I caught the fight this morning. Great fight, lots of action. After a pretty even first round where they mostly stood and traded, Big Foot Silva takes Fedor down to open the second and basically rips him apart. To his credit, Fedor escaped several serious submission attempts throughout. But he got absolutely mauled via ground and pound and was down there the full five minutes. The the fight was stopped between rounds, as Fedor's face was a mess and his left eye swollen shut. The end result is Fedor gets eliminated in the first round of Strikeforce's heavyweight grand prix tournament. After the fight, Fedor said he might retire. As I always say, Dana White is always right.
I watched it live with bunch of people....I did not like the way he fought at all. He was trading with much bigger Silva, while keeping his hands at his waist, and kept on getting himself cornered. The moment he was taken down, I immediately thought that his won't end well...you can pull a submission out of your *** only so many times, and looks like that number had caught up with him. While I didn't think they were gonna stop the fight, Im glad they did. With one eye, there is now way he could judge distance, and he would just get pounded even more. He clearly doesn't care as much as he did, dude just doesn't seem motivated. I love the guy more than anybody here, but its obvious. He needs to retire, he doesn't owe anybody anything in this sport, and you can easily make a solid case of him being the best heavyweight in the history of this young sport....Not that he cares, of course. He never did, that was part of he was, and still is, I guess. People who wanted him to lose, well they have been waiting for this ten years. Now he had lost twice in matter of six months or so. Many hours will be spent arguing over how great he actually was. Personally, I don't care. I respect the guy, and love him (no homo) as a fan, as a Russian person. He always put on a show, and you cant point me to one fight where he was dancing around, or dragging his *** around the ring, and thats what I appreciated the most. Hes a fighter, and thats what he did - Fight. As for Dana white...that's a different story. I appreciate UFC and everything him personally, and the Zuffa organization has done for the Sport, but I don't respect the guy. Guy constantly puts his foot in his mouth, and there are plenty of stories of him not respecting fighters (not all). Obviously what he is doing is working, and being right isn't difficult, when you change your story around ten times a day, you oughta get it right sooner or later. As for the Strikeforce tourney...Alistair is the favorite. I don't see him having much trouble with Werdum as long as he...you know, stays out of his guard. As for Sergei....he made easiest $50 I have ever earned. A guy with heavy hands vs a guy with no jaw was no brainer. Kharitonov can do some damage if he stays composed and not get caught up doing anything dumb. He is fundamentally sound, he just needs to work work his advantage, which is his strength. I almost feel bad for Arlovski...he isn't a bad dude, he trains hard, he want's it bad...but he just can't take a punch to save his life. The real wildcard in the tourney is Barnett. The guy is a very, very accomplished and experienced fighter, with almost all of his loses coming from All-Time Greats who were in their prime (Mirko x3, and Nog) his only other loss he avenged by KTFOing Rizza. Yeah, he juiced big time, thats no secret. But lets be honest here...PLENTY of people juice in the sport....so juice alone did not win those fights for him. If the dude is motivated (and clean) he can surprise a lot of people. I dont know what is the line for the fight, but id drop $20 if the line is good, maybe this has something to do with me not having ANY faith in (insert Dana White) "Buck Rogers". I honestly think if Josh is anywhere near where I think he might be, the Sergei - Josh fight might end up being the best of the tournament, that being purely speculation of course. Like I said...we need the General MMA Thread back.
I was shocked at how easy Silva got the full mount. Fedor's been taken down, but he got mounted super fast. I was also shocked that Silva couldn't put him away with a full mount and way more than 3 minutes left. Fedor is a warrior. There was about half a second at the end of the second round when Fedor was turned that arm bar attempt into what looked like a heel hook that I thought he might still have that magic. Then Silva was like, um no, and shook is hand at Fedor. It's too bad about his eye, I would have loved to see what he had left for the final round. Also, we should just have more MMA posts. No need for a super long thread IMO.
I think Werdum hit the nail on the head after the fight. He believes the problem with Fedor is his camp. He's in that little bubble in Starry Oskul with a bunch of friends. Nobody anywhere near his level. No coaches with fresh ideas or a different eye to critique him and train him as such. It's been that way for 10+ years and now it's caught up to him. The old saying of "iron sharpens iron" rings true. And that's the way the modern MMA contender trains nowadays. Top guys train with top guys and top coaches. They move around and get as much as they can. Look at GSP and the guys he trains with. He has Shiraz and then he goes to Greg Jackson before fights. Werdum picked Silva to win, while Overeem said 50/50. Neither guy was surprised. One of them (forget which) questioned whether Fedor wanted it anymore. Win or lose, Fedor's always been an action fighter. More than willing to go where the opponent's strengths lie. You always get your money's worth. He's as sure a thing as there has ever been in the sport. But the M-1 stuff still tarnishes his legacy IMO. And Dana was right in that fighting the best in the world was not a priority for him. Didn't care. And now the shine is wearing off. That said, I'd still love to see he and Cain go at it. Their similar styles and size would make for a fast-paced, action-packed fight. Finally, I tend agree. I'm not a fan of the super gigantic threads. Things get lost in there and it's hard to search back for something. Just feel free to post lots of MMA threads.
It turns out that Fedor was ROBBED!!! Silva's camp used hypnosis. http://lifesports.ru/news/51518 Link was in Russian, this is googles translation of the article. I know we aren't supposed to post whole articles but....
lol hypnosis..........good luck proving that. Can't Fedor and his camp just admit he got beat and move on? More tarnishing to Fedors legacy.
I've never been able to figure out why underdogs get so amped up and are able to give their best when facing elite competition. Much less why the greats sometimes have a bad night. All this time it was covert, two-way hypnosis.
It gets better, SILVA CAMP ADMITS GUILT!!!! http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/2/1...anager-responds-to-stealing-energy-from-fedor **edit** Who knew MMA guys could be that funny? Well I guess Forrest is a funny guy...
Nope. Real news aggregate/fan-posts site. Great MMA site too if you are into it, and if you're reading this thread you are into MMA.
Either Overeem or Kharitonov will win the Grand Prix. Fedor should move to LHW, if he can cut the weight.
