What you need to know about Fedor

[OldBoy91]

Who did Fedor beat that were "cans"

Can probably isn't the right word, but for every top win on Fedor's record, there's a Nagata, Zulu, Hong Man Choi, Haseman or middleweights like Lindland and Valavicius.

Not to mention he beat fighters well out of their prime, since Fedor fans love to talk about fighters primes so much. Sylvia, Coleman (second fight,) Kohsaka (second fight,) and Rizzo was so far gone it's laughable. The only top heavyweights he fought in their prime were Nog, Cro Cop and arguably Herring.

His record definitely has a bit of padding. That's PRIDE/Japanese mma in general for you though, Wanderlei mixed fights with the greats in with beating up chubby Japanese welterweights for most of his run too. The spectacle aspect always eclipsed the sport aspect in Japan.

 

[JKS]

Can probably isn't the right word, but for every top win on Fedor's record, there's a Nagata, Zulu, Hong Man Choi, Haseman or middleweights like Lindland and Valavicius.

Not to mention he beat fighters well out of their prime, since Fedor fans love to talk about fighters primes so much. Sylvia, Coleman (second fight,) Kohsaka (second fight,) and Rizzo was so far gone it's laughable. The only top heavyweights he fought in their prime were Nog, Cro Cop and arguably Herring.

His record definitely has a bit of padding. That's PRIDE for you though, Wanderlei mixed fights with the greats in with beating up chubby Japanese welterweights for most of his run too. The spectacle aspect always eclipsed the sport aspect in Japan.

Ok, so basically what you're saying is that Fedor fought similar competition to every single fighter in mma, more or less. I dont know where fans get this idea of this mythical fighter that only fights top competition from the very start to the very end of his career. Which is what Fedor seems to be criticized for.

Its not that his record has a bit of padding, its just the landscape of mma and matchmaking, every fighter has those kind of fights on their resume. He is no different then anyone else for the exception that Fedor fought more ranked opponents. Look at guys like Arlovski, 35 pro fights with 24 wins. How many of those are legitimate top caliber Hw's? He fought a few top caliber guys and most were guys like Buetnello, Vlady, Kyle, Schaub etc.....good fighters but not anything great. And half of his wins are fighters that are completely irrelevant. But its not to be criticized, because that is just how careers go. Not one fighter fights the best guys from start to finish.

Lets consider the great Anderson Silva who was 35 wins. Anderson has 15 top 10 wins out of 35, and lets be honest some of those top 10 guys arent really what you call top fighters, they were just ranked at the time.

So point being is that no one has a resume of nothing but top fighters and not many wins are what can be top opponents. If you actually compare Fedor to many other HW's and fighters, he has fought more quality competition then most. And some may say....."well he fought these guys while he was champ" First, he fought 1 guy in Zulu while he was champ in Pride the rest of his so called "Cans" were outside of Pride. And two, there was a whole different system he fought under with non title fights and grand prixs.

 

[Mr. Fresca]

lol troll thread.

Fedor is GOAT, noob.

 

[Weight Thrower]

he was 32 when he lost to werdum. that is not past his prime by any means. he is only 38 now.

Listen kid. At 32 how many fights has fedor had on top of all the Sambo competitions he was dominating?

Prime = peak physical attributes.
At 32 he was already slower and less motivated after dominating two sports for nearly a decade.

Try harder next time before coming off like an idiot.

 

[Mr. Fresca]

I am always confused by the "Fedor fought cans so he sux" argument.

Fedor's longest layoff in his almost 15 year career was 10 months for thumb surgery. Compare that to modern guys like Cain and Jones. Modern champs and top fighters take 10 months off regularly without even giving an excuse as to why (like surgery). Fedor fought 3-4 times a year for a decade. We are lucky to see top fighters fight twice a year now days.

Fedor fought all the top competition, and in between he would fight guys like Zulu. But the Zulu fights did not take place instead of Nog fights. They took place IN ADDITION to the Nog/CroCop fights.

So if guys like Jones and Cain took an extra 2 fights a year against fighters ranked outside the top 10 and won, would you consider Cain and Jones worse fighters than they are now?

I just don't get this logic. Probably because it makes no fucking sense.

 

[moreorless87]

Not to mention he beat fighters well out of their prime, since Fedor fans love to talk about fighters primes so much. Sylvia, Coleman (second fight,) Kohsaka (second fight,) and Rizzo was so far gone it's laughable. The only top heavyweights he fought in their prime were Nog, Cro Cop and arguably Herring..

Lets looks at those...

Sylvia - Pretty clear he wasn't past his prime to me, one bad performance vs Randy followed by good performance vs Vera and Nog.

