Discussing the topic of Fedor is like talking about Justin Beiber with a bunch a school girls.  At the risk of challenging a cult created reality here are some of my observations:

Fedor is a great person and a great fighter but his legacy has been greatly exaggerated.   The myth wasnt created by him but by his fans who were so emotionally tied into the experiences he gave them that critical thinking went out the window.

First off he was the top guy of the weakest and least talented division in the sport.  Second, he hasnt fought the top contender in his division since 2005.

Let's look at history and what actually transpired:

In 2006 there was a pride grand prix which included all of pride's top and relevant heavyweights at the time (Crocop, Nog, Barnett, Werdum, mark hunt, and even overeem etc...)

Did Fedor enter this tournament?  no, instead he fought Mark Coleman.

After Crocop ran through this tournament and became the #1 contender did Fedor fight him?  No, he fought Mark Hunt (the guy who was eliminated in the first round)

After Gonzaga kicked Crocop's head into the 3rd row becoming the top contender did Fedor fight him?  No, he fought Matt Lindland (Matt is 2 weight classes below him)

After Randy Crushed Tim Sylvia and Gonzaga he became the new top contender... did Fedor fight him? No, he fought hong man choi.

After the Monty Cox's M1 global iteration flamed away did Fedor fight Randy?  No he fought Tim Sylvia (Tim had lost 2 of his last 3)

After Brock beat Randy and Mir beat big Nog did Fedor fight either of them?  No, he fought Arlovski (Andrei couldnt stay atop of the UFC HW division in 2006 when it only consisted of him and tim sylvia... at this point it's 2009)

After Brock beat Mir unifying the top contender status, did Fedor fight Brock?  No, he fought Bret Rogers.

After Brock beat Carwin cementing himself did fedor fight brock? no, he fought werdum and lost.

Some people will say "it was the top contender who ducked Fedor for 5 years and why should Fedor chase them, they need to come to him"....  or they will say "Zuffa didnt let it happen".  You could come up with a million excuses...  the fact remains the supposed #1 guy did not fight the top contender in his divsion for 5 years.

Go ahead and blame Zuffa for it, but who do you blame for Fedor not fighting Overeem and instead fighting werdum?  He didnt fight the champ and the guy he would be least favored against of the very organization he was fighting in... did Zuffa ruin that too?  If Fedor's management is ducking a fringe top 10 guy why is it so far fetched that they have also been ducking the aboslute top guys? 

Afterall their entire livelihood depended on the perception that Fedor is the best and the longer they could prolong that the more money they would make.

Or is it just a coincidence that every fight and path Fedor took also had much greater odds of him winning?

Fightng Mark Hunt instead of Crocop

Fighting Matt Lindland instead of Gonzaga.

Fighting Hong Man Choi instead of Randy.

Fighting Brett Rogers instead of Brock.

Fighting Werdum instead of Overeem.

If you do the math and extrapolate the numbers over 5 years it's astonishing the amount of probability they happen to their desired results.  Over the course of 5 years at best he fought competition half as likely to beat him.

So unfortunately The reality is that not only is the HW division the weakest and least talented but his management also controlled who he fought and who he didnt fight.  If you want an accurate picture of his legacy you also have to give credit to his managements matchmaking abilities, right?

Why is this important?  Besides getting the probabilities of winning massively on your side like we discussed above, the standard argument we always hear is that "well fedor fought guys who were ranked at the time"

That's meaningless.  When you control who you fight and who you don't there's always a "top 10 ranked" guy who's a stylistic layup for you.  This happens in boxing all the time.  Case in point:

Marius Zaromski's was also ranked in the top 10.  Imagine if GSP ducked top contender after tope contender in his division for 5 years and instead fought guys like Zaromski's.

So yes Fedor fought "ranked" guys in between his freak show fights but that doesnt mean a whole lot especially if you're the supposed #1 guy in the division.  The top contender in the division was very clear at every point in time and Fedor didnt fight the guy who had the best argument to contend for his crown for over 5 years.

