Fedor vs. Rogers

I’ll say this straight up right now, Fedor Emelianenko is my favourite fighter and he has been for years. I’ll never pick a fighter to beat him but since I’m such a fan, when an opponent is a legitimate threat, I actually get nervous. I’ve always thought that Josh Barnett could potentially pull off the upset and I was pretty concerned about that fight. I still think that Fedor would come out victorious (as he always does), but if there’s anyone out there right now with the tools to beat Fedor, it’s Josh Barnett.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, however you want to look at it – that fight didn’t end up happening. Barnett got busted for steroid use (again), and that eventually lead to the downfall of Affliction as an MMA promotion. They scrambled to get a late replacement for Fedor and one of the options was Brett Rogers, but apparently Rogers wanted 800,000 for the fight. They then offered the fight to Vitor Belfort, who accepted, but due to a lack of interest, that idea was tossed away.

Looking back on it, and considering the dominating performance that Vitor Belfort put on against Rich Franklin, a Vitor Belfort vs. Fedor Emelianenko might have been more entertaining – and perhaps more competitive – than people expected. Well, it didn’t happen but at least now we’re getting the fight against Brett Rogers.

Rogers – who’s also undefeated (I don’t consider Fedor’s “loss” to be a defeat) – is coming off an impressive KO victory against Andrei Arlovski. Knocking out Arlovski in their last fights is a shared similarity between Rogers and Emelianenko. When he dropped Arlovski, Brett Rogers catapulted himself into the top 10 heavyweight rankings and with that, he’s getting the shot of a lifetime against Fedor.

Aside from Arlovski, Brett Rogers hasn’t fought any serious contenders. Now that’s not discrediting his ability as a fighter. Rogers has disposed of every challenger that he’s faced off against. As a matter of fact, he’s a perfect 10 for 10. That’s 10 fights, 10 wins and 10 finishes. He’s been on a tear and knocking everyone out.

However, there’s still so many question marks. He can strike, sure – we’ve seen that. But can he wrestle? How is his BJJ? Can he fight off his back? Can he defend submissions? He’s never been past the second round so how’s his cardio and most importantly, how’s his heart? He hasn’t really been into the deep waters and tested yet so it’s all a mystery at the moment.

Then there’s Fedor. He’s on a 30 fight win streak and despite what Dana White says, he’s knocked off some incredible, legit competitors along the way. He’s proven. He has the heart, he has the skill set – he can really do it all. He can out strike the best strikers (Crocop, Arlovski, Schilt) , out wrestle the best wrestlers (Lindland, Randleman, Coleman) and out grapple the best BJJ guys (Nogueira).

As a matter of fact, I don’t think Fedor has even lost a round since he fought Arona in the Rings promotion almost a decade ago. And even then, striking to the face wasn’t allowed so Fedor wasn’t able to utilize his devastating ground and pound tactics that he’s known for.

Fedor will be the heavy favorite in this fight. However, the mystery surrounding the abilities of Brett Rogers is what makes this fight so interesting. He could be 10-0 right now on his way to a 50-0 career. We just don’t know. He has the KO power to pull off an upset. But whether he can land that shot before he gets clinched up and taken to the ground is a different story. This will be a good one!

Drinking & Fighting: The Effects of Alcohol

To quote one of my instructors back home, ” winning a fight is like being a rock star for the night” – and we all know what livin’ like a rock star entails. We’ve also all heard numerous UFC fighters shouting out where they’re having their after-party. Of course, they’re getting paid thousands of dollars to do so, but I highly doubt the fighters are sitting in the corner, sipping waters and orange juice all night. Even Fedor, one of the worlds best fighters, is known for his love of Vodka.

There’s obviously a big difference between heavily drinking while you’re preparing for a fight and having a few celebratory drinks to celebrate a win. However, if you’ve ever watched “The Ultimate Fighter” reality show, you’ll often times see the fighters get absolutely wasted and do some of the most idiotic things imaginable. Running into walls, punching threw doors and of course, just outright drunk street fighting.

These are all fighters that are there for an intensive training camp & competition, yet they still opt to drink. Surely, alcohol must have a negative effect on their in-ring performance, but to what extent? The topic of how the consumption of alcohol effects your performance definitely deserves a closer look.

