could you?), if you’re going to say that Fedor isn’t the best heavyweight mixed martial artist of all time, you must back up your claim by finding a fighter who is better.

Is it Randy Couture? Sure, he is one of the greatest of all time and is among the very most respected athletes the sport has ever seen, but Couture also lost numerous fights to inferior talent.

Is it Igor Vovchanchyn? His 49-10 record is certainly amazing but he also lost to Mirko “Cro Cop,” Mark Coleman, and Heath Herring—all of whom Fedor defeated.

How about Brock Lesnar? An amazing start to his career and perhaps the most difficult start to an MMA career of any fighter in history. But his 5-2 career record kind of takes him out of the running as he has not had enough professional fights to be in the discussion quite yet.

Maybe Junior Dos Santos or Cain Velasquez? Perhaps. But these two men are still growing as fighters. Velasquez has defeated Brock Lesnar and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in back-to-back fights but his opponents prior to that really weren’t anything special. Junior Dos Santos has beat Fabricio Werdum, Roy Nelson, and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic.

Very good fighters, but none were in the top-five in the world when the fights happened.

Am I missing someone? Ken Shamrock? Dan Severn? Ha.

When all things are considered, Fedor Emelianenko is simply the greatest heavyweight fighter in the history of mixed martial arts. His combination of skill, determination and dominance against top competition cannot be matched.

There may be fighters who come along that can make a claim for being better in the future, but at the moment, no one is really even close to “The Last Emperor’s” reign as the top heavyweight in the sport.

If Saturday, Feb. 12, 2011 was the last time we see Fedor Emelianenko in the cage, let us remember him for what he was—the greatest heavyweight fighter in the history of the sport.