MMA Fighting - DAMN! They Were Good: Fedor Emelianenko, Heavyweight GOAT? Celebrating The Last Walk Of ‘The Last Emperor’

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

DAMN! They Were Good celebrates the careers of the most exciting and influential fighters in MMA history, and on the second episode of 2023, the MMA Fighting crew remembers the best of Fedor Emelianenko as he prepares for the final fight of his legendary career. Starting his career in 2000, Emelianenko rose to prominence in Pride Fighting Championships, claiming the heavyweight championship, and the title of "Baddest Man on the Planet" in 2003, a title he held until his loss to Fabricio Werdum in 2010. In 2017, Emelianenko moved to Bellator MMA where, after a 23-year career, he fights for the final time this Saturday, in a rematch with Ryan Bader. In honor of Fedor's impending retirement, host Jed Meshew is joined by MMAFighting's Shaheen Al-Shatti, Alexander K. Lee, and E. Casey Leydon to remember their favorite moments of the GOAT’s career. Follow Jed Meshew @JedKMeshew Follow Shaun Al-Shatti @ShaunAlShatti Follow Alexander K. Lee @AlexanderKLee Follow E. Casey Leydon @ekc Subscribe: http://goo.gl/dYpsgH Check out our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/u8VvLi Visit our playlists: http://goo.gl/eFhsvM Like MMAF on Facebook: http://goo.gl/uhdg7Z Follow on Twitter: http://goo.gl/nOATUI Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, y'all. My name is Jed Mishu, and this is D'Am. They were good. A podcast dedicated to celebrating some of the most important, most iconic, most all-around fun fighters in the history of mixed martial martial. Arts. And I'm particularly excited this week because we've got a hot one, baby. Got a hot one. It's the great, the last emperor, the goat, Fador Emilianenko. That's right. I said it. We're going to get into that. The goat, the heavyweight goat is set to make his final walk this Saturday, Bellator 290. We'll talk about Bellator. We'll talk about all of that. But on the precipice of

this monumental event, I want to just talk about Fador. So I got the crew. I got. I got got the A team, the Avengers have assembled the three of my favorite colleagues in Miami Fighting.com, great website. The best damn writer in the game, Jehina al-Shadi, the best damn person in the game, Alexander K. Lee, and making his damn debut, Mr. 3024 himself, the best everything else in the game, including the best fighter in martial arts media, E. Casey Layden. fellas how we doing are you as excited as i am to talk about fador i mean we could just cross off media at the end of that at that sentence right the best fighter in mixed martial arts

107 over here come on now let's show some respect for the man jesus mr 107 himself see this is why i knew we're going to have a great show i'm so excited about this one yeah we can talk about the second greatest fighter ever right now that's true i will say you're going to get your own damn one day Casey, and it's going to be the best. Oh, God, Fritz Frotendorf is going to get roasted on that episode. I'll tell you that. I will say, Jed, I am really excited to be here today, not only today, but just generally,

it seems like it's nostalgia month because I feel like we just did this a couple of weeks ago with showgun. And I'm all in on nostalgia month. Like, a lot of our legends are kind of going out the door in a very short span here. We're seeing a lot of retirements. And, you know, this one feels big. I know we've kind of had a lot of different Fador retirements over the years, but this one feels like the final one. This feels like he's old enough to where he can't possibly do this much longer.

Like it's a big deal, man. And I really do wonder, I feel like this isn't as meaningful to a lot of people in the space as it probably should be simply because they don't know who Fader is. Right. Like their entire history with Fador is just some guy who all of us, old heads, overrate and just constantly talking glowing ways about. but he's just out there losing to, you know, random Bellator guys. Like, I feel like this is an important one. I'm firmly on board with that. I credit Bellator in this one because if you're going to have him go out,

this is the way you give him, if you're not going to do this sort of legend super fight in Moscow or something that I know at one point they were looking at for Josh Barnett, something like that, give the man a title shot. Let's just roll the dice. and let's hope. Maybe the odds aren't good, but if it can happen, what a way to end this career. And God, I hope it's the end, because this man is pushing 50. So I strongly, strongly hope that this is the end. And you're right, though, Sheen, I'm not feeling, and we're not quite to fight week, so maybe that's it,

but I'm not feeling the same sort of vibe that this should get as far as one of the all-time greats exiting the sport. So, AK, are you with me? Do you feel something coming up on this? Or do you think the MMA community just doesn't care because it's Bellator? Jed, I'm going to answer that question a second. But first, I do want to say, as we're recording this episode, and even when it airs, by the time it airs, it'll only been a couple of days since the news that our sister site are pals over at Bloody Elbow, very important MMA site, a pioneer in MMA blogging, podcasting, everything, that they are no longer part of the Vox Media Network. I'm sure anyone who was tuned into social media saw that, saw a lot of staff talking about

how they're no longer, they have been laid off. They've been laid off a lot of talented people. So it's really sad. Our hearts are a little heavy as we record this. Bloody Elbow, again, was one of the original M.A sites, part of Vox Media before MMA fighting. They do a lot of, I mean, listen, we cover a lot of the same things, but they've done a lot of vital work with, I would say, covering like the ongoing antitrust lawsuit, John

doing amazing work with that. Cream Zadon has always been covering some of the not so savory relationships that some very high profile UFC fighters and champions have with certain dictators. And that's just an example of the sort of different coverage, the sort of difficult topics that they tackled over there. And it is so crappy that the site, I don't know if it's going away completely. I mean, we're hearing things that, you know, it will independently, hopefully exist in some way. But obviously, this is a big hit. it now no longer being part under the Vox Media umbrella. So fingers crossed for all those talented people there that either if the,

if a bloody elbow is still going on, they can continue to work there or do they find work somewhere else because it's just, it's really sad. It's a really sad thing. And I love being part of the M.A. media, but we're just, man, we really took a hit. I think we really took a hit today. I don't know if you guys want to comment on that all before.

We for sure did. B's the reason I worked from a fighting.com great website. Like, I, that's how I got here. B.E. is the website I followed for, sure dog was, and we'll talk about Sherdog later, I'm sure. Sherdog was kind of the place in my early fandom. And as Sherdog kind of started, let's say tailing off, B.E. became more and more the place that I went to.

And then they've always been the place where covering stuff that frankly no one, else, including us, really gives as good accredence to and important stuff. So I'm a thousand percent with you. It just kind of sucks. And I share in your hope that it will continue to exist in some way, shape, or form, and that all the great people there will continue to work in this space because they're part of the community that are awesome. Yeah, I don't want to sidetrack us too much. But I will say it is almost appropriate that you guys did the Shogun episode. Now we're doing the Fator. episode because these, the people who are, are, are, are, who began that site are, again,

I called them pioneers are from this era, from this era of these fighters that we're talking about. These are people who they don't get appreciated because I think there is a new generation of fans that, again, have no grasp of pride, have no grasp of what Shogun did, what Fador did, how the sport has evolved. And again, sites like that and us and others help chronicle that. So, you know, we're happy to do our part. And it's one reason.

I'm really, really happy to be doing this episode. So, again, just wanted to shout out B.E again. But to answer the, yeah, the whole Fador thing, no, it's really subdued the atmosphere around Fador's retirement, even though, like you said, Belator did their best. They're giving it a main event spot. It's on CBS. That's cool. They're giving him a world title fight.

Beltor couldn't do more to try and make this a big deal. Unfortunately, you could also argue that some of the fights he's been put in in Beltor, some of the performances had may also be a reason why people might not be that excited. He's had some poor results. We'll get to those, you know, one of the later was. I disagree. I disagree. No, I think there's been some great moments, too.

But I think some of the bad moments really stick out, really stick out. I wonder some of those stick out. But we do have a low points moment, which we'll discuss further in the show for anyone who's familiar with the damn format. So, no, I'm with you. It feels like it should be a much, much, much bigger deal. This might be the greatest heavyweight of all time. I say might. I know you feel a little bit stronger about it.

And it's a conversation. You cannot have the conversation with that. There we go. Absolutely. You cannot. No conversation about the greatest in time of all time. I'm just going to hate you guys. There's no conversation. It's fatal. It's a one word conversation. That word is fatal. We'll get. We'll get to it. We can get into it later. But we're going to have to. And podcast over. I would say to jump off.

of what you're saying, though, A.K., I have been critical of Bellator over the years for various things. You know, we don't need to get into those things on this podcast. That's not what this podcast is about. I have to give them tons of credit for this one, for the exact reasons that you said. This does feel like they are trying to make it a big deal, the big deal that it should be. And in a way, I love how cyclical this almost feels like, right? Because Fador, his first big, I'd say post-affliction, the first big moments in North America were on CBS. So the fact, like the Strike Force fights, the Brett Rogers fight, et cetera, et cetera, those were on CBS. And that was a big deal at the time. So the fact that we are now coming back full circle, back on CBS, this is a man

who, again, one of the greatest fighters of all time, full stop, like whatever, however you want to frame him in his career and, you know, whatever you, however you want to frame that era and level competition, et cetera. He's one of the greatest fighters of all time, full stop. For him to go out on a stage like this, vying for a major belt of a major promotion, regardless of what you want to say about Beltor, like on a major network like CBS where he has history.

