Fedor goes down and stuns fans

By TOM Staff

San Jose – For a split second the Strikeforce ring looked something like the Brazilian Carnaval celebration on Saturday night at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. The Chute Box fight team flooded the ring as Fabricio “Vai Cavalo” Werdum raised his arms in victory over one of the greatest heavyweight fighters in all of mixed martial arts, Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko.

And it was probably the least likely scenario in everyone’s mind. There was no controversial stoppage by the referee. No poor round calculations by the judges. Fedor tapped.

Emelianenko (32-2) stalked Werdum (14-4-1) in the opening seconds of their heavyweight bout, and after a quick flurry of punches that left Werdum on the canvas, the fight was about to end just as everyone had visualized: another powerful knockout by the Russian.

Werdum’s world-class ground game seemed to have been downplayed before the bout, or at least overshadowed by Fedor’s reputation of being a devastating knockout artist. As Fedor leaped into Werdum’s guard to follow up his initial barrage of strikes, the crafty BJJ black belt secured a deep triangle choke around the Sambo fighter’s neck.

Fedor twisted desperately to break the lock, but once Werdum started working for the armbar, he quickly conceded defeat. Werdum submitted Emelianenko via triangle armbar in 1:09 of the 1st round.

Fedor was seemingly invincible. Leading up to the fight, Fedor had reached an unprecedented status in MMA, being one of the only fighters left that had never been defeated decisively, and not in a shroud of controversy. Because of this, the fans seem to be taking the loss harder than the former PRIDE heavyweight champ.

“I never wanted to be an idol, or a God,” Fedor remarked after the fight. “I think that loss was a necessary one.”
Before the fight Fedor had been widely criticized for having and overly aggressive style when following up on his downed opponents; too eager to finish the fight. He commented on his mistake in the post-fight press conference, stating that he had a “…great desire to finish him as soon as possible,” which put him in the position for Werdum’s deadly triangle. Werdum earned his 8th career submission victory against Fedor, and 5th submission by a variation of a triangle choke.

Werdum has certainly earned a title shot against Strikeforce heavyweight champion Allistair Overeem (33-11), who defeated Brett Rogers with vicious strikes back in May to earn the belt. The title fight between the two would actually be a rematch from 2006 when Werdum submitted Allistair via kimura. Both fighters have improved much since, and this match up has the potential of becoming a duel of strategy on the ground. Although Overeem has been known to do his share of brawling, 19 of his wins alone have come due to submissions.

Fedor vs. Werdum 2 can’t be ruled out, either. Fedor has one more fight left on his contact with Strikeforce, so it’s equally as likely that we will see this rematch before Fedor’s time is up. A respectful handshake between the two after the post-fight press conference may have been a confirmation of this, with Werdum commenting to Fedor: “One more time.”