The consequences of this besides fooling the fanboys?  one day you wake up and get choked out in 60 seconds by a 2-2 UFC castoff.  The next day you wake up and you're being beaten to a bloody pulp by a guy like Antonio Silva.

You can duck the top guys for only so long before the talent evolves to a such an extent that even your hand picked opponents start kicking your ass.   Just ask Frank Shamrock.

Fedor's supposed era has lasted longer than it should have because his management had the luxury of ducking and choosing opponents.

I called Fedor losing this fight a month ago to a "T" because I understood present day and historic realities.:

My Prediction for this Fight is Here.

Very Possible. There’s value on Silva for sure.

Antonio isnt a top HW by any means but Fedor has clearly degraded – we just dont know by how much.

I think he’s lost enough of a step and his training in todays MMA is so obsolete that Antonio can win.

The fight against Brett Rogers was very telling and Brett who’s nothing more than a jobber in the division didnt even have a real training camp.

Even though big foot isnt a top tier guy he’s still solid and probably the best opponent Fedor has faced since fighting crocop in 2005. Big foot is a better fighter than werdum… even though technically he lost to werdum it was pretty clear who the better fighter was. And obviously Antonio is a better fighter than Arlovski.

The only thing that’s concerning for Antonio is the speed difference but if he comes in shape like he did against Arlovski that should be mitigated. Fedor could catch him with the right hand But in a 3 rd fight I think Antonio will win if he fights a smart game.

Fedor has become obsolete…. it hasnt been apparent because he hasnt been fighting the top guys and it’s finally caught up to him. People for the longest time thought Frank Shamrock could still compete with guys like franklin and hendo until he lost to Renzo Gracie.

Imagine if Matt Hughes never fought GSP the second time and instead of fighting guys like Fitch, Alves, Kos, etc… he spent the last 4 years fighting guys like Karo Parysian and then got caught by the 170lb version of werdum (ricardo almeida)… people would still beleive he could compete with the GSP’s , Fitch’s and Alve’s.

Now Fedor fighting Bigfoot isnt comparable to Matt Hughes fighting Fitch, Alves or GSP. It’s more like Hughes fighting guys like Kampmann, Condit, Hardy, Paulo Thiago, Diego Sanchez.

I wouldnt favor Hughes so highly against those guys and Im not favoring Fedor so highly over Big Foot.

There’s Value on Big Foot and I’d bet on him to win this fight.

by mmalogic on Jan 19, 2011 5:13 PM PST up reply actions   4 recs

Now having said all this, Fedor was the best HW at one point in time and currently the historical best HW.  What made him truly unique was his ability to be in the flow state during fights (the Micheal Jordan - being in the zone state).  He exemplified this state more than any other fighter.  No thinking, Just doing... Just Flowing.  And because of this he created amazing exprience's for us fans to enjoy and legendary performances we'll never forget.

Rest in peace you crazy russian.

ears ago there was a little start up which figured out a way to deliver more relevant results to web surfers looking for information than anyone else.  Today they control more than  80% of the market share of searches and have become synonymous with the action of surfing for online information: "Google It".

Google developed a concept called "page rank: to generate a superior set of revelant listings than it's competitors... I'm familiar with the formula because I was one of the first to reverse engineer it and sell my findings.  I didnt figure out the entire algorithm and I doubt anyone will - it continues to evolve to this day... However I discovered all I needed to know.  I dominated keywords in the search listings to validate my intel and published the earnings here ($135,000 per month).

Without getting too complicated the entire algorithm is based on what website links to you and where you link to (and the freshness/date of those links).  The significance of the website that links to you and where you link to is key.  For example:  1 link from nytimes.com is worth more than 1,000 links from joeblowshobbyblog.com... and if you link out to sites which are more authoritative than yours in googles eyes (like a nytimes.com) it doesnt hurt your ranking.  Conversely if you linked to sites with less page rank than yours it hurts.... And this is the basis of how Google ranks a page in it's search engine.

So the question is: who's the most relevant fighters today and in what order? And how would google rank and determine this...