Like, that's just cool. That's just a cool in a sense that like we don't get a lot of, it's not Shogun fighting, you know, Ehor. Ejor. I already for his name, like, whatever this was. How can you not remember the duelist? It's not that. It's not that. And maybe Fador loses badly because he's already lost badly to Ryan Bader.

But like the fact that they're giving him this opportunity at least and really set in the stage. And I'm sure this whole entire event will be full of video packages about Fador and explanations about Fador for the new audience. I love it, man. Like that's promotion done right. Firm agree. Casey, how are you feeling heading into Bellator 290, the last ride of the last emperor? I'm excited. I was trying to count how many Fador fights I've seen live and it's at least oh my god

Brett Rogers Verdoom Antonio Silva Dan Henderson I saw all those live Matt Mithreon Frank That was legitimately one of the big reasons I wanted you on this episode yeah I know you had been you know sitting Caged side for like a bunch of his late his U.S. career fights and that's just sick and I wanted that perspective on Fador. Yeah, so I'm just excited to be on the show to talk about Fador, the greatest heavyweight ever in mixed martial arts. And also just the realization that this essentially, once Fador fights Ryan Bader this Saturday,

this is the end of the Pride era. It's totally the end of an era. This is of an era. This is, I mean, technically we still have Nick Diaz, is Robbie Lawler still out there. But true pride in Japan. Yeah, both of them only fought in the pride in the U.S. But true pride in Japan, Bader was the guy.

He was always the guy, and he's going out in the main event on national TV. And that's freaking awesome. And I'm really happy. When this fight was first announced with Bata, I'm like, oh, you know, I was like, geez, you know. But I get it. I like it. And I incredibly admire the man. that Fador is to go out.

You know what? I know I'm not the best in the world anymore, but I still want to go out facing a guy like Ryan Bader. Shooting his shot. Shooting his shot. And if he gets knocked out, he gets knocked out. But it's,

that's, I don't know, I just, it's just freaking awesome. Fader's freaking awesome. And yeah, that's all. That mean, yeah. Fader is, I can go on with so many ways. Yeah. I want to be real clear.

If he pulls this off and somehow knocks out Bader, he will be my number one heavyweight in the world. world in the next iteration of the rankings and you guys cannot stop me we'll talk about that it would be one of the coolest exits for a legend we've ever seen in mixed martialized history like bar none without would be the best it gsp would be the only one that could potentially match it because of what that meant for gsp but but just the sheer fact that this dude is doing this in 46 46 the problem the problem with the gsp one is that we weren't he it wasn't i'm retiring on the night or whatever yeah Whereas like this, having the, knowing that this is it, this is the, you know, the Michael Jordan last dance thing.

Like, here it is. You got one shot to do it. And if he can pull it off, it would be the best. That doesn't seem likely given how bad 2023 has been as a year for the sport of mixed martial arts. And, you know, the bloody elbow news just adding in to what has been a tough month for MMA. But, God, it would be great. Before we hop into the categories, I just wanted to have the conversation up front because we're probably going to touch on it a lot. And it felt that we should just get the conversation out now before it derailed one of our other conversations about awards.

Two of us are correct on this podcast and understanding that Fador is the heavyweight goat. Two of us are apparently not. So, AK Shaheen, as people who believe he's in the conversation, explain to me. me why this is a conversation and not an emphatic statement, a declaration, if you will, that he is the heavyweight goat. So we can do this. We can do this because I think AK and I were talking about this the other day because we're putting together a little roundtable regarding this.

Every other division in MMA, it is very, very clear who is the goat, right? Like there are arguments for others. Like maybe some people think Volk is the goat at featherweight. They're wrong, you know, whatever. That's just the case. It's Aldo. But like for most of the divisions, it's just a pretty clear cut number one. And maybe there's a number two or number three who you can make some sort of convincing

case. But it feels like everyone kind of reaches the same consensus ultimately. Heavyweight is such a volatile division. Heavyweight is such a difficult division to actually have sustained success. It's almost just a merry-go round of, hey, this guy's the next goat. This guy's the next goat. This guy's the next goat. And there is one, there are a couple aspects of Fador's run that you can poke holes in,

that you can look back on maybe in retrospect and say, you know, how good was that level of competition, that things like that, that I think other fighters, whether it's a steep A cane, even a France, kind of almost is starting to get in that conversation a little bit, and maybe not now because he's going to leave the O.C. and who knows who will fight anymore. but there are just other fighters who are sort of in that same zone that it doesn't feel as definitive for me. But I do want to say just because, you know, I don't know that I would disagree with anybody who would say that Fador is the heavyweight goat.

I don't think that's a wrong statement. I think heavyweight's the one division where it's kind of a nebulous conversation where you can have a lot of answers that could be correct. I will just say, though, because Casey and I are working on a little something for this fight too, a little tribute video that I hope people will dig. Fador, to me, must be the most interesting case for a new fan to come into this sport and see people like us talking about him in this way and have no actual concept or understanding. And just actually just like genuinely being confused about why we revere this person to this degree. Right? Because this is someone who is never the biggest, never the strongest, plenty of losses.

and I would imagine you stumble into this sport just hearing tales of this invincible Russian bear, this dude who just did not lose. And it's probably hard to look back and see, you know, the pride run and really actually understand it. A guy who was never fitter than just some local librarian, a guy who's barely six foot, who's barely 2.30,

who's basically Jailton Alamedicized without the muscle. And yet he is sort of... You mean the new heavyweight goat. The new heavyweight goat, Jailton Almeida. Got it. And yet he is... revered as this greatest heavyweight of all time, this guy who, you know, changed the game, godfather to a generation of Russian talent, just like one of the most dominant ever. And I mean,

we can talk about this if we want, but like if you put together a Mount Rushmore of that era, whatever that era of that sport is, which to me is still the golden era of the sport, that's the coolest era we've ever had and like one of the most interesting. Fador is the Washington of that Mount Rushmore to me. Like he is the number one figure on whatever that era would be. And maybe you could say Sakarava, maybe you could say, you know, a couple other people as well.

But like, Fador is the Washington to me. And I think that it'd be hard to make a compelling case otherwise. And so, again, just new fans coming into sport, it must be so confusing to see. But the reality is that Fador was really heavyweight's first extinction level event, right? Like, he was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. He was the end of all of whatever the bullshit was going on before in that heavyweight division.

he put a stop to all of that. And then it just, the, the run was sustained in a way that we had never seen before. It was a decade. Like, this man was fighter of the decade because he did not lose for that decade. And he beat almost everybody. And even when the Pride show ended and he went stateside and he fought Tim Sylvia, Andre Alasky, the only guys in the UFC really other than a Frank Mir who were sort of in that conversation during his run blew through him like it was like they were tissue paper.

Like the way in which that played out It's just it was unreal in the moment And I don't know if it translates To like someone come in and now But it's just to me it's the most fascinating case of Sort of you had to be there right Like you really just kind of had to be there to get it Okay, Shaheen's making a good

A good mea culp of for not just Blatantly saying he's the greatest with lots of flowery kind words Okay defend yourself I just want to well I can't right now because I'm glad Shaheen mentioned fans who don't know anything about Fador and weren't there in the moment because I wasn't there in the

moment and when I first started watching MMA I knew nothing about Fadour I started watching the UFC you know that not quite the mid-2000s I guess the latter half of the mid-2000s GSP and Anderson Silva at the top Brock Lesnar coming in you know huge influx of new fans I was in there

fastest growing sport in the world you know I'm like oh this day no white guy's all right I hope I can't wait to learn Learned more about this guy. I remember back then. I was like, the Dane and white guy seems all right.

And then the first time I ever heard of Thador, I remember distinctly to this moment was... Real guy I'd like to get a beer with. I love him. I was like, I don't know a lot about this Dana White guy, but I bet when I learned more,

I'm really going to love him. CBS Sports had a pretty decent MMA section once upon time. I think they still do. I don't mean that's like I'm slagging them. But before, it was like small. It was smaller, but it was for a new fan like me,

for some reason, maybe it was coming up in Google searches or I don't know what. why it led me there. And one time CBS Sports was running a pound for pound. First, I heard this term, pound for pound tournament. It's just like, threw everybody in there. And Fader won. And I was like, what the hell is a Fador? I'm like, I'm just starting along with the UFC. I'm like, I'm looking at the UFC roster like, Fader's not here. Who's this guy? How can this guy is not the UFC? How can he win this tournament? So obviously, then you go down this whole rabbit hole learning about him. And again,

this was the air, I think when I was getting into it, he was fighting, he was already like, he was fighting Hongman Choi. He was about to go to affliction. That fight rules. I just want to say the Hongman fight rules. Spoiler. We're going to talk about more. Oh, thank God.

