Farewell to Fedor: Retirement tribute to the First Emperor of heavyweight MMA

[Misfit]

"This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang, but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot

When the American poet wrote those words nearly a century ago, there's absolutely no way he could have known of a man who would be born in 1976 in then-USSR whose parents would name Fedor Emelianenko. There's no way Eliot could have foreseen the impact this unassuming character would have on the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA) or how his legendary career would ultimately fizzle out.
The Russian, who once terrorized all manner of opponents inside the squared circle while doing the same to fight promoters outside of it, announced his retirement today (June 21, 2012) following his 90-second shellacking (watch the video here) of a long-past his prime Pedro Rizzo.
It wasn't in a bout promoted by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the premier fight promotion in the world. The closest Emelianenko came to stepping foot inside the Octagon was his fight against Dan Henderson in Strikeforce which came after Zuffa purchased the San Jose-based company.
And it wasn't a grand pay-per-view (spectacle) like the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) usually puts on or even the two shows Affliction ran with the Russian as its headliner. It's not expected to rake in millions upon millions of dollars, either.
Fans watched via internet streams of varying quality and legality. And those who did witnessed the end of an era.
They watched one of the greatest fighters in the sport end his career much like he approached it; quiet, reserved and with his faith and family at the forefront of his mind.
Here's to you, "Last Emperor."

For a time, the biggest fight that could possibly ever be made was to pit Emelianenko against then-UFC Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar.
The only similarity between the two was the severity in which they dispatched their opponents. In every other way, there were polar opposites.
Lesnar was brash, arrogant and a bully. Emelianenko wore hipster-esque sweaters and loved ice cream.
The WWE Superstar sported a claymore tattoo on his chest and a giant skull was inked across his broad back. The Russian looked more like a delivery truck driver than one of the greatest fighters of all time.
In many ways, Lesnar symbolized the stereotype of MMA fighters and its fans while Emelianenko bucked all preconceptions. It's why many gravitated to him.
And the amazing knockouts and submissions didn't hurt either.
In 14 fights for the defunct-Japanese promotion, PRIDE Fighting Championships, Emelianenko never lost and only went to a decision four times. Once against Semmy Schilt, who would go on to win the K-1 World Grand Prix four times and the other three were against Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira -- twice -- and Mirko Filipovic, heavyweight legends in their own right.
Three technical knockout (TKO) victories and a bevy of submission victories stand as testament to his dominance across the Pacific. When he began fighting stateside for Affliction, he racked up two more wins against Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, adding them to a hit list including Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman and Nogueira of men who had or would wear the UFC heavyweight crown.
"The Last Emperor" accomplished all this while being small in stature. At six-foot and 230-some odd pounds, he's larger than your average man but in the world of MMA heavyweights who cut down to reach the 265-pound maximum limit, he might as well have been a welterweight.
Still, he won. And continued to win. It didn't matter if it was Kazuyuki Fujita cracking him across the jaw or Randleman German suplexing him nearly onto his head, Emelianenko always managed to get his arm raised at the end.
It wasn't until he faced off against Fabricio Werdum the Russian tasted defeat for the first time. Caught in the Brazilian's vice-like triangle choke, Emelianenko was forced to submit. And with three quick taps of his hand, a god bled.
By the end of two rounds with Antonio Silva, the last hope of PRIDE was all but dead while a knockout against Dan Henderson nearly six months later only served to shovel more dirt on the grave.
What could now be known as the "Fedor Emelianenko Retirement Tour" started four months later in Moscow with an uninspired decision win over Jeff Monson. A quick knockout over Satoshi Ishii followed six weeks later.
And now, following his victory over Rizzo, "The Last Emperor" has walked away from the sport on his own terms.
His own terms; it's exactly how he approached the sport from day one.

http://www.mmamania.com/2012/6/21/31...eight-emperor-

[Cisco]

Please take m-1 with you.

[Kickass32]

Say what you will about Fedor, he was a class guy in and out of the cage, humble and a hero to many kids growing up. He fought the best during his reign of terror, unfortunatley what many people will say tarnished his stellar career was his association with the crooked organization M-1......while I feel it does hurt him a little, you can't deny that in his hay-day Fedor was the best fighter on the planet.

[Gracie Barra Reject]

I just don't think he was THAT good. I'm not criticising Fedor as the warrior he clearly is/was, but he just never fought the best fighters available and for that we are all poorer MMA fans.

[BluenoseGreig]

Fedor Emelianenko, and the Complicated Legacy of a Simple Man





Jun 22, 2012 - Fedor Emelianenko is finished now. So he says. Fighter retirements are a little like break-ups: you have to wait a while, sometimes a long while, before you know if it’s going to stick. Assuming Emelianenko doesn’t go for some desperate reconciliation attempt on a New Year’s Eve fight card somewhere (the MMA version of the saddest one-night stand there is), his break-up with the sport will have ended after twelve memorable years -- seven or eight of which were truly impressive -- and a legion of tedious debates about his place among MMA greats.

Was he the best fighter this sport has ever known? Doubtful. I think that title belongs to Anderson Silva, who, for all we know, could still have several more good years left in him. How about the best heavyweight? Sure. That feels like a more comfortable claim. He dominated Pride back when that organization had the best big men in the world, then he came to the U.S. and beat the two fighters who had traded the UFC heavyweight strap back and forth during that same time period.