Here Im going to create a sample rankings based on what's known of google's formula.  The goal is to discover the most relevant fighters based on their records and rank them in order of their relevance TODAY.

For this sample Im going to use the list of Heavyweights.  Here's the output:

1. Brock Lesnar (significant wins: Frank Mir, Randy Couture)

2. Shane Carwin (significant wins: Frank Mir, Gonzaga)

3. Junior dos Santos (Significant wins: Werdum, Gonzaga)

4. Cain Velasquez (significant wins: Nog, Kongo)   

5. Fabricio Werdum   (significant wins: Fedor, Gonzaga)

6. Fedor Emelianenko  (Significant wins: Nog, Crocop)

7. Frank Mir: (Significant wins: Nog, Kongo)

8. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (significant wins: Randy, Crocop)

9. Randy Couture (Significant wins: Tim Sylvia, Gonzaga)

Now let me explain this...  Fedor's ranking at #1 for so long is primarily based on 2 wins:  Nog and Crocop.  Regardless weather he was undefeated or not if he beat Nog and Crocop at that time he still would have been ranked #1.  This is also how Google's algo works.  The significance of a link is more important than the quantity and this is why it was able to produce way better and more relevant results than Yahoo or MSN - and this is how Google keeps it's results up to date and doesnt show you what was obsolete information 2 years ago.

Gonzaga and Kongo beat Crocop... so beating Gonzaga and Kongo became more significant.  Beating Randy became more significant than beating Tim Sylvia, Beating Frank Mir became more significant than beating Nog... and this is how Fedor became less relevant over the years.

Some will say that beating Nog and Crocop today isnt the same as it was when Fedor beat them... and that's my point.  If your signifiant wins lose relevance so do you.  If the significance of the sites that link to you in google go down so does your site.  This is how google keeps it's results fresh and it's information up to date.  Fedor failed to get more significant wins than Nog and Crocop...  Brett Rogers, Tim Sylvia or Arlovski isnt more significant.  If you're trying to rank in google and you get links from mid level sites and your competitor gets a link from yahoo sports it's over... he's going to out rank you.

This is about what's relevant TODAY and in what order.  I didnt continue after 9, but you get the picture.

Now if I did this before Saturday night Fedor would have still been #1 based on this algo because even though he didnt get more significant links than Nog and Crocop and even though Brock, Carwin, Cain, JDS and Frank Mir have - Fedor's wins over sylvia, arlovski and rogers were fresh and significant enough to keep him at the top (especially since he has no outgoing links/losses).  His competitors would not have had enough link authority to have taken his spot and google would have still ranked him at the top.  If he beat werdum he still would have been at the top over the Carwin/Brock winner based on this algo - though it would be alot closer.  If Fedor didnt lose it would have taken one of those guys (Brock, JDS, Cain, or Carwin) to beat at least 2 of the other guys. 

Fortunately he lost :)  Because this weekend we now have the most significant HW fight since Fedor/Crocop from 2005.    The winner of that fight will then fight Cain and the winner of that JDS.  In short within the next 15 months we'll have more significant fights in the heavyweight division than we've had for the past 10 years.

Zuffa now has the best most relevant fighter in each weight class and moreover the talent to produce the top contender in each weight class. The implications and importance of this dynamic cant be overstated.

(rank order has been edited as a piece of data was missing in the initial list).

With all the hoopla I thought I would clear up why Dana thinks bloggers are morons:

Regarding this whole notion of the UFC losing momentum:

Let me explain a couple things on this graph:

From UFC 90 you can see the resistance point (bottoms) go up where you can actually draw a straight line. (the set of low points at the bottom UFC 93,96,99 and 106 ).   This is called a "resistance line" in forecasting.

The other thing you should take note of is the new peak set by UFC 100.

This is how trending works... unless that new resistance line doesn't clearly break then there is a 100% certainty that there will be a new peak in the near future (comparable to the time between the old record/UFC66 and the new record/UFC100).

A clear line break would be less than 300k ppv buys.

Unless this resistance line breaks there's absolutely no evidence that the UFC has lost momentum.