Thank God. He's not in any of my list. I think that was playing on like HDNet. I think that was one of the fator fights that was coming over. Like that was on North, they kept getting put on loop on like HDNet or something. And so that was the first, what I, with the fador I knew. And then I went back and I realized like, oh, okay, he's like, I learned the history. And then later he fought beat guys who were former UFC champions.

And I learned what a big deal he was. But I'm totally here to sort of give like somewhat of an outsider's perspective because I have great reverence for the man. I've gone back and watched everything you're supposed to watch. Obviously, I educated myself. But I was not there in the moment. So a lot of my stuff is sort of second hand accounts of the importance of some of these fights and what a big deal he was during that time. But yeah, that's where I am with it. So that for me is why, to bring it back to your original question, Jed,

Like, there's always going to be the question of, like, was he really the best? Because I wasn't there. He wasn't my heavyweight champion when I was learning about the UFC. But, uh, but, uh, to deny that he has, he's in the pole position of that conversation and has been for the better part of the last 20 years, uh, would be crazy. It has to be discussed. I will say like, like, again, we're sort of working on a lot of Fador related content. And this goat question is certainly something that we're going to, it's going to come up and

be discussed in mabfighting.com. I haven't, as of this recording, I haven't quite made my choice yet, but I mean, I could certainly end up writing a lot of words about Fador, let's put that way. Yeah, he's the goat. And it's, honestly,

it's just for a lot of the things Shaheen said, but the specific one is this dude was the standard for a decade, for a decade. And that's, yeah, I'm the key. Yeah.

To me over a decade, but yeah at least a decade and that's the thing i my fandom started in like oh three is when i like loosely became aware of fighting and i got deeper into it oh four oh five oh six like that little stretch and so i i wasn't there for like the very initial kick of fador but from the point i got in you couldn't be like once you got to like at that time fandom was largely being on the internet frank like Like you were just in the forums or whatever. And you couldn't be in the forums without Fador dominating the conversation about who's the best fighter in the world.

And that went on for seven years. He is, I think when we talk about like the goat thing, I'm not here to tell you he is the best heavyweight ever because I do not believe he is. But he is the greatest. And I think that those two things get conflated a lot in these arguments were like, The best is almost always going to be the newest because that's how progression works, particularly over sports, particularly over very young sports, where, like, resources and knowledge is getting better.

Francis Ngano, at any point in his career, would have decapitated Fador, a thousand percent. Steve A Mietichich is a better fighter than Fador is. Steve A Mietich is a more accomplished UFC fighter than Fador is, certainly, since Fador never fought the UFC. but he is the only person I think that the argument can be made is Stepe to be a greater, you know, fighter than Fedor. And that's not an argument at all to me.

Because Stepe is great and deserves his flowers and has all the accolades that come with it. But for at most three years of his career was Steepa viewed as like the guy. And again, I am not trying to shit on. steep here. There is, I strongly doubt that in 10 years, there will be some fighters coming up that were like,

I'm trying to be like stepe. Because that's just not who he is. Fador, every fire do you ever talk to after like 07, BJ Penn, Fador, Anderson Silva. Like that's the triumvirate of people they held in a steam that cannot be like fucked with.

It's just like, no, those are the dudes. That's it. He meant he means so much to the progression of the sport and he 10 years for 10 years he was the best heavyweight and largely viewed as the best pound for pound fighter for a big stretch of that once gsp really came on and Anderson in the back end of that it gets a little mucky but for most of it it was just him and it was a very obvious statement and that's i try not to get upset by pound for like greatest of all time arguments even when like like

the Max Holloway is better than Jose Aldo thing, like, kills me. This one is one that feels entirely UFC-centric in a way that's really detrimental to the sport as a whole. Because really the argument is Fado never fought in the UFC. I know he was dominant for 10 years, but he never fought in the UFC, so how can he be the goat? And that argument just bugs me offhandedly. So that's where I'm at. Casey, do you have any thoughts on the goat? What I think is so important when you talk about the goat and say, well, Stipe, the goat,

imagine if Stipe had the same type of enthusiasm and fandom that he had in that one night in Cleveland, but that one night and we fought over him in Cleveland where he actually felt like a star. Now, imagine that times 10 for 10 years. Yeah. That was Fador. Steepi had that for one night. Kane had that for a couple nights. You know, Fader had that for 10 years, at least.

And when I talk about goat status, that's important because this is, yeah, of course, like, you know, yeah, in cage accomplishments, maybe Steep A better resume, I don't know. But that doesn't matter when we talk about goat status because there's something bigger than them. and that's what Fador kind of, that's what I saw on Fader. That's why I saw BJ Penn. That's why I saw in Anderson Silva. These were guys that were, they were superheroes. And nobody did it for that long and with that sort of violence, too. I mean, GSP was great, but a lot of those wins, even Anderson Silva's, a lot of those wins were like, okay, they were wins.

They didn't look like superheroes out there, even in their losses. this. Fado always looked like a superhero that he was doing something that wasn't possible by humans. And that it's, I'm not the wordsmith that Shaheen is, but. None of us are. Yeah. No, but I think you hit, you know what I'm trying to say like there was something just when you walked in that brain. It was the aura, the aura, it was just.

The aura that man had was beyond compare and actually frankly like inarticulable to someone who was did not, like, experience it, right? Like, because, yeah, that man did not feel fucking human for 10 years, really, like, five years, right? Like, once he, once you go through the Kevin Randleman shit, the, the Fujita stuff,

like, once he just becomes this person where, like, oh, like, you could give him, you could double on his head and nothing's going to happen. He's going to beat you 20 seconds later. Like, once you reach that level, and then, you know, he beats Croweck and, like, the biggest fight in MMA history up to that point. Like, it just reached a different stratosphere of aura

that really, like you said, Casey, I think Anderson Silva reached that level of aura sort of towards the end of his UFC championship run and that's it maybe GSP but not really because he didn't beat the same guys in the same way he didn't beat the guys in the same way with the violence like I think it's probably just Fador and Anderson

when it comes to someone who reached that level of you're in the fucking matrix and I don't understand how you are a human being and you actually just look like you are not beatable Like you're invincible on a level that human beings should not reach. And for a heavyweight to do that is absurd. That's obscene. Because what's the most times the UFC titles been defended?

Like three? Three. Three is the record. Yeah. Like your shelf life as an elite heavyweight at the top of the game is this big. And for people who can't see the video, like my fingers are an inch apart. Like that is, it is not there. And this dude did it for a decade.

Like a decade straight. And you could poke whole. holes in the resume and a lot of those fights were weird fights against Randos, but like, whatever, there were still giant moments in between it. Yeah. It's just, it's unbelievable. And something that just, I can't, I think we almost forgot about Fador. It's like in this world of when he was getting big when in the UFC, it was all about, you know, tribal tattoos, energy drinks, you know, barbed wire and everything, you know, and like, you know, Tito, no, you know, all that, all that kind of trash talk, you know, I'm going to, you know, that Tio, you know, that Tio, you know, that

Trach, that era that Chuck Vidal, like, Rar, you know, Mohawks. Bader didn't need any of that. Didn't need any of that. He never had to sell a fight. He just said three words. When he walked out the ring, it was that simple walkout. When Lenny Hart called his name, he just simply raised his head, waved to the crowd. They fought.

He knocked his opponent dead. He kind of gave himself a little fist pump, and then that was it. And there was just something, there's nothing. it's just there's nothing there's nothing that's ever being close to like that no emotion dude i think it's full of emotion and full of screaming and rar and blood he was just a polar opposite and it worked and you couldn't you couldn't draw it out of him if you tried like i i've ever that man a couple different times in my life i've interviewed that man a couple different times in my life and it's an impossible interview it's just he's not going to give it to you and he he

like it's almost like comical like I found when I was doing research I don't there's no other place in this podcast I'll be able to say this so I just want to say it when I was doing research for this I found an old archive 2006 interview with Fedor with some random dude who was just like you know a local paper guy and he was asking Fedor questions like favorite food favorite music whatever and it's a hilarious interview to read because Fedor no cells every single thing and at one point he asked him funny favorite funny fighting memory and Fader's answer is can't remember member. And then the next question is, favorite embarrassing fighting memory. And he says, don't have any. Like, it's just, that's who this dude was. He was a robot. He was a robot. And it made it even more

terrifying, man. It's, I think that's the most underrated part of his career in general. I'm certainly the one that translates like the least is that this dude has so much charisma while actively trying to have none. There is no fighter in MMA right now that galvanizes people to tune in and watch while actively trying to be the least interesting

man in the world like when they did the affliction stuff like that sold pay-p reviews because Fador made people care and he never did it by screaming C at the top in a post-fight interview or

punching old ladies in the grocery store doing anything insane grave digger tito shenan shenanes he was just just like whatever dude I'm cool he was Ivan drago made flesh and then kind of a tubby dude instead of this bricked up monster and it ruled arguably the greatest nickname in m a history it's top five for sure it's good it's the last em the last emperor it's grown on me a lot over time I did not like it early when when you when you I just thought about it as you guys were talking about his mystique and just the simple walkdown. Like that is, that is the esteem, the grandiosity of an emperor. And you put that last part in it.

