Dynamite MMA

UFC 2010 Undisputed Review

2010-05-28T12:04:00.000-05:00

    Tuesday afternoon I left work early and eagerly rushed to my local Gamestop store to pick up my preordered copy of UFC Undisputed 2010. It wasn't long before I was back at my apartment on my couch impatiently watching the load bar as THQ's most recent volume in the UFC line installed itself to my PS3. Right off the bat I noticed that the graphics have been vastly improved from 2009, especially in the surrounding enviorment of the corner, cage, gym, and crowd, giving the game a much more realistic feel. The game is utterly addictive and makes you want to play it for hours on end...then you start to see the unresolved issues that THQ simply decided to ignore.

    Game Play: The controls remain for the most part the same as they did in 2009. Movement is controled with the left stick, striking the function buttons, levels and defense with the shoulder keys, and grappling with the right stick. The most noteable changes are in the clinch work and the use of the cage. Where 2009 offered a truly minimal experience involving a race to the thai clinch and the ability automatic escape double unders by stepping backwards, 2010 took strides to make this facet of the game more than just a poor extension of the kickboxing system. Players must now via for position in the clinch and worry about the takedown and gone is the ability to simply break the clinch when you find yourself in a disadvantageous position.  Also new to 2010 is cage work. In 2009 the cage served no real purpose other than to serve as a barrier to the fighting area with no effect on clinch work, grappling, ground 'n' pound, or anything else. 2010 provides even more depth to its realism by allowing players to use the cage for everything save standing up. You can lean against it to stop a double leg and drive your opponent into it with the clinch, providing previously unattainable levels of control over an opponent. These changes are a vast improvment over 2009, providing a far more ingrossing experience and a more real life feel to the game.
    Less successful are the new sway system and the abysmal AI. The sway system allows players to slip and counter punches with well timed defensive manuvers that in theory provide a more realistic stand up experience. The issues lie in the fact that it has two major flaws: it's overpowered and it lacks intuitiveness. Slipping punchs isn't just a matter of timing, its almost a matter of mind reading. It isn't as bad as the first generation UFC games submission defense system where defense was a matter of hitting the exact same button combination as your opponent, but its close. Players must use near perfect timing and select the proper directional counter to any one of his opponents multitude of strikes in order to dodge the punch. The reward for this? A counter punch that is an instant KO 95% of the time, regardless of your range or the opponents previous condition. This system is designed to simulate the flash KO that sometimes comes with a skilled and well timed counter punch but unfortunately its lack of intuitiveness makes it nearly impossible to use defensively and its overpowered effect on the counters means that a shot in the dark slip results in a one button instant finish. Overall the sway and counter system will end up being just a way for the computer AI to piss you off again and again with results like Eddie Sanchez defeats Brock lesnar via KO after three rounds of being totally destroyed.   The second issue with gameplay is the unrealistic AI. When you square off against Mirko CroCop you look for an exciting stand up fight, but the computer opponent will spend the entire fight shooting doubles. This seriously detracts from the feeling of a real UFC fight as the AI causes the fighters to behave in a manner completely against their nature. When you get submitted by Antoni Hardonk, its really hard to say "Man this game is realistic! It's just like watching a pay-per-view!"
   Last but not least, the transitions, which were abysmal in 2009, have not been fixed in 2010. This issue is mainly a result of camera angles and zoom. When you move in for a takedown or the clinch, the camera jumps to a close up view in a way one would expect from a video came. This detracts from the realism of the game and THQ would have been much better served by a slow pan more like the changes found when watching a pay-per-view.
    Play Modes:  Undisputed 2010 provides gamers with a plethora of ways to experience the UFC. Want to fight as your favorite UFC fighters? You can choose from a one match exhibition, a climb up the ladder in title contention mode, a take all comers experience in title defense mode, an old school fight for survival in tournament mode, or a chance to relive your favorite fights in Ultimate Fights mode.  Want to experience the long hard road to the UFC with your very own fighter? Career mode takes you through your amature carrer, fights in the WFA, visits to other camps to learn the moves and attacks you want to learn, and finally, to the UFC. Want to play with your freinds or just dominate people around the nation? You can take your favorite UFC fighters or your created fighters online and even form an online fight camp.
    With so much to do, the replay value is immersurable.  THQ has shown true genius in taking what basically ammounts to doing the exact same thing over and over and making it into a collection of unique experiences. Road to the title? Thats 8-12 fights in a row. Defense mode? Thats 12 fights in a row. Tournament mode? 4-6 fights in a row.  THQ has built an experience that makes you truly feel the distinction between taking Lyoto Machida against Shogun in each of the diferent modes.
    In career mode, though the training system is a bit confusing and tedious and lacks a tutorial thats even remotely helpful, the ends to which you can customize your personal fighter are boundless.  Gone is the instant trip to the UFC with a predetermined skillset from 2009. THQ replaced it with a completely open-ended system where you train your fighters overall skills by sparring, his physical attributes by training, and build a custom move list through camps that YOU select. This system, while at times confusing and tedious, allows you to build a truly unique fighter who is all your own and pits you against lesser competition in the WFA while you do it, so you never end up fighting BJ Penn or GSP three fights into your career with half a move list like you did in 2009. This is a truly remarkable custom fighter engine.
    The only dark spot to 2010s game mode options is the online server. Finding a game is next to impossible and joining that fight is even harder. If you do manage to get in the cage with someone, the gameplay is laggy and often freezes. In one partiqularly bad example, I spent two hours trying to join a fight and when I finally did, the server lag was so bad that it was like watching my fighter (Machida in this case) move as if he were fighting underwater before the game froze and kicked me from the room. I run my game on a T1 connection, this shouldn't happen.
     Presentation and Graphics: This is the best and the worst area of UFC Undisputed 2010. As soon as you log into the game you find yourself emersed in the look and feel of the UFC. Your fighter speaks about an opponent as if he really knows him, the anouncers discuss not only the current action but they talk about your previous fights, the cage, crowd, mats, ring girls, and ref are every bit as realistic as your fighter. Everything is there to make you feel like you are plugged into the UFCs latest PPV and are controlling your favorite fighter. Then you realize that alot of the discussions grow repetative. THQ could have corrected this with just a handful of voice clips from Goldie and Rogan, making the rotation of comments a little more varied. Then you realize that listening to your corner is the worst thing you could do as they talk about how you need to watch your opponents takedowns...despite the fact he is Antoni Hardonk and hasn't shot in his last ten fights. If the boys at THQ can make Mike and Joe keep up with several fights then there should be no trouble making the corner give advice that is somewhat helpful instead of just the next thing in a rotation of generic comments. The last part of the presentation comes in the form of career mode. Your "coach" is useless, the lack of a tutorial is almost unforgivable, and the six srceens of various spreadsheet style stats, sponsers, training options, camps, and schedules are in desperate need of streamlining and explination. It is a complete distraction from the wonderful job THQ did simulating the progress of your fighter clawing his way to the top of the WFA food chain to become a UFC fighter.

