The last of the last Emperor? Fedor

Where does Fedor fit in the legacy of Mixed martial Arts? I believe he is the first legend, the first true champion and first 'great' fighter to come out of the sport. For close to a decade he dominated all his opponents most in spectacular fashion. He won and won without question at an elite level, yet he always did look vulnerable, this is actually why I believe him the first 'great' champion we have seen. Although his opponents were not at the level of the modern fighters, he cleaned up the remnants of the old guard of MMA and stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries, all of whom long before him have passed by in relevance.

What made him great? He was undersized and could very conceivably have made the 205 pound division. Not technically textbook in anything he did, he would often do whatever he felt and work in his opponents strengths with reckless abandon despite the odds against him. So how did he beat so many of his larger opponents? As a smaller fighter there are two options when taking on larger opposition, be more technical or be more athletic in some sense, be it speed agility, flexibility endurance or possibly functional strength. Fedor's unique combination of athleticism is how he bested his opposition in many cases, he greater had speed, power, timing, tenacity, heart, intelligence and viciousness. Particularly as he fought equally skilled opposition, in my opinion, he seldom had any plan yet gambled as many great athletic fighters do this, by simply turning up and being 'better' he will win, and he did. He pulled things out of thin air on so many occasions it became his signature style, a man of mystery with surprise sudden wins often viciously punishing opponents moments after daring to challenge him.

In boxing small heavy weights and in fact smaller fighters of all divisions have shorter effective careers. This is because the fire and athleticism that is so often necessary for them to prevail larger men, has a shorter lifespan than technical and size superiority. So what did we see the last few times Fedor fought? Against Werdum we saw the wild attack that the smaller, weaker, less technically sound Fedor was so famous for. We found out this could not in fact overcome the intelligent strategies of a very large expert in Jui Jtsu in his preferred area of operation, this should not be all that surprising except that it was Fedor that was fighting. Against Big Foot Silva, he faced a man who weights naturally close to 40 kgs more than Fedor, and is far more technical on the ground with a Brazilian BJJ black belt. Was this man just to large? I think he was in the right place at the right time and had a very strong set up to verse Fedor.

But to me there is far more than just these 'reasons', I saw a Fedor' who had used up all his chances, the surprises had all been left in highlight reels over the last 10 years, and he simply had nothing left to pull out. The fire and spontaneity gone Fedor is left as a small and limited heavyweight. His time was in the glory days of Pride FC, a martial arts generation ago that is all but extinct now. A generation of the first superstars of MMA the men who designed the blueprints for modern MMA and traversed the early career paths to becoming professional Mixed Marital Artists, a generation that he rules over and showed us time again that impossible can sometimes be possible.