After crushing Pedro Rizzo in a mere 84 seconds, the one-time king of the heavyweight division, Fedor Emelianenko has officially announced his retirement from MMA.
After a nearly 10-year unbeaten streak which saw “The Last Emperor” take out championship caliber fighters from every discipline imaginable the likes of Ricardo Arona, Babalu Sobral, Semmy Schilt, Minotauro Nogueira, Mark Hunt, Mark Coleman, Tim Sylvia, and Andrei Arlovski, the Russian hit a rough patch once he joined the Strikeforce roster. After a strong start against Brett Rogers, the unthinkable happened, the “The Last Emperor” was beaten, not once, but three times.
The three-fight skid against Fabricio Werdum, “Big Foot” Silva, and Dan Henderson, forced the fallen king out of the promotion.
In his post-Strikeforce career, Emelianenko returned to Russia and Japan, and in a clean sweep defeated Jeff Monson, Satoshi Ishii, and finally, Pedro Rizzo who fell to his fists earlier today. Emelianenko announced his departure from the sport after the bout.
“I think it’s time. I’m retiring from sports. I still have the SAMBO World Championships. My family is the reason I will not be fighting again. My daughters are growing without their father, so it’s the right time to leave.”
While leaving on a three-fight win-streak, Fedor leaves the sport without the chance to prove he can still hang with the greats of today’s heavyweight division. While it is unfortunate, “The Last Emperor” remains the single greatest heavyweight in the history of our young sport, and many long-time fans are sure to miss the stoic Russian and his always exciting fighting style.
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10 years undefeated. 5 years uninspired. Bye Fedor.
i think he should fight with them 3 dudes that he lost to, what do u people think?
Not to mention wins over Cro Cop and Randleman as well! Nice job Jesse. He sure was the best, and the true mma pundits will miss him. I still hold out hope for one more mega fight in the future!
Who is this… Did he fight in the UFC? I don’t remember this guy. It seems he is putting family first. He’s a good man. Happy trails, Fedor, who ever you man be!
you claim to be an mma fan and beleive ufc was/ is the only good promotion? you just watch your ufc and leave mma to the real fans! fedor there best there ever was
He was the best heavyweight mma fighter that ever lived. Absolutely owned the division for 10 years and crushed the top hws on the planet in a way that no other person has done, while the UFC hw division was mediocre. That’s who he was.
I’m sure Lavern is intending sarcasm. At least I hope.
I agree Devin, Fedor, IN HIS TIME, was the best HW around. I won’t go through the whole speel again, but as I pointed out in the following post during Fedor’s run through the Pride HW division the UFC’s HW’s weren’t a breed all their own, not like today. http://mmafrenzy.com/28598/fedor-emelianenko-set-to-retire-after-june-21-bout-with-pedro-rizzo/
a relatively small HW might I add,which just added to his greatness
more like added to his lazyness, he could of dropped to light heavy it was his choice entirely
Why drop when your the best heavyweight in the world. Maybe after his first 2 losses where in the 2nd his size actually did matter he could have done it. The thing is if he was already thinking about retirement then there was no point in dropping weight.
“While leaving on a three-fight win-streak, Fedor leaves the sport without the chance to prove he can still hang with the greats of today’s heavyweight division.”
No, I think his 1-3 run in Strikeforce showed that he could only dominate has-beens and never-weres. Against actual modern heavyweights, he was little more than…oh yeah, a has-been.
dbiz,
I agree that in modern mma Fedor would not dominate like he did, or maybe not even be competitive, but it still doesn’t take away from everything he did in Pride against some of the best HW’s of his era.
History says you are correct. I was simply pointing out that, once again, Captain Hyperbole strikes the Frenzy and, in a nutshell, tries to write in a manner which does not suit his subject material.
amen to that!
your clueless.. he beat cro cop at his own game, beat nog, randleman, mark hunt, coleman, sylvia just to name a few. but perhaps youve only ever heard of ufc and never pride or other orginisations? pride was were all the elite fighters were when ufc was small and somewhat talentless. fedor will always be known as the greatest heavyweight
I have to say the guy is a master of selling himself to the public but IMO he was never really tested in the best MMA organization in the world. Loses to Werdum and Henderson didn’t help my opinion of him and a lose to Silva was inexcusable. I know Fedor fans are going to comeback with a several excuses why he lost but it’s just my opinion.
I completely agree with you. I used to be a huge Fedor fan until he did not come to an agreement with the UFC. I don’t understand why people say UFC had a mediocre heavyweight division and use examples of Fedor beating the ex-top guys in UFC (Silva, Monson, Arlovsky) when those fighters were clearly out of their prime at the time of their loss. Then those same people will use the excuse “Oh Fedor was out of his prime against Dan Henderson, Bigfoot and Werdum.” Such a double standard.
Bottom line is that nobody can say that there was a BEST heavyweight during Fedor’s fighting era because the top guys never fought.
He had such potential to become a legend without an asterisk, but a great career either way. Congrats to Fedor.
Arlovski was in his prime when he lost to Fedor. He was on a winstreak that included Fabricio Werdum, and KOs of Ben Rothwell and Big Country.