Actually UFC 107 confirms that the trend is continuing and hasn't stalled.   A comparable UFC 84 (headlined by Penn vs Sherk produced 485k buys whereas 107 headlined by penn vs sanchez produced over 620k buys.  UFC 107 twelve months ago wouldnt have even come close to 20% of its number today. THAT"S NOT LOSING MOMENTUM.

If a UFC show produces less than 300k buys then there will be a prolonged correction (what some call a plateau) followed by a possible trend reversal.  What this would mean is for the foreseeable future UFC 100 will be the peak unless something drastic changes... THEN AT THIS TIME (where the resistance line is clearly broken) you could say that the "UFC has lost momentum".

Not only is that NOT the case, by all indicators (what the market is saying) UFC 100's record will most certainly be broken and will most likely be preceded (around 6 months before) with another big show that will either match or get close to the UFC 100 buys.  So the next show that does 1.2 to 1.6 million buys you'll know that the record is about to be broken (or at least the market will be ready to break that record and all Zuffa would have to do is deliver a card worthy of that within 6 months or so of that time frame).

This is why Dana thinks so low of bloggers.  They dont know shit and worse, dont even realize it.  Other media as inept as they are consult experts and at least research before they make an ass of themselves. 

Jake Rossen says the UAE is in trouble... forget about the fact that Abu Dhabi (just one of the emirates that make up the UAE has over 600 billion in cash) or the hundreds of Global 1000 companies with offices there...  If the UAE is in trouble based on Dubai's (one of the emirates) debt problems then America is Zimbabwe... Zuffa seems to be doing fine in the states.

Did he even look at the events that sold out over there during this financial calamity?  Formula 1 sold out, Concerts and other events sell out easily in that market... people from all over the region fly in.

Forget about calling people... he didnt even google to get information and just wanted to fill his content quota for the for the week.  10 year olds do more research for their homework assignments and book reports.

Rule of thumb:  When you don't know something assume those who are spending 10's of millions and who have been successful at it, do... otherwise do some damn research or consult with some experts so you can add to the conversion.

The "media"  holds Dana (a "promoter") to a standard they themselves (supposed "journalists) fail to even reach.  It's one thing for a promoter to talk out of his ass, use hyperbole to sell fights but it's totally different for "journalists" to use controversy and hyperbole to get web hits...  You want "respect" yet you don't even respect your own profession.

Web "Journalists" think they are some sort of "special citizen" above everybody else when most of them are nothing more than glorified forum posters.  Look at some of the forum posts on sherdog or the underground and compare them to some of these articles... it's eerily similar - You cant even tell the difference between the amount of research and knowledge most cases.

I say this not ONLY as an insult but as a wake up call to improve standards and quality.  Just like how you guys critique MMA cards, matchups and TV production to better the UFC product.... I'm telling you so we all have a better media product.

Unfortunately at this point Internet bloggers who want Dana to take them seriously is like the National Enquirer wanting Obama for an afternoon exclusive.

Lets discuss who wins the Rematch and Why and away from the front page and being bogged down by the latest news... but first lets look at how the fight unfolded because it's been lost in all the outrage.

Shougun:

Lost in everything was the success shogun had in out striking a guy who has never been out struck before.  This was an amazing accomplishment... from creating the plan all the way to executing it.

First his plan was to use kicks... probably because they saw Machida best capitalizes against his opponents punches.

And the way he used this weapon going after the legs and body and forgetting about the head except in a counter situation where he caught Machida (once on the neck in the first round and another time during Machida's flurry in the third which were probably the 2 best punches of the fight)

He was in excellent condition.  If you notice his breathing patterns in the 5th round it couldnt get any better than that.

All in all this wasnt the old shogun this was a NEW and better Shogun...

Machida:

The questions of whether Machida has a chin or not is gone. Machida has a chin.   Machida's best weapon in the fight was his lunging knee and landed it over and over.

For the first time his karate stance was exploited and he paid for it.  

THE REMATCH:

Machida will need to solve shoguns kicks and if that involves changing his stance will his head finally be exposed like every other fighter.