Like he is like he's the last descendant of this great, you know, this great honorable lineage. He is, you know, literally MMA royalty. He felt like royalty. He did. He felt like royalty. With the pride pomp and circumstance that that promotion pushed, like that stuff fit no fighter better than fator because he was not going to do that himself. but the way the presentation of the events made him just feel again like case he said like a superhero

it's a it's a top five big name yeah it might be number one number two the pleasure man obviously but number one it's close it's like one eight one b it's one you were going to find a way to work honestly honestly my whole reason for bringing it us up which is so i can mention the pleasure man i'm not going to lie i'll be transparent with you this was all the said of a pleasure man joke you know this is like three podcasts and a lot of pleasure man Raw dog, last emperor. Yeah, that's a... Rod dog is a distant like 950.

See, that's the thing. I didn't actually like the last emperor for like a lot of his career. Wow, really? Why? It didn't make sense to you? Because it just seemed dumb because now he is the last emperor. So it's like incredibly fitting and awesome. But when he's just, I don't, he didn't feel like the last emperor. He felt like the start of a dynasty that would last forever. Like, he was not the final Russian king.

And as we've seen, actually, a bunch more of them have come along. Why? For the time, I was like, I don't, it just seemed like a very weird one. Why does Nemcov never take on the next emperor? I mean, he just didn't want to have that like. He missed opportunity. Maybe he will at this.

Maybe after, oh, wait, no, because Fadr- He's not fighting on this card now, but. No, but who's, who's, uh, who's a heavy, an actual heavyweight guy. The next star-askol guy who's coming. Oh, I'm so glad of this. I can't think of his name off the top of my head. going to kill me. He's actually heavyweight, like an actual heavyweight. Yeah, yeah. He's good. But yeah. So way to, way to work, pleasure man in here, you know, by hook and by crook.

Every time, every time. Just doing whatever you can to get it in. That's enough of this conversation. Because we're a good stretch in and it's time to hop into the awards. I'm interested in this award section here because I think a lot of these were really easy for me in a way that maybe felt too easy. So we might have a lot of a lot of congruity here. So before we hop into the awards, I always like to give you a brief

rundown of their career in case you, for some reason, the last 23 years, don't know who Fador is. Fido Emilianenko's career began in 2000 in Rings. It's a precursor MMA.org. For a brief period of time, how some of the best talent in the world?

Very brief, but it did. After 10 fights in rings, including winning to 2001 absolute tournament. He made his way to pride, and that's where he'd spend the next five years, more or less. A couple of dalliances in there. But that's where he really made the bulk of the career we know today. He won the heavyweight title in 2003,

a dominating performance against Antonio Rodrigo Nogera. It's a fight we're going to talk about a lot moving forward. And basically from that moment on, until his lost of Fabricio Verdum in 2010 in Strikeforce, he was a consensus best heavy wet on earth one of the best pound for pound fighters on earth that stretch of his career from debut till his loss of her doom

saw him go 31 and one with no one no contest and that lone loss was a cut stoppage that should have been a no contest in any other circumstance would have been but it was due to an illegal headbut because of the tournament

that it was in a rings tournament And because of that, they just rendered it as a loss because Fador could not continue with the tournament. So realistically, Fadol was undefeated for his first 32 fights. 31 and O with two no contest is how most people view that. And then things went bad for a little bit. There's a dark stretch. Fadadad had gotten old. Few losses, some wins, some questionable fights.

And he joins up with Bellator in 2017. and he's been there ever since. That includes fighting for the heavyweight title in the 2018 Heavyweight Grand Prix finale. He lost Ryan Bader. He does get a chance to avenge that loss this weekend. But that's, you know, that's the tail end of his career. Overall, Fador's record stands at 40 and 6 with one no contest.

And he has won, frankly, too many awards for me to hit you with them all right now. The biggest ones, I think the ones that stand out the most, He's the fighter of the decade for the 2000s, and his 2005 fight of the year with Mirko Krokop. Again, that's a fight we're going to talk about later. All in all, if there ever was an M.MA Mount Rushmore, Fado O'Millianco is probably on it. Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts. So you don't have to. They've bagged this season's Italian leather handbags.

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com or on magazine. And so speaking of Mount Rushmore's, it's time to hop into the categories.

And first up as always is the Mount Rushmore. You got four fights. This man's career spans 23 years and I don't know, 48 fights, something like that. You get to pick four of them to go on your Mount Rushmore. I think that two of them are undeniable. So you've really got two places to play with. And if these two aren't on y'all's thing, we're going to

stop it and have, have you leave the podcast because you don't deserve to be here. Yeah, Zulu. Yeah, obviously. Yeah, Zulu. You got to give him a lot. This is, uh, so we're clear. So we're clear we are going to talk about that because that is in my honorable mentions but the two that must be that must be brought up must be included the Washington and the Lincoln of of the Mount Rushmore here Antonio Rodrigo Negara pride 25 when he becomes the pride heavyweight champion and really alters the history of the sport certainly the history of the heavyweight lineage and just announces himself as I'm not I'm not just some dude I am the dude. And then the second one, which again, if it's not on your list, what are we doing here?

It's Mirko Crow Cop, Pride Final Conflict, 2005. Up to that point, the greatest fight in mixed martial arts history, a fight that lived up to the billing and just a monumental event that really showed what this sport could be at its very best. I want desperately to be right. All of you have those two on your list, correct? Absolutely. Incorrect. I'm gonna show like listen hold on hold on I had to choose so I I decide to choose between but I decided to choose between Crow Cop and Nogara I want to pick one and because the other three I could not leave off I'm so disappointed in you okay no we're gonna have you defend yourself later Casey are those I can both on your list yeah those two and

okay thank God yeah yeah of course yeah I want to talk about the knock fight first because I want to do this chronologically. I want to talk about the nog fight. And the very first thing that stood out to me when I rewatched it is this might be the oldest fight between two 26-year-olds in the history of combat. In my head, they were old. Like, in my head it wasn't like, these are young. And then it was like, oh, my God, they're both 26.

Why are those 40-year-old men 26? Fader was already got the kind of receding headline that you can see even with the shaved Ted. Nog has looked 50 since I think he was born. Just unbelievable to look at these men as young men. And I genuinely think that that sort of informs some of the discussion around their kind of historical cases. Because even when they were young, they looked freaking old, man. Blew my mind to watch that when I went back to this fight.

But you're talking about Nogara 3? No, I'm talking about Nogara 1. Oh, Nogar 1. They both look super old in that fight. they don't when they're fighting and you can tell when you look at the later ones but damn that that fight is one of the greatest examples at least up to that point he probably is the greatest example of the power of just pure ground and pound to overwhelm anybody like if you have a superior top game and you're able to hold that superior top game and you're able to work

tremendous offense off that top game that fight shows just how unbelievable and how unbeatable that could be at one point i don't remember the exact point but fader throws maybe the hard punch I have ever seen someone land from top position in that fight. And it makes a rocket, a gunshot type of sound. Like it was violent as all hell. And at that point, like, you have to understand, Nag is, what, the greatest grappler in MMA at that point? Like, he is, he is, like, revered as the dude who is at least the heavyweight jujitsu dude, if not altogether, the jujitsu guy. Like, he, like, it was unbeatable. He was the pride champ up to that point. No one was really touched him. And Fader just came and was like, I'm going to dance in your area. And I'm

or just destroy you. Like amazing, amazing breakout party. Such an amazing breakout party. And it's not just that Nag was the jiu-jitsu dude, which he was. It's that he was the jiu-jitsu dude who overcame adversity. You know, Bob Sapp, spike him on his head, doesn't matter. I can pull out this arm bar.

And so for that whole fight, like even after the first 10 minutes where with modern-day sensibilities, you go back and watch that. And it's just like, oh, nogg has nothing. Nog is getting pantsed right now. even, you know, Rinaloa and Boss are still in there being like, well, I don't know who's going to win this fight, but nobody's a loser here. And to some extent, that's true. And they're both awesome. But the torch was passed firmly. And what you were saying, it, I really feel that that fight, as I recall at the time, you know, afterwards, because I didn't watch this fight live. It was like 03 or whatever. But in the ensuing years afterwards, everyone pointed to that fight being the fight where it's like, oh, you don't have to leave somebody's guard to ground and pound somebody like you don't need to advance you know make the half guard to mount transition or whatever you can just throw hammers if you can do it and ain't nobody could stop fatal or doing that the most vicious ground and pound we'd seen

ever at that point for sure does anyone have anything else to offer on this fight before well i guess i have to defend why why i didn't make my my list for now right i mean it'll make more sense when i read all four entries So like I said, I wanted to pick Well, listen, I wanted to I told you, this is the outsider's view. I am not, I don't have nostalgic goggles on. I am a scientist. This is how I look at MMA.

