Fedor Emelianenko: Greatest Of All Time

We know Dana White doesn’t think that “The Last Emperor” is deserving of being atop anyone’s pound-for-pound list, and ranks below his current crop of heavyweights in the rankings right now, but in the history of the sport, where does Fedor Emelianenko fall?

Top 10? Top 5? Top of the Mountain?

Note to Dana White: you might want to stop reading right about now.

While there have been many greats, there has been none greater than Fedor Emelianenko. He is, in my opinion, the best fighter in the history of mixed martial arts. Just for clarification, “history” in this case means “over the last twenty years.”

There are going to be many who debate this statement, some more ferociously than others. The Great Fedor Debate is always one that gets good and nasty pretty quickly, and I expect no less from this installment. Knowing the arguments that will be coming to counter-strike my placement of the Russian heavyweight atop the list of all-time greats in this sport, let’s tackle them both head-on.

He’s never fought in the UFC

Some people believe that to be considered the best, you have to have competed in the best organization in the business. Essentially, you can’t be the best baseball player in the history of the sport if you only played in Japan or never made it passed Triple-A Pawtucket. But MLB and UFC aren’t the same animals.

While there hasn’t been a legitimate challenger to the dominance of Major League Baseball in eons, the UFC hasn’t always been the premier organization in mixed martial arts, as much as admitting that fact will sting the UFC loyalists out there. During the height of Fedor’s dominance, he was competing in the best organization in the sport, Japan’s Pride Fighting Championship.

The UFC may be the reigning king of companies right now, but it hasn’t always been that way. Seeing as all it would take was his name on a contract to eliminate this argument from the list, let’s move on, shall we?

Quality of Competition

Anti-Emelianenko groups are quick to point a finger at Fedor’s recent string of opponents as sub-par competition, extrapolating that not facing the best of the best now means he’s never faced anyone of substance in his career. That logic baffles me; it’s like saying because DeNiro’s last couple films have been mediocre, he’s never made a good movie in his life.

Yes, fights with Brett Rogers, Andrei Arlovski and Tim Sylvia are not on the same level as competing against Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin and Cain Velasquez. Victories over Zuluzinho and Hong Man Choi make the argument a little more challenging, but the truth is that during the glory days of Pride, there wasn’t a better collection of heavyweights competing anywhere in the sport, and Emelianenko beat them all.

Before we get into that, let’s address the revisionist history being applied to Arlovski and Sylvia in the wake of their recent struggles. While they’re not the same fighters they were at one point not all that long ago, they were still viable Top 15 heavyweights when Emelianenko left them beaten in the center of the ring. The same can be said of Rogers, a Top 20 fighter on par with Lesnar’s beating of Heath Herring and superior to the trio of not-so-noteworthy opponents Shane Carwin beat before stepping in with Gabe Gonzaga.

In terms of the Pride years, Fedor fought and defeated Cro Cop and “Minotauro” Nogueira in their primes, as well as Mark Coleman (twice) and Kevin Randleman before they were nothing but names, Gary Goodridge, Mark Hunt, Herring, and a bunch of fighters who are deemed “cans” because casual fans are unaware of their exploits.

Add in wins over Matt Lindland, Ricardo Arona and Renato Sobral and you have a collection of conquest that cannot be topped by anyone in the sport. No one has racked up as many name-brand wins as Emelianenko.

The argument could be made that the “unbeaten” mythos many Emelianenko supporters push is also a point of contention for those questioning his place in the sport. Truthfully, regardless of your stance on the outcome of his fight with Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in the RINGS King of Kings tournament – or even the validity of his decision win over Ricardo Arona before that – there is no other fighter on the planet who has put together an eight-year unbeaten streak like Emelianenko.

Say what you will about who he fought and where he fought them, but the fact is that since that first meeting with Kohsaka, no man has had their arm raised in victory while standing in the ring with Emelianenko, and that is something no other fighter competing at the highest levels can claim.

Anderson Silva and Georges St-Pierre, two of the top pound-for-pound fighters in the world and both destine for a place in the Greatest of All-Time discussion, have both suffered similar losses; Silva was submitted by Ryo Chonan and Daiju Takase, while St-Pierre was stunned by Matt Serra in what is universally recognized as one of the biggest upsets in the history of the sport.

Not the Best Right Now, But the Best Ever

The problem Emelianenko faces is the problem that plagues society as a whole today. People are never satisfied, while passing years and popular opinion are changing the accomplishments of Emelianenko into a “what have you done for me lately?” scenario that is ridiculous and impossible for anyone to live up to.

Michael Jordan played two miserable seasons with the Washington Wizards where he wasn’t the Michael Jordan of old, but no one is suddenly questioning his place among the greatest basketball players of all-time? No one was asking “His Airness” to go one-on-one with Kobe Bryant or Allen Iverson, and his incredible stretch of dominance wasn’t downplayed because his contemporaries had already called it quits.

We don’t question Walter Payton’s greatness or diminish the accomplishments of Barry Sanders because they played in a time when the defences they ran through didn’t feature the same kind of specimens as the game features now. Both were the best of their time and two of the greatest ever, and neither was asked to constantly prove that against an evolving collection of competitors or compared unfavorably against younger, faster, stronger backs that followed in their footsteps.

While fighters like Silva and St-Pierre – and perhaps others – have overtaken Emelianenko in today’s pound-for-pound rankings, what he has accomplished in totality trumps the achievements of anyone else to have graced this great sport.

Fedor shouldn’t be asked to run the gauntlet of heavyweight contenders today to secure his legacy; what he has done in his ten years in the sport is more than enough to place him in the pantheon of all-time greats. He’s done more than Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin will ever do, and doing it outside of the UFC doesn’t lessen those feats.

Judging Emelianenko solely on what he’s done in the last three years is unrealistic; it’s like denying Wayne Gretzky his place as one of the greatest hockey players of all-time because his didn’t lead the league in scoring each of his final three seasons. All the dominant years before that secure “The Great One” a place amongst the stars, and the same should apply to Emelianenko.

But there is no convincing some people.

Ten years of unrivaled success is not enough.

The fighters he dominated aren’t the dominant names of today, and all that matters is the here and now. Who cares that he beat a who’s who of heavyweight icons; he never beat Brock Lesnar, Shane Carwin, or Alistair Overeeem, three heavyweights who don’t have the combined conquests to match Emelianenko.

By the same logic, Ted Williams wasn’t the best hitter to ever step into the batter’s box because he never sent a Tim Lincecum fastball into the right field stands, The Godfather isn’t the best movie ever because it didn’t make nearly as much money as Avatar, and The Beatles were good, but they don’t hold a candle to Britney Spears.

Fedor Emelianenko is the best fighter in mixed martial arts history.

Whether you choose to accept that is up to you.

Get ready for the fights tonight.  Go to our Strikeforce video channel and watch interviews and fight highlights for all the fighters on the card.