Coleman - Aging but not that old in ring years, had only lost to Nog since the GP and looked as good as ever to me in 2004, looked like he was declining a small about in 2006 but nothing close to the dropoff we saw in 2009.

Kohsaka - Still looked in pretty good form to me, was never really on the level of the best 00's HW's but beat guys like Waterman and Sperry around that time and gave Hunt a test.

Rizzo - Definitely well past his best I'v agree although not totally shot going from his previous performances.

 

[OldBoy91]

Ok, so basically what you're saying is that Fedor fought similar competition to every single fighter in mma, more or less. I dont know where fans get this idea of this mythical fighter that only fights top competition from the very start to the very end of his career. Which is what Fedor seems to be criticized for.

Its not that his record has a bit of padding, its just the landscape of mma and matchmaking, every fighter has those kind of fights on their resume. He is no different then anyone else for the exception that Fedor fought more ranked opponents. Look at guys like Arlovski, 35 pro fights with 24 wins. How many of those are legitimate top caliber Hw's? He fought a few top caliber guys and most were guys like Buetnello, Vlady, Kyle, Schaub etc.....good fighters but not anything great. And half of his wins are fighters that are completely irrelevant. But its not to be criticized, because that is just how careers go. Not one fighter fights the best guys from start to finish.

Lets consider the great Anderson Silva who was 35 wins. Anderson has 15 top 10 wins out of 35, and lets be honest some of those top 10 guys arent really what you call top fighters, they were just ranked at the time.

So point being is that no one has a resume of nothing but top fighters and not many wins are what can be top opponents. If you actually compare Fedor to many other HW's and fighters, he has fought more quality competition then most. And some may say....."well he fought these guys while he was champ" First, he fought 1 guy in Zulu while he was champ in Pride the rest of his so called "Cans" were outside of Pride. And two, there was a whole different system he fought under with non title fights and grand prixs.

Pretty much. He beat a few top guys, but a lot middling competition as well. Werdum has the better resume overall if you look at their win columns, but he hasn't gone unbeaten for 10 years either. My point is that Fedor's resume isn't so far beyond everyone elses to justify people saying things like "Fedor is GOAT, nobody else even comes close" because there are too many determining factors to say something is so clear cut. Fedor has a VERY good argument, maybe even the best. There are definitely question marks though, only three title defenses, fought too many MWs/LHWs that kind of thing.

 

[JKS]

I am always confused by the "Fedor fought cans so he sux" argument.

Fedor's longest layoff in his almost 15 year career was 10 months for thumb surgery. Compare that to modern guys like Cain and Jones. Modern champs and top fighters take 10 months off regularly without even giving an excuse as to why (like surgery). Fedor fought 3-4 times a year for a decade. We are lucky to see top fighters fight twice a year now days.

Fedor fought all the top competition, and in between he would fight guys like Zulu. But the Zulu fights did not take place instead of Nog fights. They took place IN ADDITION to the Nog/CroCop fights.

So if guys like Jones and Cain took an extra 2 fights a year against fighters ranked outside the top 10 and won, would you consider Cain and Jones worse fighters than they are now?

I just don't get this logic. Probably because it makes no fucking sense.

Got that right.

Its sort of like Anderson Silva fighting James Irvin and Stephan Bonnar in between his MW title defenses.

 

[Petah Bash]

Excellent post TS. Unfortunately all threads that aren't licking Fedor's scrotum get moved to the wasteland.

Another great myth about Fedor was that he was a small heavyweight and he fought at a size disadvantage for the majority of his fights, but this is easily disproved.

Fedor is 6' and always fought at around 230 pounds... sometimes several pounds lighter, sometimes several pounds heavier. The best way to do this is to have 3 categories:

Smaller: this is the category where Fedor was smaller than his opponent.
Same size: this is the category where there was minimal difference in height and no more than 10 pounds difference in weight (10 pounds in the heavyweight division is completely negligible).
Bigger: this is the category where Fedor was bigger than his opponent.

Let's take a look at the height and weight of his opponents:

Martin Lazarov: weight and height unknown, but if you watch videos of the fight it is obvious that Lazarov is at best the same size but in all likelihood smaller. But in the interest of fairness we'll classify this opponent as being the same size seeing there are no actual stats. Category: Same size.

Levon Laglivava: exactly the same scenario as Lazarov. Category: Same size.