I look at it with cold, cold, cold eye. I want to be mad at you. I want to be mad at you, but I specifically wanted you on the podcast because as a dude who didn't live through like the piece of fatal fandom and I wanted to get this perspective, I just didn't realize that I actually didn't want this perspective.

You need the new. What I wanted was glowing adoration. You need the noob. You need the Conner-Regger is one of the top five pound-for-pound fighters of all-time perspective. And that is what I bring to this podcast, I feel. That's why we love you, buddy. That's why I think the community loves me.

You're a man of science. The four fights I picked all sort of represent different things. So I think that's almost, I don't want to say eras, but I think that's almost how I ended up doing it, kind of eras or moments in his life. So the crow cop, and I decide to pick between Crow Cop and the Nogera trilogy. The Nogera fights, obviously, like you said, that's the passing of the torch. I thought the third fight was important as well because I keep saying third fight. I know the second one.

I know the second one doesn't like, it was a no contest. No, it's a third fight. They did fight a second time, even if it ended in a minute or whatever. And the third fight is almost like when you had to accept that. I mean, the first fight was definitive as well. But the third fight was, that's when you really like, realize like, okay, Nogera is, there's nothing, there's no version of Nogera that is going to beat Fador. Like, they could fight, even just from a stylistic standpoint,

these guys could probably fight a hundred times. I think Fader wins 99 times. Like that, maybe people thought that after the first fight. Again, like I said, I wasn't there. But I just, like, I kind of rewatched all three fights. And like, the way he won the third one, I'm just like, listen, these guys are two of the greats, but it's Fador is a clear level above Nogar and everybody else. And by being a level above Nogera, way above everybody else.

So, again, maybe people knew that after the first fight, but you put the two fights together and then you especially see how the third fight went, and you're like, wow, this is no one's going to beat this guy. And to me, that's what made the Krocob fight, which just happened a couple of fights after actually even bigger. But again, we'll get to that a bit, I guess. Okay, okay, since we're here with you, what are your choices in? Did I say all the left? Yeah, just let's fire through.

debate. I'm going to contextualize. So I actually had no gear originally, but I had to take it off to put on another pride fight because I thought for some reason that we had like a best highlight category. We don't really have like a best highlight category, right? I'm not crazy. I didn't. No, we don't. No, not really. I've considered adding something at that. Because when I think of the best here moment, I had to go with the Kevin Randleman, the Randallplex. Like that's just my list. That's on my list. That's on my list. That's on my list. And it's not because that fight's awesome, but that moment is, it. is one of the five best in the sports history. Well, that's what I'm saying. Obviously, I had no. It's not even the moment. The fact that that moment happened and then the fight literally is over, like 30 seconds later. Yes.

And not the way. One of the most ratchet ass sweeps in the world, by the way. Can we talk about just how, like, that is not like the cleanest, classiest technical sweep? He just sort of boops himself up and flips to random and over. He's like, oh, no, we're good here. Now let's spin it over. And your arm's mind. We're done.

i love that fight it's incredible and and i get randleman at the the part of the most athletic fighter in his prime that's ever gone into a ring 100% yeah i still would say you old romero but he is it's it's those two dudes also if you go back and watch this fight once fadar flips him over and random is there the camera angle is just right next to him and you can see the most the narliest vein on Randallman's leg. Like, we're talking to Mr. Olympia style cut. This dude was extremely built, and in no way was he clean for that fight.

The vascularity was unbelievable. His veins had veins. Yeah, he had veins like iron cables. Like, it was just a thing. And, like, Kevin Randleman could jump into the ring, like, from outside of the ring and go over the ropes. People do not understand. That's what he did.

That's what he did with the Randolph-Plex. He jumped that man into the air and then threw him to the ground like Iron Man, a superhero movie. This is unbelievable. This is a total tangent, but like it is one of the great shames in MMA history that Kevin Randleman did not come up today, where he could be under a real gym, under real people, learning real aspects of the sport, and he would, he might be the greatest fighter of all time. because he, like, he is an absurd legend at Ohio State for his wrestling. His wrestling career, like, you have him breaking his face mid-match,

going out of the match, telling his coach, hey, snap my face back into place. The coach is like, I'm not going to do that. And then he just does it himself and then goes back in and wins the country title. Like, he just wins the NCAA title. Like, this is one of the most athletic, incredible specimens we have ever seen a sport. And he was out here hitting heavy bags in, like, Mark Coleman's garage. with Phil Barone. Like, they had no idea what they were doing,

and he still managed to do what he did. Like, if you have Kevin Randleman up now coming up in like a Greg Jadson situation or an ATT or whatever, like, I'm sorry, every heavyweight's losing. Like, it's just a different thing entirely. But I digress. I'll be honest. That's a great point.

Rand's a good, oh, damn. I also want to point, too, about, and this is kind of just a shout out to how much I love Japanese in MME, is the fact that you see that vision of the, Randolplex, you know, and all that. But you may remember, it was shot in a ring. And so you had this really awesome camera angles that you just can never get in a cage. And like we talked about when you actually got the camera, you see that, you know, that

bane pop out of his leg and everything. It was just like there was something too and that the pride, just the production value of it, that just you got to feel the intensity and speed and violence so much more intimately. because you got to see at eye level. And it's something you just, I really, I just miss in that era of TV, actually. The UFC making the cage the standard for like MMA is an atrocity. It is one of our great rings are just, like, listen, I'm a pro wrestling fan. Rings are just better.

They're just better for spectators. They're better for the cameraman. They're better. Like, I've been to several UFC events live. I'm not a big live coverage guy, you guys know, but I've done events to Canada. I've been caged side. I've been up in the nosebleeds.

I've been in every, like, you know, I've seen both aspects of it. And the cage, I understand the visual why UFC did this, why it's such a big part of, you know, the brand and the culture of MMA in general. But just for everything Casey said, like, just from a visual standpoint, rings are better for watching a fight. They're just better. That sound. of bare feet walking on the ring canvas

and sort of stepping around on the ring canvas to the utter silence of the Japanese crowd is still the soundtrack of MMA in my head. Like whatever that sound is, you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. That is burned in my brain for the rest of my life. That is what I think of this sport is. And also that photo, Casey, that you were saying,

of when you have the ring and you have the ropes, you have an ability to get shots that you do not have in a cage. And that photo of the Randolphix where they are both essentially horizontal and vertical at the same time somehow and just caught in midair, floating forever in midair in that photo. That photo is my favorite photo in MMA history. Because you could show that to 4,000 people

who have never seen that fight. And just been like, hey, how do you think the next 10 seconds after this photo was taken play out? And not one person would tell you the right answer. Not one. It does not make sense. Yeah, listen, that's why- The cops come in and arrest that dude for killing that guy.

That's probably what happens, right? That's why this fight, This fight is like number one on the if someone, the number one Thador fight you would show and someone who didn't know anything about it may. You wouldn't show them the Ogara fight or the Kolkopf fight. You would show them. No, no, no. Yeah.

You would show them in, in 90 seconds, this encapsulates everything you need to know about, about Fador Mellianenko. It's again, more than 90 seconds because you have to include the entrance, right? But the fight itself, 90 seconds, he's resilient as hell. He'll never die. And he's an insane finisher. His killer instinct is second to none. That all happens in 90 seconds, and it's phenomenal.

So it has to make the list for sure. So this was, as far as I'm concerned, this is the fight that established the mystique. Prior to that, prior to that, I mean, he was just great. He was, you couldn't defeat him. I mean, we may talk about it. I don't know where he, where this gets on y'all's list. The old Ironhead, the Fujita fight. I was going to say the Fujita, yeah.

Like that, that was looked at as a miracle for years as somebody actually made. him bleed like i can't this he he has weakness and then this is the one where okay well sure like technically has a weakness because he did get tossed like a small child but he also just immediately all come or this man 30 seconds later he's that that's where the mystic hit as like this was the moment that it all right well this is something we've never seen before this mint cannot be defeated well so i think the fugita fight set the table for that right because This is all within a span of a year. That fight happens in June of 2003,

then the Randallman one happens in June 2004. But within that year, and that's like right after he beats Big Knock for the title. Now within that year, he's just looking unstoppable. But you're right, the Fujita one where he basically nearly gets decapitated by Fujita, who lands maybe the most perfect punch.

Like anybody has ever landed on anybody ever. Like, that is Kamar Usman-Mazved-all type of punch and Fedor somehow finishes that fight like very quickly afterwards. And then the same thing happens with random men a year later. Those two, the confluence of those two, plus what he did to Bignog and just everything else that we've already mentioned, the aura, the entrances, everything. That was when it was, this is Fador.

Like, you were just not beating this guy. That is absolutely where the aura, the mystique kind of came in. Okay. So, I didn't even relate to he, I'm actually, where I'm kind of shocked at, now I'm just really kind of dissecting his, his resume is like how often he fought. Super action. Super. Super. We're going to give to that.