Alcohol On Cardiovascular Endurance

I’m in Thailand right now and of course, there’s a lot of temptation to go out and party. I allow myself only 1 day a week to go out and really let loose and that day is Saturday. The reason I chose Saturday as my “get crunk” night is because on Sunday, there’s no training. I’ve tried to go to Muay Thai after a night of drinking and according to my trainer, I “have no power”. Not only that, but I gassed out a lot quicker than usual.

As it turns out, there’s some pretty solid physiological explanations for the early onset of fatigue. First off, Alcohol is a diuretic, meaning that it makes you urinate a lot more often than usual. The frequent washroom trips eventually lead to dehydration, which as we already know, is highly detrimental to performance. When you’re dehydrated, less blood is able to make its way to the working muscles. With reduced blood delivery comes less oxygen and nutrient delivery as well. The reduction in both oxygen and nutrients are what cause the pre-mature fatigue. It’s recommended that you avoid heavy drinking for at least 72hrs prior to your fight or training session to ensure optimal performance. Sure, if it’s just a training, you can go and give it a shot a day or two later, but you’re likely to get submitted a few more times than usual.

Alcohol On Strength

Alcohol has depressant effects on the central nervous system. The central nervous system also happens to play a major role when it comes to strength. When neural function isn’t optimal, maximal strength will be drastically inhibited. Try doing your regular one-rep max on the bench press while you’re hung-over. It really isn’t the same. If alcohol consumption effects your strength in the weight room, you can rest assured that it’s effecting the power of your strikes and your effectiveness on the mat as well. Strength, speed, power, agility – they all rely on the efficiency of the central nervous system.

Alcohol consumption also effects your hormone levels. Testosterone; which is a male sex hormone produced in the testes, plays a major role when it comes to strength and aggression. We’ve all heard the term “roid rage” in reference to the overly-aggressive “juicepigs” that pump themselves full of testosterone. Well, when you increase your testosterone beyond the standard baseline levels, that’s what happens.

However, heavy alcohol consumption has been shown to decrease testosterone levels so you’ll get the opposite effect. Rather than being aggressive, a fighter with low testosterone levels will be more hesitant to engage in combat. On the flipside, heavy alcohol consumption has also been shown to increase cortisol levels (cortisol is a feminine hormone).

So What Can You Do?

Aside from not drinking (which isn’t always an option), there’s a few obvious ways you can reduce the negative effects.

1) Don’t overindulge. Small doses of alcohol can actually be very beneficial to your health. Beer and red wine are both high in antioxidants – the protectors of the cells. Small doses have also been linked to increases in HDL cholesterol – which is the good kind that cleanses the arteries. To optimize these benefits, stick to darker selections. Dark beers and wines are usually healthier than ones that are lighter in colour.

2) Drink 8-12 ounces of water for every serving of alcohol. This approach is most effective if the water is alternated between servings of alcohol. For example, have a shot then follow it up with some water. However, if necessary, you can drink the glasses of water when you get home from the bar. Just line them up and drink them down – you’ll be glad you did in the morning.

3) Don’t combine your alcohol with another diuretic – energy drinks for example. Most energy drinks contain caffeine which has diuretic effects similar to that of alcohol. The combination will cause you to become dehydrated even faster.

4) Keep in mind that the diuretic effects of alcohol will counteract some of the positive benefits from select supplements. Take creatine for example. Creatine is known for its cellular hydration effects. Cellular hydration, otherwise known as water retention, has been shown to have beneficial effects when it comes to promoting hypertrophy (muscle size). Alcohol on the other hand, causes the body to release water-weight through the urine. These types of effects are important to take into consideration before you go bar-hopping.

Conclusion

Honestly, it should sort of go without saying that if you’re in a serious training camp to prepare yourself for an upcoming fight – just don’t drink. However, if you have a long time until your next fight, allow yourself to live a little and have some drinks every now and then. If you train seriously but don’t fight and don’t plan too, then train hard, party hard. Live a little on the weekends. All pretty obvious (you’d think anyway).

To finish up, here’s a video I found of Mark Coleman perfectly demonstrating a “roid rage” and Fedor, showing his love for Vodka (at the end of the video).

The Pound for Pound Debate

So Fedor and Anderson Silva just ran through their opponents without even getting hit. Georges St. Pierre just racked up another impressive victory over Jon Fitch, who before facing St. Pierre, was riding a 15 fight win streak (8 straight UFC wins). Then there’s BJ “The Prodigy” Penn. Every time I watch BJ fight I’m impressed. Some of the things you see BJ Penn pull off in his fights leave you scratching your head in amazement.