Shogun needs to come up with multiple scenarios and how he is going to react based on what Machida comes back with.

My conclusion at this point:

Judges always give close rounds to the fan favorite... going into this fight Shogun will be the fan favorite... Both guys are very durable and I believe the first 3 rounds will be very close again unless someone makes a mistake.  Shogun will win this rematch.

This matchup is like watching the myths of Chuck Norris fight Bruce Lee.  The two best light heavy weights in the world.  This will be an epic fight. 

Please share who you think will win and why you've come to that conclusion.

Zuffa has just sent Strikeforce a cease and desist regarding the Babalu versus Mousasi fight... expect the same for Fedor's engagement.

The war already started between Zuffa and Showtime years ago and this is simply a different chapter in the same saga.  Showtime's new proxy: Strikeforce... EA and potentially CBS coming into the mix - there are multiple fronts in play.

Zuffa's pay scale has already been gearing up to preempt this and many don't realize the Affliction "collaboration" has more implications than meets the eye.

With Zuffa's warchest increasing by the minute and more revenue streams being added by the day expect the payscale to continue its increase.

My bloody elbow brothers probably expected an apology from me as "I guaranteed Fedor's next fight would be in the UFC"... and rightfully so after hearing the strikeforce/fedor announcement.

But pay heed my brothers as you've only seen half (Zuffa's amazing offer) of why I guaranteed it... The other half - the stick - is yet to be pulled out.

Always bet on Zuffa.

This Fan Post was promoted to the front page by Nick Thomas.

In regards to strict terms of UFC contract, we asked Aleksander Emelianenko to comment:

"You can deal with UFC, I know that they have flexible contract system. All these talks about "strict" contract terms with signing with UFC, come ONLY from Vadim Finkelstein, who wants to push his owns business projects through Fedor's fights"

-- Aleksander Emelianenko in his interview for Sports.ru.

HT: "valetudoru" for finding this and translating it.  (His translation originally posted on sherdog).

OK bitches... here are my picks:

Take all your money and split it evenly on the following:

Mark Coleman

Bisping

Belcher

With this allocation I calculate a less than 10% chance of losing money and a 90% chance of being in profit.

I have Brock at an 85% probability of winning - if he fights smart it is improbable for him to lose.  The line here is not worth it.

GSP vs Alves has unknown variables of great implication.  If GSP can take Alves down its game over.  If GSP can't he still has a chance on the feet but not as good as Thiago's chances.      

Promoted from the Fanposts by Kid Nate. Please note that this news is unconfirmed but MMALogic has shown himself to be a credible inside source in the past.

Affliction MMA is Done.

Tom Atencio will be making an announcement soon.

A third show will probably happen to fulfill Affliction Entertainments larger contract obligations unless a deal with Zuffa can be arranged to offset some of the costs while Affliction pays off their contract obligations via "sponsorships"...

You could hear in Tom's voice after the event - the realization that:

Everyone is making money here (Trump, Golden Boy, the fighters, etc...) at the expense of Affliction losing millions.

With Affliction footing virtually the entire bill and after PPV distributor: Showtime and Promoter Golden Boy taking their cut - Affliction is left with less than $13 per PPV buy to cover expenses.

Making the initial estimate of 250,000 buys not even close to what will be needed to break even.

Update from Michael Rome:  I have been digging at this story for the last 3 or 4 hours since I first heard it.  I believe it to be true.  A source at UFC informed that Lorenzo Fertitta was contacted today by Affliction looking for a "beneficial" way out, but it was only one source and it remains just a rumor.

Update 2:  Tom Atencio was apparently on a Sirius show and denied the end of Affliction.  He also denied ever being on the Tom Leykis show, which was a rumor posted elsewhere:

Tom Atencio denies all rumors of Affliction closing its doors.  He denies even appearing on the Tom Leykis show or talking with the UFC. 

"Things are moving forward...as long as people are talking about me I must be doing something right."

Aoki is not a top five lightweight... his pants are!

