Is Fedor Emilianenko a fake? (part 1)
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It seems like a strange question to ask about a guy who's been undefeated for 10 years in a sort where virtually no one, literally, is immune to the sting of defeat.
However after a shocking loss to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu superstar Fabricio Werdum the internet has been roiling with supposed declarations that Fedor Emilianenko, The Last Russian Emperor, has been exposed as a farce.
This is the first of a multi-series analysis into how this could happen and what mmaprofightshop.com thinks will likely play out in the future of the contender for best pound-for pound fighter in the world of mixed martial arts. Fedor is an anomaly in the MMA world. After a crushing domination of the heavyweight division in the now-defunct Pride, Fedor was one of the few fighters who did not make the transition to the UFC, now widely considered the major leagues of MMA.
This despite convincing defeats of fighters of the calibre of Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueira (2x) ( who actually defeated Fabricio Werdum), Mirko Cro Cop (in an era in which he was untouchable), Igor Vovchanchin, Mark Coleman, Kevin Randleman, Heath Herring and Mark Hunt. Taht's not withstanding his demolition of UFC stars Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski in Strikeforce.
So how is he considered a fake?
Firstly their is the issue of propaganda. Dana White is a master of making the UFC look like the major leagues and to his credit, he has created MMA as an internationally legitimized sport and a multi-billion dollar business. Virtually every MMA fighter in the world considers fighting in the UFC as akin to fighting in the Olympics - the highest honor one can achieve. Fighters who don't make the cut in the UFC are largely derided as "tomato cans" and second rate fighters. Obviously this isn't true. The world is riddled with top-level promotions whose fighters are every bit as good as the UFC's but simply lack the clout or name recognition that the UFC holds over the world's largest MMA audience, the United States. Other organizations pay better, but once you have an established name in the UFC your career is pretty much set for life.
The UFC does a masterful job of portraying all none-UFC fighters as second rate, despite oftentimes later recruiting this very self-same fighters into the UFC roster. This was not an easy task at first while Pride FC was the UFC's prime rival, and often-times superior, in the marketplace. Pride eventually folded due to a scdandal in which it lost it's major source of revenue in a scandal.
After the fall of the UFC's major competitor, the UFC bought out it's major rival and shelved it. Virtually all of the top Pride fighters made the exodus to the UFC with some major exceptions. Emilianenko Fedor was the first one and by far, the most significant one. In the next part of the article, we'll look at what happened next and how this affected the public's perception of Fedor
(end part 1)