  Overall, UFC Undisputed 2010 is not only an improvement on the already spectacular 2009, but is a truly inovative combat sports game all on its own. THQ has developed a nearly flawless fight simulator that makes you feel like you can do anything your favorite fighters do on TV. They built a create a fighter system that allows you to create a truly unique fighter, not simply make adjustments to a previously designed template. They developed an AI for the comentators as opposed a rotating battery of voice clips.  The only thing stopping this game from attaining perfection are a few errors that unfortunately appear to be cost cutting or worse, laziness. Why not keep Rogan in the booth for a handful more comments? Why no tutorials so new players can find their fighters ass with a flashlight in career mode? Why not adjust the computers AI to behave more like the fighter you are actually facing instead of allowing Daimen Maia to fight like Mirko CroCop? And PLEASE THQ I beg you, fix the online servers so I can beat up my friends in other states. Hopefully THQ will listen to the players and fix these errors in 2011. If they do, not even the game Nazis at IGN will be able to deny the games perfection.

UFC 113: Machida Shogun 2 GBU

2010-05-13T12:47:00.000-05:00

    Now that my computer is back up and running, I've got alot of work cut out for me. Strikeforce: Heavy Hitters is just three days away, I still have to do part 2 of my piece on judging, and UFC 113 needs to be covered.  Better get started. Montreal, Quebec, Canada  played host to the second meeting between Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and light-heavyweight champ Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida after their controversial first bout at UFC 104 and the card did not disappoint. A card that was stacked with strong draws and UFC stalwarts delievered a night of fast paced fights and a few suprises to boot. In the end we are, as always, left with guys who come out looking good, guys who come out looking bad, and guys who come out looking down right ugly.

    The Good:
          Mauricio Rua: "Shogun" came into this fight looking to prove that he deserved to win the controversial decision against Lyoto Machida back in October. He did just that. By luck or design, an overhand right from Rua caught Lyoto off balance and toppled him to the mat. Thats where the arguements of a lucky punch stop. Rua pounced on Machida like a ravenous wolf and established mount before showing the killer instincts that are synonymous with his old camp at Chute Box. Though the initial knock down was caused more by the champ being off balance than the punch landing with power, "Shogun's" ability to seize the opportunity and gain mount resulted in a brutal KO stoppage. Ladies and gentlemen, your new champion: Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.
        Alan Belcher: Belcher was given an opportunity to face a very solid middleweight fresh off a two year long lay off in Patrick Cote and he capitalized. In the first round, "The Talent" controled the action with crisp stand up and good movement against a noticably rust Cote before the Canadian took him to the mat and secured a kimura from the half gaurd. Cote made a mistake by splitting his legs to far and Belcher used his own kimura to sweep him...Alan Belcher was never threatened again. He ended the round with elbows then came out in the second to counter a sloppy double leg with a WWEesque facebuster before taking Cote's back and securing a rear naked choke for the win. Belcher showed a dangerous mix of technical striking, solid grappling, and brute strength and used the display to justify calling out Anderson Silva. Even if you think he doesn't have a chance against Silva, he certainly made a case for himself with tis bout.
    Sam Stout and Jeremy Stephens: Despite the lack of a finish, in fact the seeming lack of a desire to finish, Stout and Stephens fought a stand-up war that earned them both a 65k fight of the night bonus. The two came out swinging with every round being divided amongst the judges. In the end, Stephens walked with a decision that, though not everyone agrees with, was close enough to avoid controversy. This was more than likely due to him landing the only two takedowns in the bout and a slight edge in powerful strikes landed. A fight like this really has no loser as both men left the ring looking good in the eyes of the fans and the UFC brass.

     The Bad:
        Lyoto Machida: Machida walked into the octagon with the light-heavyweight belt, a perfect record, and the very validity of his style (at least in the eyes of the uneducated) riding on his shoulders. He lost all of it. It took less than five minutes following his KO loss to Mauricio Rua for journalists and knuckle headed TUF fans to begin snickering about karate aparently not making a comeback and about how it should've ended this way the first time. While I have no doubt "The Dragon" will come back strong and eventually take back his belt, his air of invincibility and the mysterious dominance of his style have been completely shattered.
        Matt Mitrione: Matt Mitrione showed that he had the ability to utilize patience and a solid gameplan to achieve his goals in his second round TKO of Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson. He also displayed a fanboy, saw-it-on-TV level of submission skills and a gas tank that equates to a dragsters one gallon fuel cell.  Matt started the fight with a pair of high kicks, the later of which was caught and ended with him on his back. He followed with a sloppy triangle choke that got him slammed hard twice. Luckily for him that was it for "Kimbo's" stamina. He spent the rest of the fight battering "Kimbo" with leg kicks and first month student level submission attempts before mounting the street brawler half-way through the second round and securing a ground n pound win...using the term "pound" very loosely. Mitrione won but proved a skilled fighter who can last more than two minutes has nothing to fear from him.
        Patrick Cote: Cote came back from a two year injury lay off to showcase his talent in front of a sold out hometown crowd. Unfortunately, he showed spots of ringrust in all the wrong areas. His footwork and set ups were strong on the feet, but he couldn't land the shots he needed to stop Belcher's well placed kicks. He set up his submissions with precision and moved fluidly through top positions, only to make glaring positional errors while locking in a kimura that resulted in a sweep. Cote will come back stronger than most from such a serious injury, but Belcher was on point and far to sharp to allow Cote the mistakes he made.