Hiroya Takada: 5'10", 216 pounds. 2 inches shorter and 14 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Ricardo Arona: 5'11", 200 pounds. 1 inch shorter and 30 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Tsuyohsi Kosaka: 5'11, 225 pounds. 1 inch shorter and 5 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Mihail Apostolov: 6', 231 pounds. Same height and 1 pound heavier than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Kerry Schall: 6'2", 283 pounds. 2 inches taller and 53 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Renato Sobral: 6', 229 pounds. Same height and 1 pound lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Ryushi Yanagisawa: 6'3", 225 pounds. 3 inches taller, 5 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Lee Hasdell: 6'1", 220 pounds. 1 inch taller, 10 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Chris Haseman: 5'11", 217 pounds. 1 inch shorter, 13 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Semmy Schilt: 6'9", 295 pounds. 9 inches taller, 65 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Heath Herring: 6'4", 250 pounds. 4 inches taller, 20 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira: 6'3", 227 pounds. 3 inches taller, 3 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Egidijus Valavicius: 6', 205 pounds. Same height, 25 pounds less than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Kazuyuki Fujita: 6', 240 pounds. Same height, 10 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Gary Goodridge: 6'3", 240 pounds. 2 inches taller, 10 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Yuji Nagata: 6', 224 pounds. Same height, 6 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Mark Coleman: 6'1", 224 pounds. Same height, 6 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Kevin Randleman: 5'10", 230 pounds. 2 inches shorter, same weight as Fedor. Category: Same size.

Naoya Ogawa: 6'4", 250 pounds2 inches taller, 20 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Mirko Filipovic: 6'2", 225 pounds. 2 inches taller, 5 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Zulu: 6'5", 341 pounds. 5 inches taller, 111 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Mark Hunt: 5'10", 262 pounds. 2 inches shorter, 32 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Matt Lindland: 6', 212 pounds. Same height, 18 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Hong Man Choi: 7'1", 315 pounds. 13 inches taller, 85 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Tim Sylvia: 6'8", 263 pounds. 8 inches taller, 33 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Andrei Arlovski: 6'4", 237 pounds. 4 inches taller, 7 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Brett Rogers: 6'4", 264 pounds. 4 inches taller, 34 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Fabricio Werdum:6'3", 238 pounds. 3 inches taller, 8 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Antonio Silva: 6'4", 264 pounds. 4 inches taller and 34 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.

Dan Henderson: 5'11", 207 pounds. 1 inch shorter, 23 pounds lighter than Fedor. Category: Bigger.

Jeff Monson: 5'8", 237 pounds. 4 inches shorter, 7 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Satoshi Ishii: 5'11", 240 pounds. 1 inch shorter, 10 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Same size.

Pedro Rizzo: 6'1", 246 pounds. 1 inch taller, 16 pounds heavier than Fedor. Category: Smaller.


So here are the facts. Fedor fought a total of 35 opponents in his career. Of these 35 opponents, he was smaller than 13 of them, the same size as 16 of them and bigger than 6 of them. What this means is that throughout his career Fedor was either the same size or actually had a size advantage over a whopping 63% of his opponents.

Too often you see people try to purport the fallacy of Fedor being at a size disadvantage for the majority of his career. Well these facts prove that the truth is actually the complete opposite, and I challenge anyone to try to prove otherwise.

Fedor is 6ft, like Carwin is 6ft 5. Cheick Kongo weighed in in the mid 230's. Is he the same size as fedor. Way to use numbers to twist the truth. 2/10

 

[kikikhan]

Here is what really happened

Then he started to feel bad for God and started to lose.

 

[Mr. Fresca]

Got that right.

Its sort of like Anderson Silva fighting James Irvin and Stephan Bonnar in between his MW title defenses.

Or Jones fighting guys that have no business at 205 fighting for the belt like Sonnen and Belfort

Or GSP fighting Matt Serra and losing. Then Matt Serra becoming ranked for beating GSP and then GSP winning the rematch and getting a "top 10 win." Even though Serra was only ranked because he beat GSP.

For whatever reason people only focus on Fedor's Zulu fight and the Lindland fight.

 

[eworden78]

Fedor won 5 fights in a row after leaving Pride.
AA and Sylvia were the top 2 HW's in the UFC during his Pride reign. He beat both of them outside of Pride.
2 of his 3 losses(Hendo and Werdum), were to guys who fought much of their career in Pride.
2 of his 3 losses(Werdum, Silva) have recently fought for the UFC HW title.
1 of his 3 losses is the current #1 HW in the world.

A three fight losing streak isn't a good thing, especially after being dominating for over a decade. But lets not make more out of it than it was.

Fedor did fine immediately after leaving Pride, then he lost to three dangerous guys. End of story.

 

[chinarice]

The UFC is just as shady as PRIDE was.

lol nice try, though.