From his own coach (Eddie Bravo):

A lot of guys are using the rubber guard now; a lot of guys. But what makes Aoki different are the pants. The pants just make the rubber guard more effective. Slipperiness is the enemy of submission.

It’s no question Aoki is so effective with his rubber guard right now because of the pants.

The guy who trained him in the rubber guard admits this...

This is not MMA.  This is tantamount to a striker knocking out his opponents with brass knuckles and people saying he's a top 5 fighter.

This guy wouldn't last without his magic underwear.

********

Source:

http://www.fighthype.com/pages/content4135.html

The ratings are in:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/10/05/ratings-saturday-october-4-americas-most-wanted-petruzelli-beat-kimbo-slice/5695

As Ive stated before my data didn't show Elite beating its network debut numbers...

I can tell you however that CBS did have higher expectations... As did pro-elite I'm sure.

Elite was hoping for at least one silver lining to what transpired last night...

The future of MMA on CBS is not looking real good...

UPDATE:  I am hearing a few Elite XC people are looking for jobs.

Promoted by Michael Rome

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine over at HBO (who will remain anonymous) and they want nothing to do with "bastardizing" (as he put it) their Boxing product.

It seems Golden Boy offered the Arlovski/Barnett fight on the under card  of Hopkins/Pavlik... but HBO rejected the idea.

We also discussed the end game:

If Golden Boy is successful what then?  You just converted another fan pool for the UFC.  The casual UFC fan will not order these mixed boxing/MMA cards who wouldn't already... so the best case scenario for Golden Boy is to convert their boxing fans into MMA fans.

Is Golden Boy taking a risk may bite them in the ass?  It seems HBO is not.

If you work the numbers and realize that in order to be successful you would have to convert a good portion of the boxing fans into MMA fans... that opens up alot of  variables that can blow up in your face - for example: right now boxing ppv's are hurt by counter programming via other boxing events on other networks...

This would create a situation where counter programming by other MMA events can then have a similar effect.

For HBO It would be like playing chess against 2 players where you only have one set while the other 2 each have their own... how can you conceivably protect your king?

Well this has been  the talk for months but now a few individuals are starting to leak it out... Much to the dismay of the general MMA media who would have wanted to make the scoop.

"The Real Big Pun" let the cat out of the bag  on fightsport.

Randy Couture will in all likelihood headline UFC 91 in Portland, Oregon..

The hope is that the opponent will be fedor however the probability will be that his opponent will be non other than Brock Lesnar.

MMA LOGIC

mmalogic@ymail.com

Many Radio Personality's, MMA writers and even some fighters will have you believe that there is a possibility of the UFC co-promoting if not now sometime in the future...

Let me illustrate for you what would have to transpire in order for the UFC to comply - so the reality of the situation can be better understood:

A real competitor to Zuffa must emerge.

An Organization needs to emerge not owned by zuffa that not only can maintain profitability but can match or exceed zuffa's revenue.

Why?  Because in order to compete on pay you have to be able to compete in revenues and profitability.

Zuffa has a nasty way of calculating compensation with the understanding of what the competitions revenues can sustain and their bids always keep the competition in the red.

The current reality is not one organization has been able to compete nationally and remain profitable let alone match Zuffa's revenue.

Let's say an organization has TV and gets on PPV.  The UFC will counter program and their free counter programming will range from a replay all the way to a star studded ppv quality card.

An organization would need to spend a fortune just to get close to 200k ppv buys.

So some say don't compete with Zuffa initially... build stars first.

Where do you think your stars will end up once their contract is up?

Cung Lee is already in talks with Zuffa... once Kimbo, Lawler, shields,  big foot's contracts are up where do you think they will go?

Elite XC can't afford to put on their next show let alone match what ever offers that will come their way.

Bottom line if you compete with Zuffa they have a plethora of tactics to keep you in the red.

The Conclusion is in order to promote on a national level you need to build fighters that Zuffa doesnt want (so far women)... 

And a Man vs Woman fight won't force Zuffa to co promote.

MMA Logic mmalogic@yahoo.com