    The Ugly:
        Josh Koscheck:  "Kos" showed an intellegence that few thought could override his arrogance in his decision win over Paul Daley. He took the dangerous fighter down repeatedly in route to an incrediblely boring lay n pray victory and secured a rematch with welterweight kingpin George St.Pierre and a coaching stint on The Ultimate Fighter in the process. So why is he listed in The Ugly?  First reason: bad acting. In the first, during a scramble, Daley threw and illegal knee to the head while Koscheck was on the ground that clearly missed and Josh decided to go for an emmy for best actor in a faked injury role by clutching his head and crumpling against the cage, provoking a chourus of boos from the Canadian crowd that could be heard on the gulf coast. Second reason: He spent the final 20 seconds of the fight insulting Daley's mother...on the day before Mother's Day. Third reason: He insulted, and cursed at, the entire sold out crowd in Montreal.  Any good he did with the win was erased by his bad acting and his insults more than likely will result in GSP seriously injuring him.
        Paul Daley: If everything went right for "Shogun" Saturday night, everything went wrong for "Semtex". He was soundly dominated in what was the only boring fight of his career, insulted schoolyard bully style by "Kos", and booted from the UFC for his frustrations. After almost losing a point for an illgeal knee due to Koscheck's shameless display he spent the rest of the bout more or less in a headlock getting nuggied and it was all capped off with Koscheck insulting his mother from his half gaurd. Frustrated to the point of stupidity, Daley expotentially compounds his problems by tapping Koscheck on the shoulder and sucker punching him a full ten seconds after the final bell.  The result was Daley's lucky star turning into a catastrophic meteor impact causing a career extinction event.  He showed that a strong wreslter can completely shut him down and got booted from the UFC all in one fell swoop.
          Kevin Ferguson: "Kimbo Slice" proved Dana White and every other serious MMA fan right. His work ethic is strong but he never has been nor ever will be anything more than a curiosity in MMA. His skill set isn't even at a journeyman level as Matt Mitrione proved by using very basic kickboxing and sub-gatekeeper level wrestling to completely shut down the brawler whose wind ran out after only a few short minutes. Kimbo will probably be featured in several fights against washed up celebrities, fighters from several generations ago, and aged cross over athletes but he will not be in the UFC any longer. Kimbo looked utterky lost in the second round and you could almost see the realization that he would never see UFC glory dawn in his eyes and he flailed under a fighter with only two professional bouts to his name.

And Now For Something Completely Different

2010-04-27T15:27:00.000-05:00

    First things first, let me address the turd in the MMA punch bowl. Three days after one of the most entertaining fights of the year, we have already allowed ourselves to be distracted from the sport we all love by something that has little or no effect on it. I am, of course, referring to the MMA media's current obsession with the Tito Ortiz domestic abuse scandal. While I personally have never liked Tito and jump at every chance to bash him, I find myself put off by MMA journalists' willingness to focus their attentions on a tabloidesque (it was originally reported by TMZ for Christ's sake!) story that is not only none of anyone else's business, but also has no real effect on MMA as a whole.  This is why I have decided to focus on something far more relevant to our sport in this post, the absolutely appalling state of MMA judging. While complaints about judging are outnumbered only by the number of blog and forum posts detailing how to fix it, I find that recently this has become far more of an issue. I don't believe that judging can really be covered in brief, so this particular article will be made in two posts: the history of and problems with MMA judging, then the many ways of how to fix it.

     In the early 90's, MMA was a contest with very few rules and no time limit. The fighters were going into the cage with the knowledge that they HAD to finish the fight. There was one slight issue though. While it insured the purest form of non-lethal combat, with both fighters always looking to finish his opponent, it was a nightmare for promoters, live broadcasts, and sometimes even fans. A bout between two skilled fighters could last half an hour or more with no resolution, leaving promoters unable to submit accurate time tables to PPV carriers. A wrestler could pin a jiu-jitsu man and the result would be a boring spectacle that lasted 45min as the wrestler's base and positioning prevents the submission but his inability to deal real damage results in a permanent deadlock. The answer, a time limit! While this solved the problem of getting all the fights to fit in a specific time frame, it created an entirely different issue. How is a winner determined? What happened when one fighter clearly dominated but was unable to finish his opponent in the allotted time?  To solve this problem they brought in judges who were to determine who had the best chance of winning the bout had there been no time limit. The initial MMA judging system was a crude system in which a judge simply held up a card with either a fighter's name or draw.  This initial system was based on that one criteria "who would have won the bout had it continued." The issue was that it lacked a structure that could be easily understood by fans and fighters alike, also, with the introduction of rounds it failed to address the fact that one man could dominate the first round then be dominated in the second, making it difficult to say if his opponent truly turned the tables or if is was the break in the action that allowed him to seize control. This caused judging's second major over haul, resulting in two major forms of judging: Ippon and 10 point must.

    The first of these two systems is the Ippon system developed in Japan. Ippon means "one point" denoting that the judge gives one point to the winner, none to the loser, or none to either in the rare case of a draw. This system's is very similar to the old system in that the fight is judged as a whole, ignoring rounds as a break in the action. The principle difference between the Ippon and the old system is that the Ippon system has a very structured set of criteria used to determine the winner. Rather than simply select the athlete that he believes would have been the eventual winner, a judge follows a guideline of which actions are more important in determining the outcome. Consideration is given in the following order:

Effort made to finish the fight by KO/TKO/Submission
Damage inflicted on opponent
Standing combinations and ground control
Take downs and take down defense
Aggressiveness
Weight (only in special bouts where fighters have a difference 22 lbs or more)

Pros: The Ippon system held true to the idea of viewing MMA bouts as a fight and not as a competition. Fighters cannot "score points" by repeatedly taking an opponent down and not seeking to do any significant damage or set up a submission. It also helps to prevent a judge with a bias toward one style of fighting from eschewing his scored by placing an emphasis on seeking to finish the fight and damage done, making a wrestler who simply pins his opponent the loser against a fighter who hurts him coming in for take downs or who threatens submissions from the bottom or preventing a fighter with a "safe" striking game (i.e. jab your way to a decision) that is designed to control distance rather than KO an opponent from beating a man who is actively looking for the GnP TKO on his few successful shoots. It also prevents the rare 10-9,10-9,8-10 draw were a fighter gets outclassed totally for one round but clearly wins the rest of the fight.

Cons: The Ippon system isn't without it's fundamental flaws. It allows a fighter to be completely out classed, yet still win the fight with a few well timed or lucky blows that cause significant damage or simply drop his opponent to the mat. It also doesn't allow for the deduction of points for fouls and other potentially fight altering rules violations. Finally, aggressiveness is ranked last as a scoring criteria, allowing a fighter to avoid contact with his opponent with no real loss on the cards provided he does some damage at one point or another.

