The secret's out: Fedor's the best MMA has
by Mark Kriegel
Mark Kriegel is the national columnist for FOXSports.com. He is the author of two New York Times best sellers, Namath: A Biography and Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich, which Sports Illustrated called "the best sports biography of the year."
Updated: July 20, 2008, 5:29 PM EST 519 comments add thisRSSblogemailprint
ANAHEIM, Calif. - Going into Saturday's Affliction fight card — billed with characteristic modesty as "the greatest MMA show of All-time" — Fedor Emelianenko was cast as The Russian. There had been reams of copy citing "Rocky" villain Ivan Drago as his spiritual ancestor.
In fact, there is nothing villainous about Emelianenko: no sneer, no hint of menace, no sign of the sinister or the sadistic. His opponent, Tim Sylvia — who sports the requisite assortment of tattoos and oddly angled sideburns — might have gotten work as an extra in the defunct prison series, "Oz." But Emelianenko, with his rounded pinkish face, looked like Friar Tuck in spandex shorts. And that's exactly what makes him so scary.
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"I don't think he's human," said Sylvia, a two-time former UFC heavyweight champion.
As it began, the main event at the Honda Center, Emelianenko remained expressionless, his strategy masked by a neutral countenance. At 6-foot-1, 230 pounds, he was giving away seven inches and close to 40 pounds to Sylvia. So what?
"I felt all along that I was quicker and that I was going to take advantage of that," he said through a translator.
Despite his reach advantage, Sylvia missed short on a couple of punches. Then Emelianenko returned fire. There were at least four blows that landed flush, the most decisive of them being a left hand and a right uppercut that snapped the big man's head back.
"He got off first," said Sylvia. "I had so many thoughts going through my mind."
Next thing you knew, Emelianenko had him face down on the mat, Sylvia trying to protect the back of his head. Then Fedor dug a hand through the tangle of arms and found a place under Sylvia's neck. He rolled the big man over and choked him out. Simple.
Sylvia tapped for mercy 36 seconds into the fight.
That was it? After such intense hype, there was something almost anticlimactic about the ending. Fedor didn't dance or celebrate, of course. He left that to the fans, the 13,988 who had sold out the Honda Center.
The usual seating configuration, which holds 17,135 for the Ducks, was truncated to accommodate Megadeth. As bands go, Megadeth was only mega-loud. Louder still was Donald Trump's canary yellow tie. Trump, who shilled for the fight, sat next to Jenna Jameson. Of course. Where else?
You will hear celebrity sages like Trump say that this was a great historic night for mixed martial arts. Certainly, it was a very good one. It took Emelianenko a mere 36 seconds to demonstrate his power and his poise. The drama will have to wait.
"I feel I am at my peak right now," he said. "...I'll keep fighting for a long time."
He gives MMA what boxing does not have: a recognizable heavyweight champ. Before last night, Emelianenko was the best fighter most Americans had never seen. Well, now he's been seen. And unlike so many of the big MMA stars — with multiple losses on their records — his aura of invincibility remains intact. Emelianenko has 28 wins against only one loss, a much-debated stoppage on cuts eight years ago.
Eventually, there will be a fight with Randy Couture; it makes too much business sense to not happen. Maybe Couture wins his lawsuit against the UFC. Maybe not. The point is, Fedor is the best this sport has. Affliction, the T-shirt manufacturer whose merchandise was famously banned by the UFC, will remain in business as long as it's in the Fedor business. What makes this fighter scary also makes him marketable.
In the meantime, Emelianenko, who hails from a Ukrainian town called Rubizhne Luhansk, announced his intention to ride the Magic Mountain rollercoaster.
Ivan Drago never went to Disneyland. So much for the Russian Villain. It is time for Fedor Emelianenko to discover his manifest destiny, to go where Megadeth and Donald Trump and Jenna Jameson have already been, to scale that magic mountain of American commerce
AI
