December 22, 2000.
Gasoline in the United States was $1.42 a gallon, the DOW Jones closed at 11600, and the unemployment rate in the nation was fixed at 3.9%.
It was also the first, and to this day, only time that one could utter the words “Fedor Emelianenko” and “loser” in the same breath (Sambo competitions notwithstanding, of course).
Since that cold winter evening in Osaka, the totality of the world seems to have changed; petrol in the U.S. is nearly two-and-a-half times costlier, the once-booming stock market has imploded, and approximately 30 million Americans are concurrently jobless.
Everything, seemingly, has changed since that night. In a world in a perpetual state of flux, the subsequent dominance of Fedor in mixed-martial-arts has become something more than a testament to his technical excellency in the field. Rather, Fedor has become something transcendent from the world of MMA, becoming a singular constant in a decade demarcated by utmost turbulence.
How many promotions have blossomed and collapsed since Fedor’s last in-ring mixed-martial-arts loss? How many fighters have come and gone, how many stars have been birthed and faded? In Fedor’s decade of dominance, “The Last Emperor” has fought alongside three presidential administrations and the crowning of myriad MMA champions. And unlike those lesser heroes of the sport, Fedor has yet to lose his crown, yet to see a smattering of tarnish upon his career’s luster.
Fundamentally, Fedor is undefeated and unconquered in the sport, as that gleaming “L” on his record was the resultant of an illegal strike. Of course, Fedor eventually avenged that questionable defeat in the mid-decade and by then, he had already been established as the sport’s number one heavyweight.
At the decade’s end, the question is not whether Fedor is the sport’s greatest heavyweight, but instead, whether Fedor is the greatest fighter in the sport’s history. In a way, a comprehensive glance at Fedor’s career is analogous to the sport’s development; if great fighters have profound influence on the game, than surely, the greatest fighter, effectively, epitomizes the sport.
There are no athletes, alive or dead, that can be compared to Fedor Emelianenko. The greatest football players, the greatest basketball players, hell, even the greatest boxers (Rocky Marciano only had 49 professional fights, mind you), have all tasted defeat, at least in some incarnation. Fedor hasn’t. Ever.
Oh, he’s had some close calls, all right; getting staggered by a mean right hook from Fujita, being dropped on his skull by Randleman, eating some tenacious fists from Arlovski. Mortal men would have surely succumbed to such onslaughts; Fedor, in all of those fights, managed to rebound and finish his would-be usurper to the throne.
Fedor, in many circles, is seen as something beyond a tremendous fighter; he is the sport’s unquestioned king, but to millions, he is a force of nature, a veritable supernatural entity that mayhap can’t be stopped. Fedor Emelianenko is a living legend, a walking, breathing folk tale, a real-life superhero. He’s gone toe-to-toe with the world’s preeminent Brazilian Jiu-jitsu heavyweight, and conquered him TWICE. He’s defeated a man that was, at the time, considered the most dangerous striker in the sport’s history. He’s decimated men that outweighed him by 200 plus pounds, men that have towered over him by literally dozens of inches. He’s beaten, pounded, and submit the absolute best fighters of the last ten years; considering such a vaunted legacy, one wonders if perhaps Fedor has his opponents mentally conquered before even stepping foot in the ring.
This Saturday, Fedor will stoically walk down the entranceway ramp and do something that he, in his unparalleled career as a fighter, has yet to do; he will step into battle and defend his nominal title as the world’s greatest fighter not in a ring, but in a cage. And the man he will be facing? One of the most dangerous brawlers on the planet, and if there has ever been a glaring weakness in Fedor’s nigh-impenetrable arsenal, a kryptonite if you will, it would have to be his striking defense.
Brett Rogers has knocked out every man he has faced in caged combat. Going into this Saturday’s fight, unquestionably the biggest of his fledgling career, he is indubitably considered the underdog of the contest. Rogers, by his own admission, has stated that his ground and submission game is subpar to that of Emelianenko; assuredly, if this fight goes to the floor, Fedor will walk out victorious. Rogers’ defensive strategy, in riposte, is simple; knock him out before he can even sweep in for the takedown.
There’s nothing technical about Rogers’ “technique”, whereas Fedor is perhaps the most technically sound, multifaceted fighter of all time. What Rogers has to his advantage is familiarity with the surroundings; whereas some may voice that the differences between fighting in a cage and a ring are minimal, any fighter versed in both will proclaim the differences to be akin to those brandished by field hockey and ice hockey. Yes, the general rules and strategies are the same, but the venue, the mechanics, the arsenal one is allotted are all drastically different. Sans the ability to skate, the greatest field hockey player in history can be easily demolished by even the lesser-ranked professional ice hockey players of the world.
This isn’t the open, inviting air space of Super Saitama Arena anymore. Across the cage is a man dire to prove himself, to become the new symbolic representative of the sport. He will come charging at Fedor like a rhinoceros, pushing him into the cold, metallic trellis of the human-sized dog kennel, a sensation the sport’s promulgated all time greatest has yet to experience in a professional fight.
Rogers isn’t just looking to defeat a top-ranked fighter; no, his very ambition is to destroy the sport’s sacrosanct champion, to slay the man that is the MMA equivalent to Zeus. Rogers’ aspiration isn’t a mere “W”; his is a quest to commit mixed-martial-arts deicide.
A lot of things have changed since Fedor’s last loss. As the decade comes to a conclusion, the sport’s Superman will walk into combat and lay his legacy on the line one final time, entering a strange, alien world he has yet to envision…and across the cage, a hungry, determined Doomsday anxiously awaits greeting him to a new decade.
This Saturday, we may very well witness the end of an era, the closing chapter to what was the story of mixed-martial-arts’ most dominant founding father. Fedor has not faced a young, fresh fighter with the capabilities of Rogers in almost half a decade, but in that…Rogers has only faced mere men in prior combat. As history has demonstrated, the cherubic faced Russian he shall be facing is certainly anything but.
Regardless of the fight’s outcome, one thing will be incontrovertibly validated this Saturday night: It isn’t the world of December 22, 2000 anymore.
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