The second system is the 10 Point Must system. This system, developed in the USA for use in MMA, is scored round by round with the winner of the round recieving 10 points and the loser 9 or less. At the end of the bout, the judge tallys the scores on his card to determine the winner. It directly addresses the issue of a fighter controlling the fight only to have that control taken not by his opponents skill, but by the bell. This system basically makes the bout a two of three competition. Like the Ippon system, judging follows a structured list of criteria. Consideration is given in the following order:

Clean Strikes
Effective Grappling
Ring/Cage control
Aggressiveness

    Pros: The 10 Point Must system very readily addresses the issue of quantifing the action used to score the rounds with nearly every particular concidered in the criteria as each of the four criteria are defined in the Unified Rules.  It also allows for a fighter to be rewarded for properly adjusting his game plan to counter whatever means his opponent used to defeat him in a previous round. Lastly, the 10 Point Must system allows for a fighter to be rewarded more for clear dominance than for marginal control of a fight.

    Cons: The drawbacks of the 10 Point Must system are the basis for the majority of complaints with the MMA judging situation.  First, the system scores the fights round by round, meaning that a fighter can do 90% of the damage in one round of the fight, only to lose to an opponent that wins the other two rounds by the skin of their teeth. The second major issue is the scoring criteria itself. With no concideration given to damage or effort to finish as seperate categories, it creates an enviorment more friendly toward fighters who gear their style more toward controlling the pace as opposed to defeating the opponent. A third problem, and in my opinion one of the worst, is that successful takedowns are listed as effective grappling while defending take downs is relegated to ring/cage control. This means that a fighter is awarded more concideration for taking an opponent down than for stopping an opponent from taking them down.  A final major issue is the fact that striking holds a place over submission attempts and take downs hold equal value. In effective striking, good footwork sets up a damaging combination, in effective grappling, a take down or positional improvement sets up a submission or ground and pound. To equate a take down to a submission attempt is equivelent to judging footwork as effective as a head kick.

    Judging has and always will have the human element of sujectivity. There will always be mistakes.  However, so long as MMA judging continues to use fundamentally flawed judging criteria, the fans and the fighters are the ones who will have to suffer. In my next post I will address the meathods I belive should be used and how I think we can fix the MMA judging structure to leave the human element as the only flaw in the system.

Strikeforce Saturday Night Fights 2: Snoozefest before the Slugfest

2010-04-19T16:14:00.000-05:00

    Saturday, April 17, the Strikeforce cage dominated the screen on CBS in its second edition of Saturday Night Fights. For hardcore MMA fans, it was a card of rising stars and world class legends. For those who are more casual it was a night of fights including a UFC washout, a largely unknown japanese fighter, and a group of fighters that are essentially the UFCs minor league wannabes. For everyone it was a disaster. After a night of unimpressive title bouts that were practically actionless (save for the one round turned in by Dan Henderson) the casual fans were treated to a senseless brawl courtesy of two Strikeforce champs and the infamous Diaz brothers. So without further introduction, here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    The Good:
    King Mo: Gegard Musasai approached his fight against King Mo with noticeable apathy. He allowed Mo to repeatedly take him down with no resistance. He was content to lay nearly motionless on his back and strike with up kicks and hammer fists. While the post fight assessment of the damage each man took provides a strong argument against how MMA is judged (after all Lawal walked out with his left eye swollen shut while Gegard was barely scathed) as Mo won based solely on takedowns that Gegard allowed, the fact is that this fight made Mo look good. He dominated (at least on paper) a man over hyped as the next Fedor and reaped the benefit of that hype.
    Those MMA fans Like Myself: For years myself and those like me have preached that the UFC is the home of the most elite of elite fighters. We were ridiculed and booted from major forums for going against the idea that fighters from overseas, namely those in PRIDE then later those in Dream, were on the same level as, if not superior to, those in the UFC. In this case, we get validation as Shinya Aoki was soundly thrashed by Gilbert Melendez, a fighter that many question as a Top 10 lightweight. Many of us argued that a one dimensional and undersized fighter like Aoki could not survive in the more well rounded and wrestling centric US MMA world. We were laughed at and treated as uninformed when we said Aoki wasn't up to snuff nor top ten worthy. I think the fact that his inability to takedown or stand with a fighter with the questionable wrestling abilities of Melendez proves that Aoki would be far out of his depth against the much more skilled fighters he shared the Top 10 with.
    Jake Shields: Shields took a beating in the first round that would have finished most anyone then came out in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th rounds to put on a display of positional dominance that no one thought possible against a man of Dan Henderson's credentials. Despite his involvement in a post-fight brawl, Shields set himself up to land a big money contract with the UFC as a challenger for GSP and possibly Anderson Silva with a brilliant performance that showcased his ability to take a punch, control the ground game, and threaten submissions.
    Gilbert Melendez: "El Nino", like King Mo, managed to reap the benefits of facing a highly overrated opponent. His mediocre wrestling was more than enough to stop Shinya Aoki from getting the fight to the ground and his conservative striking gameplan made Aoki look like a chump. Akoi was held on a pedestal by nearly every MMA pundit on the internet as a lightweight second only to Penn and maybe better than even "The Prodigy", especially following the Edgar fight. Those same pundits would much rather exaggerate Melendez's achievement than admit they were wrong about Akoi's ability to survive in an American cage.

   The Bad:
    Gegard Musasai: Musasai was billed as everything from the second coming of Fedor Emelianenko to Strikeforce's answer to Anderson Silva. A wonderfully talented fighter, we all knew that Musasai clearly outclassed King Mo's one dimensional wrestling game. Truth be told, he did outclass King Mo. He had no qualms with goin to the mat so he allowed Mo to repeatedly take him down, where he proceeded to lay on his back, totally relaxed, and blast Mo with hammer fists and up kicks. "The Dreamcatcher" took very little damage and was never in danger of being stopped. Yet he lost. The problem with letting a man take you down is it's alot like letting a man punch you in the nose. Sure, he may not be able to hurt you but the judges still see a successful attack. All Musasai managed to do with this gameplan is drop a decision, lose a title, and make us all question the hype.
    Jason Miller: Jason "Mayhem" Miller managed to live up to his name, not in his quick TKO of Tim Stout, but in his incredibly poor timing in asking Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields for a rematch. Less than two questions into Jake's post fight interview, he seems to greet Miller in a freindly manner...then Miller gets his head in Shield's face to reach the mic and ask "So were's my rematch?" The result? Total overreaction by Shield's camp led by such classy guys as Nick and Nate Diaz leading to a bench clearing brawl.
    Strikeforce Commentary: It's hard to say who really earned the award for Biggest Disagrace in a Comentator's Role Saturday. Between Gus Johnson's irritatingly long winded and uninformed fight lead-ins, Mauro Ranallo's attempts to maximize his own screen time at the expense of the fighters being interviewed, and Frank Shamrocks fighter bashing it's a wonder that Scott Coker didn't quietly slip into the control room and disconect their microphones. The bottomline here is that Johnson needs to stick to college basketball, Shamrock needs to stick to fighting, and Ranallo just needs to be fired for incompetence.
    CBS: Every MMA event the network has aired has run over, and not in the extra 30 mins because the Yankees and the Red Sox went into extra innings way either. Strikeforce is partially to blame (as was EliteXC) for not running the fights in an efficeint manner, but at some point you'ld think that CBS would realize they need to allot a larger time slot to an MMA event.  Even if the fights had been run in a tightly controlled and timely manner, CBS did not allot enough time for three five-round title fights.