So, right now we have 4 fighters that are seemingly untouchable within their divisions. I don’t see BJ Penn losing at lightweight, nor do I see GSP losing at welterweight. Anderson Silva has basically torn through the entire UFC middleweight division and Fedor, well, Fedor seems to be in a league of his own – he just doesn’t lose.

Every time any one of these fighters win (which is pretty much every time they fight), the forums explode with people convinced that fighter-X is the best pound for pound fighter. To be honest, I doubt that 80% of the people making the claims even know what “pound for pound” means.

The term “pound for pound” refers to a fighters strength and skill-set in relation to his size. If for example, BJ Penn (currently fighting at 155 lbs) is considered to be the worlds best “pound for pound” fighter, it does not mean that he can beat Fedor Emelianenko (who fights at approximately 230 lbs).

So who’s the best “pound for pound” fighter? Honestly, who cares? Fedor is the undefeated heavyweight. If you had to class only one man as the “baddest dude on the planet” – it’s Fedor. All four fighters (Fedor, Silva, GSP and Penn) possess nearly perfect skill sets. When the technical skills, cardiovascular conditioning and determination (heart) of two fighters is equal, the decisive factor is almost always size and strength.

But just for the sake of the argument, let’s analyze the fighters and determine who takes the “pound for pound” crown.

BJ Penn: BJ has looked incredible in this last 3 fights. It appears as if he’s really taking his training and conditioning seriously now and to quote Dana White, “an in-shape BJ Penn is a scary dude”. Unfortunately, we can immediately eliminate BJ from the pound-for-pound contention (at least for now) seeing as how Matt Hughes put him in a crucifix pounded his head repeatedly into the octagon canvas like he was violently dribbling a basketball. And of course, he lost to GSP. We’ll see how the re-match turns out now that Penn determined and back in shape.

Georges St. Pierre: Sherdog just posted a similar article profiling the pound-for-pound contenders and the author awarded GSP the crown. Not surprising. I mean, he’s the latest to fight. Like I said before, people seem to get pretty excited when these fighters win and everyone starts making the “Oh my god, (insert fighter name here) is the best ever!” claims.

I can’t completely knock the article though. I mean, the author did bring up some legit points. George St. Pierre has torn through some tough competition with ease. He’s lost twice, but he’s avenged both losses in convincing fashion, so technically, he’s beat everyone that he’s ever faced.

He’s extremely well rounded. He’s been out-wrestling the divisions top wrestlers and passing the guards of BJJ black belts like butter. His stand-up is crisp and on top of all that, he’s freakishly strong. He’s got it all. GSP is a perfect fighter.

Anderson Silva: Anderson’s stand-up skills are just scary. What’s most impressive to me is the way he switches in and out of his fight stances. For someone to be able to transition between a southpaw and conventional stance the way Anderson can – it’s just amazing. With a guy like Anderson, you’d figure the game-plan would be to get the fight to the ground as quickly as possible, but that’s not even much of an option – he’s got a BJJ black belt from the Nogueira brothers.

If there’s any weakness, it’s his wrestling. If a decent wrestler wanted to take him down (as we saw with Henderson), they wouldn’t have any problems taking the fight to the ground. By the same token, if Silva was being out-struck (which doesn’t exactly happen), he would likely have difficulties securing a takedown on anyone with decent takedown defence.

You really have to respect Silva’s decision to fight in both the 185 and the 205 division. The fact that he moved up in weight rather than down just shows what a warrior he is. Brandon Vera made the cocky claim that he would be the first UFC fighter to hold titles in two weight divisions at the same time and it doesn’t exactly look like that’s going to happen for him anytime soon. But for Silva on the other hand, it’s a definite possibility.

Fedor Emelianenko: When you’re at the top, you’re bound to have haters. Everyone is constantly criticizing Fedor’s level of competition. If you back-track and analyze his past fights, his opponents weren’t pushovers at all (for Fedor maybe, but not to the average MMA fighter).

When Fedor fought Lindland, Lindland was, at the time, the top ranked middleweight fighter in the world (sort of like how Anderson Silva is right now). People dismissed him as legit competition saying that he was 2 weight classes below Fedor (even though they were within 10lbs of each other when they fought). Fedor won and people claimed that it was because he grabbed the ropes (he did NOT grab the ropes!).

Before Lindland, Fedor fought Mark Hunt, who again, people dismissed as legit competition. I don’t understand how fighting someone who has almost a 100lb weight advantage and has victories over MMA’s elite in Mirko Cro Cop and Wanderlei Silva gets dismissed as a “can”. Fedor wins again – people still criticize.

