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It's been a while since I stared at his record but if Fedor wasn't the best Heavyweight for at least some parts of the 2000s then who were the #1 for the decade? Because Heavyweight MMA was largely a wasteland as far as talent goes. Probably still is but I'm not equipped to comment. I wish the Barnett fight in Affliction had happened, but Josh forgot he was fighting in America rather than Japan, whoops. Undoubtedly Fedor had a warranted rep for beating up cans, although I don't know if I can hold that against him because that's part of why I enjoyed Pride, they appealed to the reptilian brain with matches that were sure to have a finish. If you look at the Heavyweight world at the start of 2005, who is above Fedor? He's just coming off a NYE win over Nogueira in the Heavyweight Grand Prix final. The UFC champion is Mir (? although he either has just been is or is about to be stripped of the title from his bike crash). Mir's '04 had him beat Tim Sylvia & Wes Sims, Fedor beat Big Nog, Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman & Naoya Ogawa. Coleman was passed it, Sims never was, Sylvia was a weird dude who probably doesn't get his due historically, Ogawa was 6-0 at the time of the fight but his best win at this stage is what, Stefan Leko who ended his MMA career 0-3? Or maybe it's 9-7 Gary Goodridge in his debut, who had already been lapped by the rapid improvements in the sport from the beginning to this point. Regardless, the point is that Sylvia, Nogueira & Randleman are probably the only notable wins of the 6, & then it's Nog -> Sylvia and then a drop off to Randleman. Arlovski is about to become UFC champion but his only '04 result was a win over Cabbage, who may very well have been a top 25 HW at the time but if he was that's more an indictment on the strength of the division than a compliment to him. So other than that who else is there? Cro Cop had a good 2004, there's a loss to Randleman but also 7 wins, including getting his win back over Kevin Randleman and beating both Barnett & Fedor's rapist brother. Don't think Kharitonov is in the discussion yet, Barnett spent most of the year on the sidelines with a shoulder injury got in the loss to Cro Cop. Randy Couture is a Light Heavyweight. Pedro Rizzo doesn't fight at all in 2004. Heath Herring goes 3-1, but that loss is the only quality fight unless I'm forgetting how good Gan McGee was. In conclusion, I think Fedor was very good, I think he was the best Heavyweight fighter for at least sometime, I'm not going to go out on a limb & say from X to X because I am a coward, but the Pride schedule & some misfortune with injuries etc also don't necessarily help his case, between Barnett's suspension (& previous attempts to make the fight like at Shockwave '06), Fedor missing the Absolute GP in 2006, & obviously the can crushing, & the few & far between title defences. The Brett Rogers fight was a sure fire sign that the decline had begun & then it got sad from there. But then it always gets sad, that's sort of the nature of combat sports, so few guys don't have a depressing ending to their career. Well, not really that depressing with Fedor's extracurricular poo poo being a reasonable black mark against him as a human being, but it's MMA, you can count on 2 hands the number of fighters that don't have black marks against them, be it racism, domestic abuse, rape, murder, allowing themselves to be used as patsies for pathetic leaders trying to give themselves a strong man aura. It's a loving depressing sport & part of why I dropped off from watching it. I think you could make a case for him of being the best Heavyweight of the 2000s, I don't think I would make it myself but at least partially that's because I'd have to do more research than I'm willing to for a dumb argument about a sport I've not watched in 6 or so years. And also historically the best in a decade that covers such rapid advancement in the sport is extremely hard to quantify, & on top of that I haven't actually watched any of these fights in the best part of a decade. Best of all time? Nah, I don't think so. The sport is so far past Fedor, if you took peak Fedor through a time portal & dropped him in 2023 he'll still get wins because it's a division that will never be deep because there are so many better paying sports for big strong athletes, but he'd get beaten by the top guys. Despite his rep he was never actually unbeatable, Randleman came oh so close after all. But could he be a top 25 guy? I'm looking at the current Fight Matrix ranking & I see Phil de Fries & Cheick Kongo are in it & can't help think that unless they have both rapidly improved (which considering Kongo's age seems unlikely) '04/05 Fedor could hang amongst them. Although this is also a stupid hypothetical so  As an aside, it's always been slightly weird to me that his name has always been transliterated as Fedor rather than Fyodor, especially considering the most famous Фёдор was Fyodor Dostoyevsky. But that's just the part of me that studied Russian for a little while. (And yes, Fedor fans, especially the ones still chirping his relevancy in the 2010s, are almost as insufferable as the worst sort of McGregor fans)
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Feb 17, 2023 23:57
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 18:15 |
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Josuke Higashikata posted:Any of the UFC HW champs from Cain onwards would 100% have destroyed Fedor with ease, and of course, one did. The real challenge is Cain vs Fedor at altitude. All Heavyweight fights should be held in La Paz.
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Feb 19, 2023 10:55
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