    The Ugly:
    Cesar Graice Jiu Jitsu: The Graice camp is almost totally to blame for the brawl that occured after the main event. Yes, Jason Miller shouldn't have been there. Yes, Strikeforce security was lax in allowing Miller in the cage IF you believe that Coker didn't send Miller in to sell a rematch, but the brawl wouldn't have started without the immature and thuggish behavior of Gilbert Melendez and the Diaz brothers. This brawl showcased the total lack of discipline in the Gracie camp. Not to mention that there really is no better representation of how we aren't a sport full of bar room brawlers and thugs than 10 or more members of one team attacking one man for challenging one of their fighters. Disgusting, and to top it off, the Diaz boys are reported to have stormed out of the cage throwing gang signs afterwards. Way to represent the honor and dignity of the martial arts guys, you're a credit to the arts.
    Strikeforce Security:  no less than 25 people were in the cage after the main event not including the commission officials and CBS camera crew. The fact that "Mayhem" even made it to the microphone can be written off as Coker sending him in, but the fact that the entire Cesar Graice Fight Team was in the cage when Jake's cornermen at the most should have been there points to a serious breach of security that is only further highlighted by the ammount of time it took them to clear the cage after the situation got out of hand.
    Shiya Aoki: The last item on the list for Strikeforce Saturday Night Fights is the pitiful performance of "Top Pound For Pound Fighter" Shinya Aoki. Aoki came into this fight as the man that pundits across the web claimed was one of the best if not the best lightweight in the world following BJ Penns loss to Frankie Edgar. He left looking like he didn't know what a fight was. He was unable to take down a fighter with below freshman level wrestling and had no answer for brown belt level kickboxing. While he will have some protection from the journalists who are unwilling to admit they were wrong about him, Aoki will suffer almost irreperable damage to his reputation as he can't fix it by returning to the steady diet of one note fighters he used to build it.

The Good, Bad, and Ugly of UFC 112: Silva's Antics and the Robbery of BJ Penn and Frankie Edgar

2010-04-12T13:23:00.000-05:00

     Saturday, April 10th, 20 fighters stepped into the UFC octagon for the first time in the Middle East. It also marked a huge embarrassment for the UFC. As I had said before, the fights were progressively more entertaining the further from the main event you got. Early in the evening, those lucky enough to see the preliminary bouts saw DaMarques Johnson snatch victory, and a $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus, from the jaws of defeat with a vicious body kick TKO of Brad Blackburn, they saw Phil "Mr. Wonderful" Davis put on a dominating performance against Alexander Gustafsson ending the bout with a gator roll anaconda choke in the final seconds of an action packed first round, and they saw Paul Kelly return to his winning ways with a submission victory after choking out Matt Veach in the second. Later in the evening, those of us who only watched the pay per view got quite a different experience. The night started out with what became the Fight of the Night between Mark Munoz and Kendall Grove, followed by Rafael dos Anjos' incredibly impressive performance against British stand-out Terry Etim and it began to look as if my fears of a lackluster event began to fade. Then Matt Hughes and Renzo Gracie took the stage in a bout that proved almost as dull the lay-n-pray decision we all expected it to be. After a chorus of boos followed Matt Hughes from the cage after his late TKO victory, Frankie Edgar and BJ Penn met in a lightweight title affair that promised to save the show. Unfortunately, Penn began to peter out as the fight wore on, rendering Edgar's beautiful kickboxing display as exciting as watching the man work the mitts. Then came Anderson Silva. The middleweight kingpin showed the world that everyone was right about him. He is worlds beyond the caliber of Damien Maia as a fighter. He also managed to dance, taunt, cajole, and mock his way through a display so unbelievably shameful that UFC President Dana White actually left the arena before the end of the fight, leaving Silva's manager to present him the belt.

The Good

    Mark Munoz and Kendall Grove: Grove dominated every part of the first round, scoring 10-8 with two judges and threatening to finish Munoz on at least three occasions including a near KO when he landed a picture perfect inside uppercut and two separate choke attempts. The game Munoz carried himself well, using take downs and solid positioning to minimize the damage of Grove's assault, and survived to come out in the second and score an amazing come from behind TKO in the second. He took Grove to the mat and worked Grove over with fundamentally sound ground and pound before landing a pair of vicious right hands that seal the deal. Both fights showed improved skill sets and tremendous heart and earned Fight of the Night honors for their troubles.
    Terry Etim and Rafael dos Anjos: Etim held a slight edge standing as the fight commenced, landing a head kick and forcing dos Anjos to shoot in for a double. Etim countered with a deep arm in guillotine and held it for a solid minute before Rafael escaped. His control of the bout ended there as dos Anjos escaped and proceeded to control the rest of the round with solid ground work. The second round was all dos Anjos. A spectacular display of active positional dominance ended in kimura attempt transitioned to a fight ending arm bar launching Rafael into the upper ranks of the lightweight division.
    Frankie Edgar: Frankie "The Answer" Edgar not only felt the light of his lucky stars but had those all aligned in his bout against 8 to 1 favorite BJ Penn. Edgar use superb footwork and clean combos that raised enough eyebrows amongst the judges to give him the nod over the champion. While it is debatable that he truly won the fight (I thought he lost 4 of 5 rounds to Penn and Fight Metric.com agrees) Frankie showed that he does belong among the lightweight elite. Perhaps even more important is the fact that his active stand-up style will earn him plenty of drawing power with the casual fan.