After Lindland, Fedor fights Hong Man Choi who while inexperienced, is a threat to anyone. Choi is an accomplished K1 level kickboxer and although he only had 1 MMA fight prior to his fight with Fedor, that one fight that he had ended with a devastating first round knockout. Do I think that Choi deserved a shot at Fedor so early in his MMA career – absolutely not! But do I think that Choi is an easy win for most heavyweights out there – absolutely not.

In his latest fight, Fedor dispatched of multi-time UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia in quick, devastating fashion. If you go through all of Fedor’s fights, you’ll see that Fedor is always just a little bit more technical, quicker and smarter than his opponents. It’s almost as if he’s on an entirely different level. His only loss, back in 2000, was due to a cut from what was actually an illegal strike. He later avenged that “loss”.

As a matter of fact, I don’t think Fedor has even lost a round in the last 8 and a half years. Not since his fight with Ricardo Arona in the Rings promotion. It should also be noted that in Rings, Fedor wasn’t allowed to implement his “ground and pound” techniques that he’s known for. If the rules had been different, who knows, perhaps Fedor never would have even lost a round to date.

So all things considered, who’s the best pound for pound fighter?

Everyone is going to have their own opinion on this. It’s not one of these questions that has a concrete answer. It’s all a matter of opinion. I’m writing this article so I’ll say that in my personal opinion, I think that Fedor Emelianenko is not only the best overall fighter in the world (weight not being a factor), but also, I think he’s the best “pound for pound” fighter as well.

What do you think?

Leave a comment below and state your case for who you believe is the best..

Fight Analysis : Fedor vs. Sylvia

Fedor Emelianenko

Who would have thought that the popularity of some tight T-shirts would lead to one of the most stacked fight cards in recent times. Affliction, as in Affliction Clothing, has joined forces with Adrenaline; another upstart promotion, to put on an event dubbed “Affliction Banned”.

The event will take place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California on July 19th. The card is packed with heavyweights, one of which is the number 1 ranked heavyweight fighter in the world. Fedor Emelianenko; who is considered an MMA god amongst most longtime fans, will be looking to silence the critics with a win over former UFC champion Tim Sylvia.

Fedor has been taking some heat recently from both MMA fans and journalists regarding his recent competition. However, when you’re at the top, you’re bound to get haters. What’s that saying again? “Whether they love you or hate you – you’re doing something right”. If Fedor is able to knock off Sylvia, and do so in convincing fashion, it should further justify is top ranking as Sylvia is currently the 5th ranked fighter in the heavyweight division.

However, as his 24-4 record indicates, knocking off Sylvia is no easy task for most fighters. His size, strength, and reach advantage is tough to neutralize. Not to mention his raw toughness. This is a guy that would let his forearm snap in half before “tapping out”. Sylvia is the real deal. There’s no doubt about that.

Do his attributes pose a UNIQUE threat to Fedor? I honestly don’t think so. Fedor, being fairly light for a heavyweight, is frequently matched up with much larger opponents. His last fight was against a 7’2, 352lb giant in Hong Man Choi. Choi is by no means as skilled or experienced as Sylvia is but he is not a “can” as people so often put it. Semmy Schilt; a 6 foot 11 inch K1 level striker with plenty of in-ring experience couldn’t get the job done against Fedor either.

How it plays out

Fedor always comes in with good game plans so I don’t see him standing there trying to strike with Sylvia. Sylvia; being as powerful as he is, could knock Fedor out with a clean connection. Fedor also cuts easily so I can almost guarentee he won’t risk losing due to a doctor stoppage (cut).

Sylvia has a good sprawl and likes to keep things on the feet but Fedor has a Judo/Sambo background and uses upper body takedowns. Fedor will likely charge in with that looping left hook that he always seems to land, clinch up and look to throw. If Fedor ends up on top, then its some ground and pound followed by a kimura, or another submission along those lines. If Sylvia ends up on top, Fedor will likely look to use those lightweight-like hips of his to shift himself around and secure an armbar.

Verdict

Fedor takes this fight 70-90% of the time. Sylvia will NOT submit Fedor. A Sylvia victory will likely be due to a cut-stoppage, or a major KO shot. Sylvia could also jab his way to a decision victory.

Most Likely Event

Fedor victorious over Sylvia via armbar.