The Last Emperor Has No Clothes
Fedor Emelianenko lost for the first time tonight. Yes, he had a loss on his official record, but he had never lost. Yet tonight he not only lost, he was forced to tap out. It wasn’t a decision, not a spectacular knockout, but an armbar inside of a triangle choke that ended Fedor’s unbelievable reign.
Stolen from Bloody Elbow’s comments section:
To steal from Bloody Elbow once again, that very post sums up the fallout perfectly:
1. Fedor Emelianenko – The big one. As Luke Skywalker told the Emperor in Return of the Jedi, it was Fedor’s overconfidence that proved to be his weakness. The Russian paid no caution to Werdum’s guard and paid the biggest price possible. When Fedor begrudgingly tapped, he lost the aura that made him so appealing to the MMA fan base. He’s no longer FEDOR, but simply Fedor.
It’s a rule in MMA that EVERYONE loses, even the very best of fighters. The sport is too unpredictable and one mistake can end a fight. Yet Fedor always seemed to find a way to win. And accomplishing this as a heavyweight made his legend as immensely epic as possible. He wasn’t just the best “pound for pound” fighter in the world, he was the best fighter, period, full stop. There could be no talk of him moving up a weight class. He fought someone who was 7 feet tall!
So is my post from a year ago still true? I know the YouTube video is still badass, but Fedor just lost to Fabricio Werdum, who was the 9th ranked MMA heavyweight, and also a fighter who was released from UFC. Dana White is eating it up, as evidenced by this post on twitter.
I don’t know how to feel, because I didn’t even get to watch the fight as it happened. I found out Fedor lost by a “Holy. Shit.” on Twitter and someone on MSN telling me that Fedor had lost. I didn’t quite believe it, until Twitter updated again and I saw a string of about 10 people saying “Oh my fucking God” in different ways. The feed I was watching cut out right as the fight started, and since it ended only a minute later, I wasn’t able to find another working streaming in time. Fuck my cheap ass.
But I’ll say I’m pretty disappointed that we’ll never see an undefeated Fedor fight an undefeated Brock Lesnar, which was what every MMA fan — casual or hardcore — was pining for before Fedor joined Strikeforce instead of UFC. Since then, I feel like most people have split into two camps, one of which is extremely happy tonight, the other crying themselves to sleep. The former group consists of people pissed at Fedor seemingly ducking the best competition available, while an example of the latter would be whoever made that YouTube video.
At least Stephen Strasburg is still a God, right? Oh wait, he’s on the Nationals. Shit.
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