Issue 066

September 2010

Once in every generation there is an athlete considered unbeatable. This champion is so far beyond his peers he appears almost superhuman. He will have the unique combination of athleticism, skill and mental strength to make him a world-beater. His myth will, at the very least, threaten to overtake reality as his followers heap praise upon his achievements. 

And then he will lose, and the whole thing will come crashing down.

Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko’s position as the top heavyweight in the world was one of the most contentious issues in the sport. Once the king of the legendary Japanese promotion Pride FC, Fedor’s mystique was the result of some truly epic and inspiring performances. His trilogy against Antonio Rodrigo ‘Minotauro’ Nogueira, his handling of ‘Cro Cop’ (back when the kickboxer was the most dangerous striker in the game), surviving the most brutal suplex in the history of combat sports courtesy of Kevin Randleman – all these things contributed to the legend of Fedor. 

Few who’d witnessed his exploits could argue that Fedor wasn’t a superb heavyweight. He revolutionized how we thought about ground ‘n pound as an answer to high-level jiu-jitsu. He proved that, at 5’11” and 230lb, size didn’t always matter. He combined savagery with beautiful technique and true martial artistry. 

Ahead of his fight with Fabricio Werdum the support for Fedor Emelianenko surpassed logic and veered well into fervent fanaticism. “Nobody has ever beaten Fedor,” said Frank Shamrock shortly before the fight with Werdum got underway. Usually Frank is an excellent color commentator and analyst, but in this case he got it very, very wrong. 

People seem to forget that Fedor’s record before he fought Werdum stood at 32-1-0 (1 NC). Yes, that was a ‘1’ in the loss column, and it didn’t appear out of nowhere. It was a questionable loss, maybe, but it was still a loss. Maybe because it occurred in Fedor’s fifth MMA fight it had been omitted from collective memory. Seeing as people seem to think that Werdum is the first man to have dethroned ‘The Last Emperor’, let’s look at that controversial loss from so long ago. 

Back in 2000, Fedor Emelianenko was a 23-year-old former soldier. Three years out of the military, he was an outstanding athlete in the field of judo and combat sambo, a martial art native to Russia that operates much like amateur MMA. With a handful of medals in both sports, Fedor was recruited to what was known as Russian Top Team (a collection of submission wrestlers and fighters active in Japan). After two professional contests in his homeland he was sent to fight in the Japanese promotion Rings.

An early progenitor of MMA that evolved from professional wrestling, the action in Rings was very different to what is commonly described as MMA today. Restrictive rules prohibited the use of ground ‘n pound or elbows in any position, and fighters could escape from submissions by simply grabbing the ropes. This didn’t deter some of the best talent from the USA, Brazil and Europe coming together for a tournament known as ‘King of Kings’. Randy Couture, Dan Henderson, Minotauro, ‘Babalu’, Renzo Gracie and Gilbert Yvel all featured in the massive 32-man tournament. 

As you would expect from a Japanese promotion, there also were a number of local fighters in the mix. One such fighter was a veteran named Tsuyoshi ‘TK’ Kohsaka. With 31 fights to his name and a career that stretched back to 1995, ‘TK’ was a former UFC heavyweight title challenger and had fought many of the era’s finest combatants. The unknown Fedor wasn’t even a blip on the radar at this time. 

When the fresh-faced Fedor took to the centre of the ring to meet the grizzled veteran Kohsaka, he did so with his now trademark serenity. A quick exchange of otherwise innocuous-looking punches prompted the referee to step in only 17 seconds into the fight. A glancing blow had struck Fedor on his right eyebrow and opened a large cut, prompting the fight to be declared a TKO victory to ‘TK’. 

What was only determined later with a slow motion replay was that the cut had been opened by the point of Kohsaka’s right elbow. As the Japanese fighter’s right cross sailed by Fedor’s face, the tip of his elbow opened the gash that would prompt the stoppage and forever blight Fedor’s record. The loss did little to dent the up-and-coming Russian’s confidence. Though eliminated from the tournament, he posted 28 straight wins over the next ten years – hardly a bad run. He even had his revenge over TK in 2005 when the 35-year-old vet was unfairly fed to Fedor, arguably in his prime. 

One of Fedor’s signature T-shirts bears the slogan ‘Nobody beats me’. Truthfully, it should read ‘Almost nobody beats me’. Sooner or later, everybody loses. Cung Le had never lost a professional fight until Scott Smith laid him out with a lucky left hook last year. The loss only made Le train harder and ultimately perform better. Maybe this loss to Werdum is what Fedor needs and maybe it will be the motivation required to spur him onto fighting the best heavyweights instead of skirting around those who populate the upper rankings.