The Bad

    Matt Hughes and Renzo Gracie: Though it wasn't the boring affair we all expected, it was none the less a dull fight that only showcased how far from the elite these two fighters have fallen. Renzo controlled the early stand-up with elementary kickboxing but quickly faded. Hughes then preceded sporadically attack Renzo with single punches and leg kicks until he finally scored the TKO in the third. This one fight did more damage to both fighter's stock than 1,000 loses to GSP or another top welterweight.
    BJ Penn: Baby J may have won the fight according to everyone except the three judges, but even had they agreed with everyone else it wouldn't change the fact that this was by far the worst performance "The Prodigy" has ever put on as a lightweight. Penn looked sluggish and passive from the very beginning, throwing very few combinations and showing an unwillingness to engage that made me wonder if he was carrying an injury into the bout. As Penn faded in the later rounds, Edgar stayed sharp and eventually stole the unanimous decision from the incumbent champ.
     Damien Maia: The Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace carried a reputation as one of the most feared middleweight submission experts in the game into his bout against Anderson Silva. He left looking like he didn’t even belong in the UFC. The sad part about this is that it isn’t his performance that caused it, it was Silva's antics. I was very impressed with Maia's refusal to give up when it became apparent that he was out of his depth, even staying in the pocket and exchanging punches from his knees at one point, but Anderson Silva's incessant mockery of his opponent left Maia looking foolish. All in all, Maia's grit and never say die, leave it all on the line attitude fell flat due to Silva's school yard bully humiliations.

The Ugly

    Anderson Silva: "The Spider" stepped into the ring against Damien Maia in much the same way Guns N Roses took the stage after Metallica front man James Hetfeild was rushed to the hospital after a pyrotechnic misfire. Like Axl Rose, Silva took the stage in a perfect position to be a hero. A show that started with such promise following action packed showings from Munoz, Grove, Etim, and dos Anjos began to fade after an amateurish fight between Hughes and Gracie, then fell completely flat due to BJ Penn's horribly lackluster showing. Silva, like Rose, had a chance to step up and save the day. Instead, Silva, again like Rose, performed half-assed for 10 minutes before throwing a two year old fit that damn near caused a riot. Silva disrespected Maia, the fans, the UFC, and himself by doing everything from leaving his hands by his hips and taunting his opponent, to kneeling in the center of the cage, to running behind the referee. It was a performance so disgraceful that Dana White yelled at him in his corner before storming out of the arena before the final round started, leaving Silva's manager to present him the belt. Though he apologized to the fans afterwards, Silva soon became completely unapologetic at the post fight.
    The UFC: The UFC's first show in the UAE was supposed to be a ground breaking move to the Middle East to show the organizations new investors what MMA is all about. Instead it looked as if the card got mixed up some how, all the exciting, competitive fights were on the unaired preliminary card while the main card featuring two of the best pound for pound fighters of all time and the world's most dominate welterweight looked disturbingly amateurish.  The card was salvagable going into the main event, despite a lacklust showing by BJ Penn and pitiful performances by Gracie and Hughs, but Anderson Silva's mockery put the nails in the coffin.  All Dana White had to say was "I'm gonna make this up to you, I don't know how, but I will."
    MMA Journalists: The MMA pundits have jumped almost to a man on the story of Anderson Silva's temper tantrum. The internet is ablaze with stories describing him as everything from a misunderstood artist whose mastery goes unappreciated to a disrespectful child undeserving of his exalted status. Some blame the UFC hype machine for building him up as the greatest fighter alive (even though the same pundits have said the same for years), others blame Maia for being so far outclassed that Silva was bored and didn't want to hurt his countryman, some journalists blame Silva himself for lashing out against the UFC for not giving him the bouts he wants. Across the web we find cries for justice, put Silva against Lesnar or another mammoth heavyweight who will crush him, make him fight on the undercard, cut him from the UFC, strip him of his belt, and, my personal favorite, book him exclusively against middleweights so he learns that a hissy fit wont get him out of defending his belt so he can brawl at light heavy. What we don't see from the MMA journalistic community is praise for Frankie Edgar for his Rocky-like upset of BJ Penn. What little you do find on the MMA sites is breakdowns of the fight showing why he didn't deserve to win or why the judges are insane for awarding him the belt. Edgar did what no one said was possible, he beat Penn at lightweight and all I see is a lot of professional journalists crying about Anderson's foolishness and discrediting Edgar's win by squalling about the judging...again.

    UFC 112 was a disaster in almost every way. The event was such an embarrassment to the UFC that I don't doubt Dana White wishes that a rain storm had come in about two rounds into Gracie/Hughes. We saw poor judging rob BJ Penn of his title, Anderson Silva rob Damien Maia of his dignity and the UFC fans of their time, and perhaps worst of all, the MMA journalistic community rob Frankie Edgar of his hard earned respect and moment in the spotlight. The UFC has a superfight packed summer lined up and it will take every single one of those star studded cards to erase the memory of the 112 debacle from the minds of those who spend their hard earned money of their pay per views.

UFC 112 Main Card

2010-04-06T12:43:00.000-05:00

    On Saturday, April 10th, the UAE will host UFC 112: Invincible at a brand new facility in Abu Dhabi. As one would expect from Dana White and the boys at Zuffa, the UFC's first visit to the Middle East features everything a fan could want in a card. It has two title fights, it has middleweight killing-machine and P4P king Anderson Silva, it has the always entertaining BJ Penn defending the lightweight belt that he hasn't come even close to losing since winning it in 2008, it has the slick submission skills of Jiu-Jitsu ace Demian Maia, it has welterweight record breaking former champ Matt Hughes, it has quite possiblely the most respected member of the UFC's founding family, Renzo Gracie...so why is this card failing to generate the excitement of long time MMA fans? Why do I find myself more eager to watch the prelims which may not even air than the shmorgishborg of elite level match ups featured on the main card? Because UFC 112 is just that, a shmorgishborg. For those that dont know, the term shmorgishborg, which we use to describe a large variety of morsels for our consumtion (usually food), is actually defined as  "The combination of left over dinners put into one dish, made when you have nothing else to eat." Exactly what we have from the UFC this Saturday. With a huge line-up of mega-fights slated for this summer, the UFC is left with a need for a decent offering for the fans in Abu Dhabi in one had and a hand full of well known fighters not yet billed to fight in the months to come in the other. The result is a card featuring two champions facing opponents that only earned their titles shots by sole virtue of the champions' dismemberment of everyone else in the division and a pair of once feared fighters duking it out for a chance to remain relevant for a few more months.