Emelianenko was one of MMA’s straddlers. He came up during one era of the sport -- an era of specialists, but very few all-around mixed martial artists -- and continued on into the next one, when nearly every opponent was in possession of both a ground game and a striking game, rather than faking one to set up the other. Emelianenko dominated the fighters of both eras. He did it as an undersized heavyweight, and he did it for a long, long time.

He was the best, in other words, at least among the heavyweights. He was also one of the most overrated fighters to ever strap on a pair of gloves, and probably one of the most blatantly mismanaged ones. It’s all a part of the complicated legacy he leaves behind. Fedor the great. Fedor the not-quite-that great. Fedor the cautionary tale.
Emelianenko never cared very much about legacy or rankings. That’s what he said, anyway, and of all the things he was capable of, guile never seemed like one of them. A certain subset of fans tried to make him into their own reluctant cult leader by worshipping his every move on internet forums, but to his credit, he seemed embarrassed by that attention, and maybe even a little annoyed at those who kept forcing it on him. No matter how many times he tried to tell us that he was just a simple man who happened to be very good at fighting, there were those who would settle for nothing less than a messiah.

But the enigmatic Russian was similarly passive and disinterested when it came to the direction of his own career. When it was time to make big decisions about his future following the sale and demise of Pride, he put his career into the hands of people who treated him as a commodity first and an athlete second. They were determined to squeeze every last ounce of value out of him while they could, and in the process they kept him out of the most compelling fights during what may have been the peak of his career.

It wasn’t all their fault. They caught some bad breaks here and there. They had what could have been a career-defining fight against Josh Barnett yanked out from under them by Barnett’s failed drug test. But with their demands for "co-promotion" -- which, near as I can tell, consisted of splashing the M-1 Global logo on any flat surface they could find -- they attempted to turn Emelianenko into a promotion unto himself. They created the impression that they were picking and choosing his fights, trying to keep him out of the tough ones while they shook his perfect record like a piggy back they were trying to extract the last few coins from.

When the breaks started going against Emelianenko, beginning with his shocking submission loss to Fabricio Werdum, they never stopped until he was thoroughly damaged goods. After remaining on the top of the mountain for years, suddenly he fell right off the cliff. He lost three straight before being bounced out of Strikeforce. The second loss, to Antonio Silva, seemed like it was the size difference finally catching up with him. The third loss, to Strikeforce light heavyweight champ and occasional middleweight contender Dan Henderson, seemed more like age.

If his career had ended there it would have been no less impressive. He continued on anyway, winning a few more mostly meaningless bouts in events propped up by the scaffolding of his fame. He ended it with a knockout of Pedro Rizzo, who was himself a fighter from a bygone era, and one who never quite learned to straddle the way his more successful contemporaries did.
That win won’t really matter, except perhaps to those who were there and got to share in the moment. In the Fedor canon, a knockout of the aging Rizzo falls somewhere above his wins over Zuluzinho and Hong-Man Choi, but far below his defeats of Mirko Filipovic and Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. When you look at his record now, you see freakshows and you see fights. You see an amazing unbeaten streak that includes real wins over real opponents, as well as a few almost criminal ones against unconvincing fakers. Look closer, into the background, and you see handlers who tried to monetize that streak just a little too much, and ended up negotiating themselves right out of the big time. Somewhere in there is an excellent fighter, struggling to keep from being drowned out by the hype and the hate.

Emelianenko was great once. Maybe he could have been even greater if his management had gotten out of the way and given him a chance to find out. We’ll never know, and neither will he. I get the sense that we’re the only ones who even care. Emelianenko was one of the few fighters who never asked us to tell him how wonderful he was, and never seemed interested in listening when we told him anyway. That’s a part of his legacy too. The part that doesn’t care what we think. The part that just wanted to be a man when so many others tried to make him into a god.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/6/22...f-a-simple-man

[BluenoseGreig]

^^^^Another tribute to Fedor posted above^^^^

[Mu_Shin]

Time is relentless, and catches all of us. Say what you will, maintain your own opinions, but mine is that this man took on all comers in his prime, decimated all who stood before him, all with no trash talk, no hype from his own mouth. He was undersized, his physique belied the animal within, and until someone else puts together ten years of success in the heavyweight division, he remains the best that ever strapped on the four ounce gloves at over 205 pounds. No, he did not do his damage in the UFC, and may have struggled against some of the monsters currently jousting in the octagon, but pound for pound, prime against prime, Greatest Of All Time, and I salute him...

[BluenoseGreig]

Agreed Mu_Shin, Fedor, just now, must go down as the Greatest of them all, maybe someone will come along and take that crown from him(Jonny Bones???) but just now Fedor is that man.

[Kickass32]

I just don't think he was THAT good. I'm not criticising Fedor as the warrior he clearly is/was, but he just never fought the best fighters available and for that we are all poorer MMA fans.

That's not true, at the time Fedor fought Big Nog (X3), CroCop, Mark Coleman (X2) they were all at the top of the heap. Big Nog and CroCop were widely considered the #2, and #3 HW's in the world. Even when Fedor beat Arlovski anf Sylvia, they were both in the top 10 HW rankings.

[JCota]

I respect Fedor, not a fan tho...I wish him well in his retirement...