 

[GusDawg]

Look at this list of cans Fedor fought:

Raimundo Pinheiro
Luiz Azeredo (Lost to)
Jose Barreto
Claudionor Fontinelle
Tetsuji Kato
Israel Albuquerque
Alex Stiebling
Alexander Otsuka
Daiju Takase (Lost to)
Waldir dos Anjos

Oh wait.....that was Anderson Silva. How come people only complain about Fedors competition when just about all top tier fighters have a resume dotted with "cans"?

 

[eworden78]

Or Jones fighting guys that have no business at 205 fighting for the belt like Sonnen and Belfort

Or GSP fighting Matt Serra and losing. Then Matt Serra becoming ranked for beating GSP and then GSP winning the rematch and getting a "top 10 win." Even though Serra was only ranked because he beat GSP.

For whatever reason people only focus on Fedor's Zulu fight and the Lindland fight.

People forget about Lindland at the time too. He was considered to be one of the best fighters in the world outside of the major orgs.

Lindland was on a 9-1 run, his only loss being a razor close decision to Rampage. He was doing well against solid LHW's.

It was a weird matchup, but Lindland was not considered a pushover.

 

[JKS]

Pretty much. He beat a few top guys, but a lot middling competition as well. Werdum has the better resume overall if you look at their win columns, but he hasn't gone unbeaten for 10 years either. My point is that Fedor's resume isn't so far beyond everyone elses to justify people saying things like "Fedor is GOAT, nobody else even comes close" because there are too many determining factors to say something is so clear cut. Fedor has a VERY good argument, maybe even the best. There are definitely question marks though, only three title defenses, fought too many MWs/LHWs that kind of thing.

On the topic of GOAT, I dont consider Fedor the GOAT, I think its a group of 3 guys along with GSP and Anderson and then its simply open to interpretation. And I dont think his resume is far and beyond any other great fighters. In fact, I think GSP has the slightly better resume. Even comparing Fedor to Nogueira in their best days....Nog had IMO a better resume but Fedor beat him twice and had the undefeated streak.

Well, the 3 title defenses is a funny one. He was Pride HW champ for a period of less then 4 years, it was 3 years and 8 months. Some think it was longer then that. But even in that time frame there were a few scenarios that were confusing. He had contract issues, wanted out of Pride FC fights, there was a interim belt put in place for a period of a year 2003 to 2004. There were the HW GP 2004 and OWGP 2006 that took out many top fighters. So its not like Fedor was champ for almost 4 years and could defend all the time, the system he was under along with those circumstances just didnt allow that.

In Pride he never fought any MWs or LHW's, he did outside of Pride later in his career vs Lindland and Hendo. But both guys came in at the HW weight.

I think what makes Fedor have the perception of being who he is....is really the streak and the accomplishments. You're correct when you say his resume isnt way better then the others. But he did not lose a fight in 32 fights. And that is pretty incredible regardless of competition. If you look at the guys like Anderson and GSP, they lost to a few guys in between who are not top fighters. Nog lost to Hendo, Barnett, Fedor 2x, Mir 2x.........Cro Cop lost to many guys along the way, Werdum for example dropped fights to Sergei, Nog, Overeem, Andrei and JDS. So even if half the fighters on Fedor's resume are good hw's, average and below average....its still pretty impressive not losing at all. And also the fact he was the Hw champ and HW grand prix champ, won some title in Affliction, he has accomplishments as well.

 

[JKS]

Or Jones fighting guys that have no business at 205 fighting for the belt like Sonnen and Belfort

Or GSP fighting Matt Serra and losing. Then Matt Serra becoming ranked for beating GSP and then GSP winning the rematch and getting a "top 10 win." Even though Serra was only ranked because he beat GSP.

For whatever reason people only focus on Fedor's Zulu fight and the Lindland fight.

Ya, good examples.

And again, those fights Jones has with Vitor and Chael and the fights that GSP had with Serra or a Hardy for example. Those arent fights I criticize, I just say its all part of the mma and organization system. Not one fighter can only fight the best guys all the time. Its not possible.

 

[OldBoy91]

On the topic of GOAT, I dont consider Fedor the GOAT, I think its a group of 3 guys along with GSP and Anderson and then its simply open to interpretation. And I dont think his resume is far and beyond any other great fighters. In fact, I think GSP has the slightly better resume. Even comparing Fedor to Nogueira in their best days....Nog had IMO a better resume but Fedor beat him twice and had the undefeated streak.