What’s with all the negativity? He was a great fighter that put on entertaining fights. Especially in the last few years, all of his fights were exciting to watch. Even as an undersized heavyweight, he beat many of the best in the world. Even while being hated on by American fans, especially Dana White (fat Mr. Clean), he never once said anything negative back. He is truly humble. Why is there so much hate for someone, all because some say he is the best? Which he has never himself claimed. All of your negative comments show how dumb you really are.
“After a strong start against Brett Rogers”
If i remember correctly Fedor was being dominated that whole fight until he knocked out rogers… Not to strong of a start.
Not to put words in Jesse’s mouth but put the whole sentence together…
“After a strong start against Brett Rogers, the unthinkable happened, the “The Last Emperor” was beaten, not once, but three times.”
It sounds to me that he meant it was a strong start for Fedor in Strikeforce, in that he started with a win.
Nice write up btw Jesse.
““The Last Emperor” remains the single greatest heavyweight in the history of our young sport, and many long-time fans are sure to miss the stoic Russian and his always exciting fighting style.”
I fully agree with this statement.
About comparing Fedor:
If the people who are fighting today, were fighting in fedor’s prime, they’d be different too. If Fedor was in this generation he’d be different and still potentially would’ve dominated them. Everyone changes with the generation and times of that culture and era. It’s impossible to make any claims of comparison, you can only compare them to the best of their day. And fedor was undefeated.
Lazy:
Fedor also dominated the Mens Combat Sambo for almost a decade. You think he’s lazy? I’d say there’s a list of some of the toughest dudes on the planet who disagree. Even if he was lazy he owned hw, so why would he change anyway. Not really a good point.
Strikeforce run:
Anyone who uses the last year of a persons 10 year career as a barometer of their success is either incompetent or just blatantly a negative nancy on any subject, desperately attempting to bash anything. You can’t judge hall of fame fighters on their last years of their careers, same as you can’t for baseball players, football, etc etc. It’s what they did in their prime, and again he dominated all the best of the best in his for an unprecedented way, and for an unprecedented amount of time.
Anyone who watched mma at that time, or who cares to even look up his career knows all of this. Anyone who is too lazy to do so, and especially still declares they have a meaningful opinion, well, nothing to say about that anyway…
“Anyone who uses the last year of a persons 10 year career as a barometer of their success is either incompetent or just blatantly a negative nancy on any subject, desperately attempting to bash anything. ”
I just used it to point that, unlike this jackhat writer tried to claim, we have a very clear view of how Fedor would do against actual top HWs TODAY.
The only other things that can be drawn from his Strikeforce run is that he was unwilling to actually train for modern MMA and, as a direct result, got handled by even mediocre talent at the end of his career.
He should have hung it up when Affliction folded (a fact I pointed out at the time) and gone down as arguably the GOAT heavyweight, instead of leaving the debate open as he has.
he’d still beat the shat out of anyone posting here :) so …..
haha^^ +1!
and a butcher can cut meat better, and a machanic can fix a car better, and i can fix a phone better than fedor, and everyone can spell better than me : ) so….. whats your point?
Its the point buddy that he is still a tough dude …. saying he sucks or that he wasn’t that great is poor judgement . Ali got the hell beat out of him in the 80′s …. looked ridiculous … I know because I watched him lose those fights on TV with the old man . Being great isn’t about doing the talking or being a Richard to everyone …. its when people tell you that you are great that its real . Thats what makes a true champion
People hate on fedor for the reason that he fought when mma was different and UFC was just beginning and didn’t have the HW firepower. Comparing him to todays fighters is like comparing Bird to Lebron, Ruth to Pujols, Johnny U to Tom Brady. People just need to look at what he did against the competiton he was given and realize that we will doubtfully see a fighter or a streak like that again.
@shiny
I get it about the sometimes obsessive hyperbole, but I agree with this writer about Fedor. See my point about comparing him to other generations. It’s not fair. And he still dominated everyone at the top of the class in his prime.
@Rex
I’m not trying to be rude but you just obviously didn’t follow his career. And honestly, you made it clear that you don’t even know about mma from 5-10 years ago, because actually all the top hws did fight. Outside of the holy UFC. And fedor went on the most stunning run ever recorded and beat them all. No one is making a point that the wins in the last few years automatically meant he was the best ever. At least I’m not. These were all fights past the glory days…including the ko of arvloski and win over silva. The part that makes him the best that ever lived had already happened. Just because he lost fights late in his career and never submitted to Dana the dictator (with bad advice from his own camp or not), doesn’t change anything.
Not a sad day in my household :D
Fedor was a stoic and honest sportsman. No self-promotion, no weight-cutting inorder to fight smaller competition. Just brutality. He never fought for points, or ran for the last round because he knew he had the points to pull out the decision. As soon as that bell rang it was KILL KILL KILL. Until it rang again.
He took beatings and he gave beatings. Regardless of whether he won or lost he always left the savage in him between bells. His post fight inteviews were as if he had just finished putting together flower arrangements. I always found that fascinating. Such control of his emotions.
Plus, he never once felt the need to Tweet.
Amen on that last line.
u so right :-)