Sorry, we're talking about that later. No, no, that is just a point I have at a different category. But yeah,

he, this man will fought a lot. Like a lot, a lot. And that creates kind of weird matchups, but yeah. Not only a month later.

And then he fought, like another month after that basically. Like he skipped a month, then he fought, then he skipped a month, then he fought. Then he skipped a month and he fought. Like, it was just basically ever the month you were getting this guy.

He's finding, he's finding as much as like, an amateur fighter building up their record on the local scene. Only instead, he was the best fighter at the world. This is just, like, this is something we would never see again.

No. This is like if Kevin Holland or Donald Soroni were the best fighter in the world. It's just unparalleled stuff. So, A.K., to try and keep us somewhat on some semblance of a track. All right. So you got your Randleman.

You got your Vandleman. You got your crow cop. We got to talk about a crow cop. I know that's on all your list, so we'll talk about that more. So here's where my list probably deviates some more besides not having no gear on it. We talk about him fighting a lot. And listen, part of the reason, especially even later in his career was, listen, he took fights with weirdos. And I, on my list, and what a beautiful amount of Rushmore this would be if his face was on it.

I got to put Hongman Choi on there. Yes. So I'm willing to accept your objectively wrong. was his last truly great freak show fight. It was part of the Zulu era. There's some other weird ones in there. But this was the last one, like just a bizarre curiosity of a fight. Very entertaining to watch it.

It doesn't go as people would think. People would think like, oh, Hongman Troy is a big kickboxer. He's going to try and kind of point him off range. No, Hong Man Choi's strategy is, I don't know, or maybe Fader's pulling guard. It's hard to tell. Hongman Choi is just like, if we clinch up, I'm just going to fall on top of him. And he does this like a couple of times before Fadoisda is just like, I'm just going to arm bar this guy now and end this.

So it's a super entertaining fight. And also, again, part of this, this explanation of like what, like, I think this adds to his legsy, these kind of fights. I know, like, when you hear people take shots at Fader, they go like, oh, look who he was fighting like, you know, after pride. He was fighting in Kongman Choy and Zuluzino. And I'm like, this to me is cool that he was still finding ways to stay busy. He was fighting.

He was taking these, yes, very strange fights. But listen, 28 fights unbeaten. Anything could have happened to these fights. We talked about the Bob Sap Nogara fight. Bob Sap almost killed Nogera. He dropped on his freaking head. There's a world where Bob Sap power bombs Nogera and doesn't get back up. So fights like that, these weird, dangerous fights that are put together for fun

and to keep these champs active and then keep getting paid and keep working and give the fans what they want, these fights are still like, you still have to go in there and perform. So of course it's not there. Bob Sat was the man. Bob Sat was the man. Bob Sat beat her and let's know who twice. Like, Bob Sap was a terror, man. Once upon a time, Bob Sap was a real fist fighter.

That's many years since. But I'm with you, A.K. Yeah, I love that fight. I actually think the freak show fights, they add a charm that, like, maybe it doesn't, I don't think they should detract from a goat conversation in large part because it's not like he's still fighting the good fights too. But part of, like, you know, this is obviously a huge nostalgia trip that we don't get this. anymore. Like, we rarely get fun freak show fights. And so to see the best fighter in the world get something dumb. And you talked, you talked, you talked, Gene about what I agree, one of the

best photos in MMA history, the, the Randoplex in air, unbelievable. Let's not sleep on how funny the photo that I posted in group chat of Fador pulling off that arm bar just hanging on on man Troy with an arm bar like a child. It looks like a bad photo. It looks like a bad Photoshop. It really does. It really does. It's like a bad one. And it's awesome. And it's not.

It's just a great, hilarious thing. And I'm with you fully, A.K., this didn't make my Mount Rushmore, but I am charmed by this fight for sure. Yeah. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. Well, again, we can talk a lot about the freaks and geeks that Fader fight later in the show. But I wanted to pick the one that I felt encapsulated this, this pre,

pre-America, but post-prides, very weird, very weird wasteland, somewhat called a wasteland of Fador's career. So I got choice there for that. If I could just add in real quick, just for context, like, Jed, what you said about this is part of the charm and sort of part of, I think, almost the mystique of all of this, like it all builds upon each other, right? Like, can you imagine if between Francis and Gano, beaten Stipi Amiotrus and Francis Gano, beaten Cyril Gahn.

He had fought twice and, you know, decapitated John Sina, and then he fought some big giant sumo wrestler and just destroyed the scumor wrestler. I wish. And like it was all just like part of random events. Like that would be the best. By the time we got back to the Cyril Gond fight,

which was a competitive fight, we would have so much more, like we would have so much more reverence for the mythical power of this man. Like you, it's amazing. Like we're just never getting this back. You put Francis versus Sina in my head right now. Oh, my God.

I have been vocally asking, like, that's what I want for Francis in this next stage. Like, I don't need him to immediately fight the best non-UFC heavyweight out there. Just have him fight some dude. Like, I don't care. Dude. This is moral combat. Like, all of this just boils down to, like, this is Mortal Kombat. Like, this is Street Fighter.

Like, I just want to see these big, mussely dudes do some crazy stuff. Like, that's frankly all it is. And then occasionally we can have a real fight in between it. Don't forget that Brock Lesnar's original opponent for his MMA debut was supposed to be Hungman Choi. It was up to the last, it was the very last week that that fight got switched out because of medical reason for Choi. But like, Brock Lesnar, he got it. Is Butterbean still fighting? Because I feel like if we don't get him and Francis now, I'm just going to be sad.

There has to be some seven foot, seven foot seven basketball player playing in China. who would come fight Francis. Like, I want to see that. Let me see that. I was going to Tim Duncan versus Francis in Ghana. I would watch. I would watch that so quickly. Tim Duncan is a lot of money.

Idris Elba. I think he does some kickboxing too. No, don't kill Idriselva. We can't lose it. Yeah, Indira's a man of many hats, though. So I bet he does do kickboxing. A man's been doing. He's taken, he's taken.

He's fine. Oh, yeah, he's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he has. He is trained. Googled it. Man, what a... Oh, he's so beautiful. The most handsome man and just the Renaissance man, we might do a damn on Idriselba just because I can't.

You know, like gunned in my head. He's part of the Fast and Furious family, so when we start... You're going to say no to that guy. Come on. Never. I would never say no to anything. That's nonsense. Okay.

Okay. out your list thing. Yeah, the last one, this is going to make you guys mad because I did this. I think we did this too. Can remember which one we did this for? Oh, no, okay. I know we did this for Carlos Condit, picking a fight that he didn't win. So obviously with that set of you know, I went with the Verdome fight as a fight.

So much. Listen, out of here with this. This is, okay, first of all, this was, how many fights? Affliction happens, but how much, how do you feel, how many people actually watch those fights live, not that many? Strikeforce you got both of I think both of those pay-per-views sold like yeah they did fairly well a thousand they actually was a very big deal they still lost money I was just like relative to what they paid because Megadeth no no they were they were money losing ventures for yeah but they were big deals at the time but it's still a niche I think

it's still your niche though I think until he went on I think strike force he got a ton a lot more obviously mainstream exposure well yeah the Brett Rogers was like the most viewed fighting in history until Kimbo fought because that had like six million views. Yeah, strike force in a broader visual like viewer context, strike force was for sure bigger. Yeah. So attention still, I think like the most successful pay-per-view that has isn't the UFC one. A ton of people, Golden Boy? No, definitely not.

A ton of people tuned in to the Redoom fight for sure. We know this. And they witnessed the end of an era. Like there was the end of the mythical 28 fight on beaten streak. I think it's also a super I think it's a super exciting fight I actually really liked the fight it's there's I think

I can't remember I didn't actually get a chance to rewatch it before we did this podcast but I think that the commentary team was was convinced that Fader had kind of you know he was on the offensive and kind of had Fadour you know dropping back sorry I had Verdume dropping back

excuse me and we know now obviously Vardum was we know was dropping back Lorm nose guard and Fador fearless listen this is the man like we said had sliced big nog guard into nothing. Why should he fear anybody's guard? But listen, 28's fight on Beaten Street. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you get unlucky. In this case, he's facing another guy who's probably in the top 10 heavyweights of all time for receiver doom, gets caught with this triangle.

And when he taps, this I thought I was watching live. And I was like, I remember being shocked, but in that way that you don't scream or holler. You're just kind of like, you're not sure how to react. You're kind of like, oh, like, oh, it's over. Like this is weird. It's weird. It's like It was just like a single tap. It was just the pop, I'm done. Yeah, but definitive, but like, oh, yeah, got me. He lost. Got me.

Wow. I just saw, I just saw Fader Lose. You know, I'm, I'm, and this is my way, like I said, I'd done the research, but I had, I had missed the pry. I had missed watching live the prime of Fado. It was the first time anyone had ever seen him lose. His lone loss before that was a cut TKO in a tournament. It wasn't, it wasn't, yeah, which was.