    The main card features Anderson "The Spider" Silva (-800) defending his middleweight championship against Demian Maia (+500), BJ "The Prodigy" Penn (-800) putting his lightweight crown on the line against Frankie "The Answer" Edgar, former welterweight king Matt Hughes (-450) fighting Renzo Gracie (+300), a lightweight tilt between UFC bottomfeeders Terry Etim and Rafael dos Anjos, and middleweight gatekeeper Kendall Grove (+140) faces Mark Munoz (-170).  I look at this line-up and see alot of big names in alot of small match-ups.
    Anderson Silva vs Demian Maia:  Everytime "The Spider" fights internet forums blaze with the same tired arguement. "The key to beating Anderson is take him down" followed by "His ground game is amazing too" or "look what happened to Henderson" met with "oh yeah what about Lutter?"  Oddly getting Anderson to the mat isn't difficult.  Doing something with him once you get him there is another story. Maia has three major strikes against him in this bout: Maia has a glass jaw, every fight starts on the feet, and, as Ken Shamrock taught us in a 36 minute snoozefest against Royce Gracie, it's not difficult to defend world class submissions when you dont bother mounting an offense. Maia may get Silva down, he may even get top position, but I seriously doubt he will submit Anderson Silva.  I see Maia getting Silva down, Goldberg saying "now we see the chess match begin", Anderson locking down and geting the stand-up then eventually laying jiu-jitsu's favored son out. Silva 2nd Round TKO.
      BJ Penn vs Frankie Edgar: Not much to say about this one. "The Prodigy" has yet to be tested in his return to the lightweight division. Though Edgar is a stout competitor, he is completely out of his depth against Penn. The world of MMA is well aware that the only reason Edgar is fighting for the title is because BJ Penn has already destroyed every world class lightweight in the UFC in such convincing fashion that even the legendary Dana White hype-machine couldn't generate intrest in a rematch.  Edgar's combination of solid wrestling and PKA level kickboxing is good enough to make the top flight lightweights work for their pay, but he's just an easy payday for BJ Penn and with Edgar's lack of KO power, he really doesn't even have a Matt Serra-esque punchers chance. Penn's freakish takedown defense, world class boxing, and off the bell curve submissions all blend seamlessly into a brutally short night for "The Answer".   Penn 1st Round TKO.
     Matt Hughes vs Renzo Gracie:   Neither Matt Hughes nor Renzo Gracie has finished an opponent since 2006. Renzo hasn't fought since 2007. In a match that has no impact on the state of the UFC welterweight division, we find the man who was at one time called the most dominate welterweight of all time facing a fighter who has gone 4-6 since 2000 and hasn't defeated a top 25 fighter in almost 11 years. This match has all the makings of a great time to take a bathroom break or make a beer run.  On one hand we have Renzo Gracie who, of all the gracie clan, has made the most effort to become well rounded. Unfortunately for him, he is still a Gracie and relies far too heavily on his gaurd to give him a submission. On the other hand we have Matt Hughes, as one dimensional a wrestler as one can find. Unfortunately for the fans, this makes him the perfect foil for the Gracie gaurd. Look for Matt Hughes to put Gracie on his back, Gracie to grin as he gains gaurd, then that grin to slowly disappear as Matt Hughes positionally dominates Renzo and gives him no meaningful offense to counter with his jiu-jitsu. Hughes by ~~Snuggie~~ Unanimous Decision.
             Terry Etim vs Rafael dos Anjos: Some fighters knock off a Who's Who list of fighters,
dos Anjos and Etim have knocked off a Who's That list instead. Despite this fact, this bout shows the start of a trend with UFC 112: the fights get more interesting from a spectator's perspective as you get further and further from the main events. While Shannon Gugerty, Justin Buchholz, Brian Cobb, and  Matt Grice are hardly top level or even UFC level talent, Terry Etim has finished every UFC fight he has won except an entertaining decision over Sam Stout. Dos Anjos has wins over Kyle Bradley and Rob Emerson, again, not top flight competition but at least respectable. The key to this bout is whats at stake for these two fighters. They both dropped bouts to the next wave of Penn challenger challengers (those lightweights that fight the revolving door of top ten fighters chewed up by BJ Penn) and they know the winner gets a 2nd chance and the loser gets to be a gatekeeper if Dana White feels generous. Add to that desperation the fact that neither man is truely world class in any one area and you have a fight that should be very entertaining. I personally like Etim in this one. I see his stand-up and wrestling being more than enough to keep him away from the Gracie disciples submissions. Etim will wear dos Anjos down with peppering strikes and finish him late in 3rd, then go on to face Sean Sherk or Clay Guida in a fight that gives him one last chance to break into the upper crust of the division. Etim by 3rd Round TKO.
    Kendall Grove vs Mark Munoz: "Da Spyder" (not to be confused with "The Spider") has suffered an up down career, he builds up a few wins against old and fading or new and inexpierenced competition, then gets torn down by fighters who take things more seriously. Grove will pit his wealth of talent and mediocre training against up and coming wrestling all-american Mark Munoz. Grove never seems to understand that he will forever be a gatekeeper if he crosses the line he dances from "just enough to win", into the relm of "lost because he didn't take it seriously." Munoz, on the other hand has shown himself to be a more mature fighter, coming back from his loss to Matt Hamill with renewed vigor and ever improving technique and conditioning. Look for Grove to come out and lazily push the stand-up before Munoz bulldozes him and shows him just how far out of his depth he is. Grove will hang on but will be woefully over matched as Munoz clinches and controls Grove en route to a late TKO. Munoz by 3rd Round TKO.

    All in all, UFC 112 's main card is a wonderful study in anachronism. Two years from now, Silva/Maia and Penn/Edgar will be interesting fights. This Saturday, however, will show two fighters thrown into the ring with champions who outclass them in every way. Just as Hardy was in no way ready for GSP, Maia isn't mature enough as a fighter to face Silva and Edgar's skill set hasn't developed to a point where he's a threat to Penn. Three years ago, Hughes/Gracie would have counted for something. This Saturday it will just be two men in the twilight of their careers struggling to prove they're still relevant. This will be a night of Will Be One Days, Once Weres, and Never Have Beens all trying to show the world that they belong in the places they are. At least it should provide the fans with a collection of highlight reel destructions and plenty of prelims to fill the alotted air time dedicated to two 25 minute title fights that should last under 10 minutes combined.