Well, the 3 title defenses is a funny one. He was Pride HW champ for a period of less then 4 years, it was 3 years and 8 months. Some think it was longer then that. But even in that time frame there were a few scenarios that were confusing. He had contract issues, wanted out of Pride FC fights, there was a interim belt put in place for a period of a year 2003 to 2004. There were the HW GP 2004 and OWGP 2006 that took out many top fighters. So its not like Fedor was champ for almost 4 years and could defend all the time, the system he was under along with those circumstances just didnt allow that.

In Pride he never fought any MWs or LHW's, he did outside of Pride later in his career vs Lindland and Hendo. But both guys came in at the HW weight.

I think what makes Fedor have the perception of being who he is....is really the streak and the accomplishments. You're correct when you say his resume isnt way better then the others. But he did not lose a fight in 32 fights. And that is pretty incredible regardless of competition. If you look at the guys like Anderson and GSP, they lost to a few guys in between who are not top fighters. Nog lost to Hendo, Barnett, Fedor 2x, Mir 2x.........Cro Cop lost to many guys along the way, Werdum for example dropped fights to Sergei, Nog, Overeem, Andrei and JDS. So even if half the fighters on Fedor's resume are good hw's, average and below average....its still pretty impressive not losing at all. And also the fact he was the Hw champ and HW grand prix champ, won some title in Affliction, he has accomplishments as well.

I'd agree with all of that, and that's exactly what i'm talking about when it comes to the GOAT/weightclass GOAT discussion. There are so many factors to be taken into account. Wins, losses, manner of wins & losses, amount of time unbeaten, skill set, names beaten on your resume. There are a few fighters that could be recognised as the best depending on what factors people favour.

For example, Nog has a better resume than Fedor, yet was bested everytime they fought each other. Randy arguably has the most impressive accolades/trophy cabinet but has a lot of losses, including one to Nog. Cain looks to be unbeatable when he's on, and has the skillset to beat any HW in history, but his resume doesn't really stack up to some of the others. Werdum has the best resume and is the only man to not only beat, but finish the other three consensus #1 heavyweights ever, but he too has more losses than Fedor. Fedor himself has the longest unbeaten streak in HW history, beat one of the other HW goats decisively twice, but fought quite a few mediocre fighters and guys undersized for the weightclass. The loss to an old Hendo who has looked mostly mediocre since is a bad blemish on his record too, and he decisively lost to Werdum.

It's a really tough one just trying to decide who is the best HW ever, let alone the GOAT regardless of weight.

 

[kikikhan]

I'd agree with all of that, and that's exactly what i'm talking about when it comes to the GOAT/weightclass GOAT discussion. There are so many factors to be taken into account. Wins, losses, manner of wins & losses, amount of time unbeaten, skill set, names beaten on your resume. There are a few fighters that could be recognised as the best depending on what factors people favour.

For example, Nog has a better resume than Fedor, yet was bested everytime they fought each other. Randy arguably has the most impressive accolades/trophy cabinet but has a lot of losses, including one to Nog. Cain looks to be unbeatable when he's on, and has the skillset to beat any HW in history, but his resume doesn't really stack up to some of the others. Werdum has the best resume and is the only man to not only beat, but finish the other three consensus #1 heavyweights ever, but he too has more losses than Fedor. Fedor himself has the longest unbeaten streak in HW history, beat one of the other HW goats decisively twice, but fought quite a few mediocre fighters and guys undersized for the weightclass. The loss to an old Hendo who has looked mostly mediocre since is a bad blemish on his record too, and he decisively lost to Werdum.

It's a really tough one just trying to decide who is the best HW ever, let alone the GOAT regardless of weight.

No it's not hard at all. It's simple. It's just that you guys don't know how to separate reality from P4P.

Fedor is the GOAT, I explained it a million times why that is the case (read my article for details), nr. 2 is Minotauro. Nr. 3 is Werdum, but has competition.

 

[OldBoy91]

No it's not hard at all. It's simple. It's just that you guys don't know how to separate reality from P4P.

Fedor is the GOAT, I explained it a million times why that is the case (read my article for details), nr. 2 is Minotauro. Nr. 3 is Werdum, but has competition.

I'd take your "article" about as seriously as I take you. That is to say not at all.

I still remember your thread where you were trying to convince people that Hong Man Choi was a legit win. And used that fight to show how Fedor's ground game had declined between then and the Bigfoot fight. All without a mention of Bigfoot being a legit BJJ black Belt and HMC being a complete noob on the ground. It's you that needs to seperate reality from the world inside your head.

Hint- When everyone is telling you that you're the crazy one, it probably means that YOU are, not that everyone else is wrong and you're the only person smart enough to see the light. Even other Fedor fanboys don't take you seriously.