It wasn't. It was only a loss because it was a tournament. The rules. The rules set. the rule set was at that time. It was a bizarre, extraordinarily strange moment. And I think, again, really important. So I understand wanting to put, again, another one of his highlight real performance.

Of course, the big Nog fight. I know you guys said it should be an automatic on the list. But again, if I chose me that in Crowe Cop. So that let me fill out the rest of my list, my Mount Rushmore with sort of odds and ends and other pivotal moments. So I think this loss is one of the most memorable moments in his career. And I think having to see it to understand where it ended and like what a big deal it why it was such a big deal.

I had to put it on there. So I put on a sad one. Here's the thing. I can kind of give you a pass on this one because even though it is a huge moment for his career, even though it's not on my list, it's such a big moment for the sport. Like that was that was the moment that the UFC was in charge of everything, everything from that moment forward. Because for years, like, I mean, the USC had already, you know, bought out pride, et cetera.

Fador was the last emperor in many regards in that way of the dude who, the one guy who didn't go there, and the one guy who was still the best without it. And basically from the minute he tapped to Verdome, the UFC heavyweight champion has been the number one guy in the world. As long as Fadour was winning. Until January. Yeah. Yeah. As long as Fader was winning, he was number one.

It didn't matter to him again. Hongman, Choi, Matt Lin-Lind, it didn't matter. As long as he was winning, he was not losing that number one spot. Yeah, he was the top dude. And the minute he tapped, that's, that changed. And then it's been that way until January of this year when now the Francis thing has happened. So since that's so big, I'll allow that. Part of me loves that you put Hongman Choi on, but that's just objectively not the correct one.

Casey, what is your list at? You've got the two that we've mentioned. No, we haven't talked about the crow cop fight. I'm kind of just saving that for the end of this period, since that's, I think, the biggest thing to discuss. So what other two fights do you have on your list? My other two fights are going to be Fadoor, Emilienko, defeating Andre Arlowski and affliction. That's the last one on my list.

Same, same. Well done. We have the exact same list, Jed, then. And my fourth one, actually, aka I agree with you, actually is a loss. I'm going to go with Fador versus Verdoom too, also. Oh, wow. And I'll tell you why.

Well, okay, it goes along with the Arlowski one. I'm not going to count to Tim Silvia one because Tim Sylvia was a bit, he's got just past his prime, but Fador did Fador things, and it was an unbelievable. I think he did like a hand, I don't know, I remember. It might be his actual single most impressive performance is an entire career. Yeah, it was technically perfect. I think he paired the hand down over, I don't know, it was, it was awesome.

Pared the hand through the casting right hand. Yeah, that was that. Yeah, that was that. Yeah. And then followed it up with the left hook and another right hand, Tim Falls. We're done here. Great. Yeah.

And that was his, I think, his American debut, right? Yeah. The Arlonski fight was super unique to me. Also, because I'm, okay, I'm in the arena. I'm actually sitting about, because I'm doing, I'm doing secondary photography. So I'm sitting in the crowd, so I kind of want this kind of crowd shot. And if you do remember, I don't want to say Fado was getting his butt kicked by Arlowski. Oh, he was losing.

He was losing the round for sure. He was losing. And this isn't washed Arlowski. This is Arlowski leaving the UFC for money. So that's a really important message, like note on this fight, because this is also in my list. And I want to throw this out here because I think people won't understand this if they weren't there at the time. Sherdog.com at the time was the only place that had like rankings as far as I'm aware of. And I certainly used them historically for anything dating back.

Andrea Oloski was the number two heavyweight in the world at the point in time when he fought. This was one versus two according to their rankings. And that was like super justified too. Yeah, very determined. He left the UFC because of money. He hadn't been the champion in a while and the Tim Sylvia stuff had happened. But at the time, we are talking about a run that was for Riesie over doom in the UFC, Jacob Bryan's whatever, Ben Rothwell, Roy Nelson.

Like those are good wins at the time. Like knocking out Ben Rothwell, knocking out Roy Nelson, people still don't not like still don't knock out Ben Rothwell now. Like that, he was on one of the best runs of his career. And so, yeah, I just wanted to put that out there because I think people,

certainly like newer fans would be like, okay, beating And Jarlovsky, what the hell does that mean? The second best dude in the world at that moment in time. Absolutely. Not only was it the second best dude in the world, like the Andre and Tim Sylvia

were basically the two guys who were the UFC champions while Fador was doing what he was doing in pride, right? Like, that was always the conversation of, is Fador better than Tim Sylvia's favorite were better than Andro Alaskin. The fact that he basically executed both them back to back, it put all of that to bed. Like, we all knew that. In a combined three minutes in like 50 seconds. But the Arloskey won in particular because the fact that he was losing the

match, losing the fight. And he wasn't getting 10-8 or anything, but he was losing that round. And then one of those greatest what-ifs, like, you know, when Chris Wyman throwing the kick against Rockhold and gets taken down or whatever. spinning heel kick or or Chal Sondon's stupid back fist against Anderson in the replay. It was kind of what if things. Yeah.

Arlowski goes, you know what? I'm jabbing him. I think I was, I didn't rewatch a fight, but I remember him just, he was boxing fader up. He doesn't know what.

He's in the corner of the rain. He push kicks him. He push kicks Fador back into the ropes. And then yeah. Yeah, then I'm going to run to a flying knee. And just unreal. The,

the amount of violence. that just one overhand came, like so incredibly fast, so incredibly quick. The reflexes on Fador to see that opportunity because there was maybe, you know, a quarter of a second in real time that that opening was up. That the opening to hit Arlowski was there. And the fact that he hit Arlowski so freaking hard that I can't think of a, can you think of another knockout like that at a high level? So I have one because I felt very similar. Maybe not in the total execution, but there is when I went and rewatched it and one thing jumped out at me. Because the way that punch lands and the way Arlovsky is, at the end of it, it's like Fador's shoulder ends up like where Arlovsky's head is because he throws everything through it too.

And it's like you don't ever see a punch go all the way to a man's shoulder basically. Kamar Usman Jorge Mastvedol is the one punch where like I didn't realize it at the time, but rewatch was like, this has very heavy Usman-Mospital vibes as like one of the cleanest punches I've ever seen landed. And he did it on a man who was jumping at him. He knocks him out of the air. That's the cool part of that knockout to me is just like he changes gravity for Andrei Avoski in a way that like physics don't really usually work like that.

Like you're propelled in one direction and you're, you know, this very athletic, giant man propelling himself in one direction and just the way the physics stop completely and then just reverse the other way in a matter of a split second like the visual of it was almost just like what the fuck that I just watch blows him up like a surface to air missile just kills it it's like a UFC video game glitch you know they put all those UFC video game glitch compilations out there if you edited it really felt like it too if you edited that knockout into there people you people wouldn't notice they'd like oh yeah that doesn't oh that doesn't look people would laugh They would laugh.

They'd be like, that doesn't look right. People still laugh at that knockout actually. And knowing that it's real, people watch that and still laugh and just like, what the hell was Andre doing? It still didn't even. I remember watching that live and I wasn't, you know, rings out or whatever, Casey. So I don't have that. But watching on television, I was like, I don't know what happened because it happened so

quickly. And it looked like Andre jumped up and then just fell face first to the floor. Like I couldn't see. I was just like, he just jumped and then pirouetted and face planted. What happened? It was like it was like it was like it was like a blow dart you know we talk a lot about the uh the the shogun the shogun skateboard we don't talk about a lost night blow dart enough him getting yeah it's just like if you watch it's get the neck and just drops it's and that kind of goes back to what

i said at the beginning talking about you know why fador is fador because he was doing something that wasn't humanly possible that's all it was just like you can't hit a man that hard and and do just And like, even the, even the, uh, ozma knockout of, uh, Mazadal, Masvon never went out cold. He was still, uh, you know, this, like you were worried about Arlalski's health. Like he hit the, when they, when they go on the ground and their eyes are still open. Yeah, his eyes were still open on the ground, passed out. That's how incredible it is.

And why, if you find the video, uh, Fador hits it, does a little cool fist bump, and it walks away. That's it. He was not like, he was not a Saturday. He's like, too cool. That's all he ever. He never really celebrates that much. Like, I just killed a man.

It's fine. It's what I do. It's just another day at the office. There's a section where I know Fador doesn't have a lot of quotes, but there's a section where Fador, we could talk about some Fador quotes because the offhandedly way he talks about like, ethering people is, it's some bone-chilling shit, man. Yeah.

So if you notice that, yeah, the second photo, as Esther's photo I threw in the Slack channel but I wouldn't I wouldn't mention the I wouldn't mention the Verdume fight now

for reasons maybe AK did a hit on I was there are moments there are sounds that I can't forget and when Fador lost in that arena

in San Jose had to be a sellout at least 15,000 people there I was I was, much like the Andre fight, I was sitting in the crowd kind of hoping to get kind of a cool arena shot, you know, when he got knocked out, when he knocks out this Jiu-Satou, UFC washout for Rizio Verdum, you know. And the crowd was, I've never just heard 15,000 people just, just go a collective, what happened? It was the, it was the most surreal feeling. And why I include it too, because Fader lost that fight for the same reason of what made him great.