A Second Look at the Last Emperor

2010-04-02T17:59:00.001-05:00

Fedor Emelianenko has long sat at the top of the USAT/SBN consensus heavyweight rankings as well the top ten rankings for the majority of major mixed martial arts reporting agencies and websites. He has built an impressive 31-1 record, winning the PRIDE heavyweight world title an the WAMMA heavyweight title along the way. The Russian has not lost a bout in over nine years and has finished 78.42% of his opponents. It should come as no surprise that Fedor is considered the greatest heavyweight fighter in world today, right? I respectfully disagree with my fellow educated fans. While I agree that Fedor Emelianenko is one of the best fighters to ever grace the ring and certainly belongs on any list of the top ten heavyweights MMA fighters, I have several issues with his place at the top of those lists.

Let's begin with a list of Fedor's qualifications as the top heavyweight in the world according to those who advocate his superiority.

He is currently on a 27-fight winning streak broken only by a loss suffered due to a cut caused by an illegal blow in a fight that he was clearly winning.
He holds wins over three current top ten heavyweights and eight former top ten heavyweights.
He has yet to be put in serious danger of losing a fight despite being put in severely disadvantageous positions and absorbing unbelievably brutal blows and submission attempts.

    All of these points are valid in and of themselves, however, there is a second side to every story. While Fedor's 27-fight win streak and functionally undefeated record are impressive, it's hard to accept as a strong qualification due to several factors. First, of the 29 opponents he has faced, 10 currently have losing records and 5 had never won a fight at the time they faced Emelianenko; one of these fighters faced a 16-1 Fedor in only his second fight. Second, Fedor has faced at least five opponents that spent the majority of their careers at lower weight classes, two of which, Matt Lindland and Chris Haseman, fight mainly as middleweights.  Third, arguably 2/3 of the fighters he has faced barely qualify as a gatekeepers with only 12 of the 29 holding victories over credible top level fighters, and only 9 of those with top level wins in the heavyweight division.  These factors point toward fairly obvious record padding on the part of Fedor's management. It isn't hard to build an impressive win streak against undersized or simply inferior competition; all one has to do is look at any top level boxers list of KO's or even your local MMA show where the 10-0 hometown wrestling champ carries in a 15 lbs. advantage to face his 9th 0-0 18 year old kid. This point is further validated by Fedor's recent issues with the Strikeforce promotion, first dodging Alistair Overeem then backing out of a fight with  Fabricio Werdum.

    The second qualification, his victories over Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira,  Brett Rogers, Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia, and CroCop.  These fighters were all top ten heavyweight contenders at some point and all of them save Rogers held a major title or Gran Prix win in either Pride or UFC.  Not much to dispute here, one might think, but if you look a little deeper, you find that there is more to it than a number in the win column here. Big Nog was at the peak of his career when Fedor faced him, defeating him twice, both times by decision. While very impressive, I have to ask, how much stock should be placed in a decision victory that is over five years old against a fighter who has been stopped in the first round in two of his last three fights? Second is Mirko "CroCop" Filipovic, another top five heavy that Fedor stopped in his prime. Here we see the same issue as with Nogueira - the victory is several years old and CroCop hasn't been able to stop a top flight fighter since he TKO'ed Josh Barnett in 2006. Next we move on to the pair of former UFC champions Fedor finished in Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski. Both of these fighters were dominant forces in the UFC in 2008, but have recently put on lackluster performances that led to being dropped from the UFC roster. Perhaps most damaging to his status as the heavyweight king, in my opinion, was Fedor's bout with Arlovski. A fading Arlovski, recently cut from the UFC, put Fedor through a 3-minute striking clinic that any objective observer would tell you showed clear dominance over "The Last Emperor" until "The Pitbull" launched a very foolish flying knee in a display of near amature level technique that allowed Fedor to save his reputation with a fight ending overhand right. Lastly we have Brett "Grim" Rogers who earned his shot by KO'ing Andrei Arlovski in 22 seconds. Brett brought in a perfect record of brutal KO's over 9 no-name fighters and his stoppage of the glass jawed Arlovski and no ground game to speak of. Fedor, a world Sambo champion, failed to prevent Rogers from mounting him in the first round and again showed a distinct lack of dominance that should be present when the world's undisputed number one heavyweight faces a young, inexperienced, and one dimensional fighter like Rogers.

    The third and final criteria is that he seemingly has yet to be in true danger of losing despite numerous instances where he either absorbed a tremendous impact or was placed in a very disadvantageous position. This, in my opinion, is actually the strongest case for Fedor as a world-class fighter as well as the best reason why he doesn't deserve his place as the number one heavyweight in the world. While his ability to remain calm and relaxed even after being hit with KO power from a strike or slam or while being controlled on the ground by a larger opponent is the hallmark of a true martial artist, it also shows a large hole in his abilities. When Kevin Randleman suplexed Fedor, we all thought Fedor had surely just had his neck broken or was at least finished. That ability to remain calm minimized the damage, allowing him to sweep "The Monster" and win the fight as Randleman made several very basic mistakes in his effort to finish off an opponent he thought was already out. It also played out against Mark Hunt when the much larger Hunt locked in a deep Americana. Hunt became noticeably frustrated when the lock failed to make Fedor tap and made the mistake of attempting to reset the submission, allowing Fedor to escape. The issue I have with this is that against truly top flight competition Fedor would not escape these situations. For example, had Mark Hunt been Frank Mir, the mistake would not have been made as the more experienced and cerebral jiu-jitsu man would simply have adjusted the hold and dislocated Fedor's shoulder. The same can be said if Cain Velasquez had been in Randleman's place. A much larger, more technically-sound wrestler would have had no trouble controlling Fedor and would not have made the same mistake. The majority of these miraculous Fedor survival and escape stories are very much the same as Mir's victory over Brock Lesnar. The less skilled or less experienced man gets over-excited and screws up...snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

    Fedor Emelianenko is ranked as the number one heavyweight fighter in the world, but the question of why he remains there when many other fighters have fallen in the rankings for the same reasons that I have listed here remains unanswered. Maybe it's the arrogance of the MMA journalists who developed both the subjective rankings of individual sites and the supposedly objective USAT/SBN ranking system that long spoke of PRIDE as the superior organization. Perhaps they cling to Fedor like a security blanket as they watch PRIDE champion after PRIDE champion fade into irrelevant gatekeeper rolls at the hands of the supposedly inferior UFC fighters. Maybe it's the hope that one day Fedor will face the truly elite heavyweights of the current era and the pundits don't want the Fedor hype to have faded to a point where no one cares anymore. We may never know. It is my personal opinion that Fedor is the best heavyweight on the planet, but as long as he dodges not only the truly elite competition of the modern era but also leftovers and wash-outs from MMA's yesterdays, he does not deserve the number one spot in anyone's rankings.