He had an incredibly good jujitsu guy. And he goes like, you know what? F, I'm going to jump into his guard. I'm going to jump into his freaking guard. Like, that makes zero sense. You should never do that. That was akin to when Nick Diaz decided, no, I'm going to throw hands of Paul Daly. And we wind up having maybe the greatest one-round fight ever.

You know, it just made no sense, strategic. and like fadoor jumping into the guard of verdume just like even though he lost and you're just like you know what he's you're he he did what got him to the dance you know he he didn't go you know let's get up let's you know let's try to fight a smart fight no i'm just here for the violence it's in this as quick as possible if i lose i lose and he lost that night and i think as fans we were the only we were actually probably more disappointed than fado or was it felt like we were definitely more to support the fatal was. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Bummer. So, yeah. So that just, it, because it didn't diminish what I thought of Fador at the time. It just went,

okay, you know, apparently he is a human and he has blood in his body that needs, you know, that you can choke him out with. But I still just, it's a weird one to put in the Mount Rushmore. I'd get it. But it's such a,

memory for me being there and watching watching both those arloskey fights and berdun and uh bernum fights live i can understand that uh since i didn't mention it before and actually don't know if i have another place to put it this is something that i thought when watching that is that that uh and maybe that's transitions into this next sort of category for us but that felt like certainly going back and rewatching the nog fights it's not like nogg didn't have some success with his setups like he got his legs into position occasionally, and Fado was just like, nah, and just exploded out of it. And I think I didn't credit how much, like, a lot of Fador's game was, I'm just an unbelievable athlete. And it let him feel comfortable in dangerous positions.

And as that started to fade, those positions became more dangerous. And, like, to me, that's what happened with the Bredoom thing, because you're right, Casey, he, he knew what he was doing. It wasn't like he was like, oh, I can go in here and there's no danger. he just felt safe and then he wasn't safe. And I think that fight, again, not on my rush more, but that fight is probably the third most important fight of his career in some ways, just because it does signal the end of peak Fador, as it were. Shaheen, I know we've covered all four of ours.

We haven't talked about the Crow Cop final conflict fight. Full transparency, that's going to be my apex mouth. fight for him, that's going to be the peak of the peak for him. So I'm prepared to table that for later and so we can move on to some other stuff. But do you have any thoughts, any other fights you wanted to mention since you haven't really gotten a full show in this section? No, no. I mean, I think we've had a lot of them. Like you said, I think I had the same top four as you, Big Nog, Randleman, Croweck, Arlofsky. For many of the reasons that we've said, right. Nogera obviously break out as the top heavyweight in the world.

Randleman is the one that really fully pushed the legend of the mythology into it. And then Crow Cop, well, we can table it for later, but that was the spectacle of all spectacles. Like that was the biggest fight in MMA history up to that point. It was inarguable. And it was, it lived up to Billing. Like, it absolutely lived up to the billing. And that cemented Fador forever as that dude. He was that guy for this era.

And then the Arlowski one was just the cherry on top because you get him and Sylvia back-to-back. That was the final validation that everything we thought we knew over the 2000s is absolutely correct. Like, right? Like, this has been the guy. It was the guy. It is the guy. And he just proved it against the two other people who were always sort of in that conversation as the UFC guys, right? And so after that point, like Fader, I said it before, but he was the fighter of the decade. And it was not even a close conversation. Like, it was a shoe in. It was a right-in. It was, it's this guy. And however the, whoever you want to put second is very far below him. So that would be my four.

I also just want to throw out three honorable mentions. One, Gary Goodridge, just because it's really the only time we saw Fador use soccer kicks, which any time, the same way that AK is going to bring up the pleasure man whenever the opportunity presents itself or even doesn't. I love soccer kicks and stomps, and I miss them so much. And Fador doing them was great. Mark Hunt for the atomic butt drop That fight just makes me That Mark Hunt almost being the dude

Who beats Fader With a Kamura Is hysterical Like that's one of the best what ifs That could have happened frankly If Mark Hunt Camerring Fador It's what goes down Would have been insane

And then I don't know how much of the ring stuff You guys have watched Or even went back and watched for this But the Mihal Apostalov Rings fight, it's just really funny to watch because

Rings had this very specific rule set about striking to the head, a grounded fighter. And that fight, Apostolov like turtles very quickly. And Fador just is kind of standing over him waiting for him to do something. And since he can't fire the patented Fador hooks to the head, he just

does it to the kidneys and does it a lot. And it looks like the most uncomfortable thing that I've ever seen in a fight. He is just wailing on this dude's kidneys waiting for him to finally like leave his turtle shell and I just, I felt like

we should throw in one ring's piece because the rest of the ring stuff I'm probably not going to talk about so I wanted to shout an honorable mention there and that guy never fought again never fought again. Don't need to. That's a much right? I think I'm good on this.

From that fight I would imagine he was urinating blood for some time afterwards and that would make me reconsider fist fighting as a profession, certainly. So that's it. That's the big category. Now we get to the fun ones. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything.

So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no, but chicken tenders, yes. Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other every, day essentials. Order Uber eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age.

Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. This episode is brought to you by Peloton. A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ. Built for breakthroughs, with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move.

Lift with confidence. While Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress. Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. The next category, number two, I'm not impressed by your performance award. This is for the fighter's career low.

I have two answers here, boys. I have one that I believe is true, and I have one that I think is the clear runner-up for me. And I'm going to throw them out, and you guys can tell me if I'm wrong or right. The number two, the career low, I think the Antonio Bigfoot Silva loss. This immediately followed the Ford Doom 1.

And that was the changing of the guard for real, the end of the era for real. The Verdume 1 signaled this man's human. There was still some belief afterwards that, well, he got caught by a world champion Brazilian jiu-jitsu player. He didn't get caught by Antonio Silva. He got caught in an asswhip by Bigfoot. Bigfoot just ran rough shot over this dude. And that was the fight where I was like, okay, Fador's on the way out. Little did we know he'd actually fight for 10 more years after that somehow, but that was it.

But the number one for me, the saddest moment, maybe in the history of this sport, if we're being honest. It's Fabio Maldonado. Yeah, that was a lot of global 50. That was it. For people who didn't watch or weren't around, if you're just looking at the record, you might go. that's a majority decision win why is that the low point of this man's career if there has ever been a robbery and i don't mean robbery in the way that a k lee does a great robbery review i mean a criminal fraudulent corrupt activity where an organization said no that's not going to work for us

here's the outcome this is maybe the biggest one in the history of the sport like there is no world in which Maldenado lost this fight. Fador gets a majority decision, a gifted one to a guy who is just not very good. Like I don't really know how else to describe Fabio Maldonado. This man had a run in the UFC that didn't turn out great. And this fight, he didn't just be Fador. He tuned Fadour up.

Like he really put the boots to this man. And so that's that's the career low. It sounds like you all agree. So I'm happy about that. Do you all have any other arguments for what might take number one or honorable mentions outside of what I've thrown out? Or thoughts on the Maldonado robbery. Well, I have a lot to say about that. So I don't know if I want to get to the honorable mentions first.

I think getting I thought about just his run is his belator losses. But I feel like Maitreone is somewhat excusable. And dude, that had the double knockdown too. That was fun. That was fun. Ryan Bader. That could have gone another way. Ryan Bader 35 seconds.

But Ryan Bader's good. There's no shame. Like, there's no shame in that. Frank, listen, he might get knocked down side of a minute fighting Ryan Bader again.

So I guess we can't. I could see people looking at his belt or losses and going like, oh, like this is, I just don't want to see it anymore. But no, they're not close to the Malbinato fight. I did do a robbery review for that fight.

Unsurprisinglyly, it was called a robbery. I want to read something. So this is what I wrote up something I wrote the time. At the time of this fight with Maldonado, Emilianenko was the president of the Russian M. May Union. He would later vacate's position in 2018.

And it was the Russian M.M.A. Union. Well, and it was a Russian M.A. Union that handled the assignment of the judges, Evgeny, Griebkov, Alexi, Gorkov, and Maria Makamotova, Machmootova being the only one to correctly score the fight a draw, 108 first round for Maldonado. And then if you want to give the last two to Fado, fine. But the other two judges, yes, 29, 28. I don't even think giving him the last two is reasonable. Well, he spoke to Malinado. Malano obviously thought he did enough to win the last round. So,

of course, even the 29, 28th are objectionable. But his first round, not getting a 10-8. People, this fight is available on YouTube. Go watch it. It could have been stopped. I mean, the fight could have been stopped in the first round. Emilenko was getting annihilated on the feet by friggin Fabio Malnato. It was super sad. So yeah, check out my robbery review of that fight. I also have a link to Kareem Zadhan, who did an interview with Makamotova. She had to deal with taking a lot of crap over in Russia. She was brought on to TV. She was brought on to TV to, like, apologize for scoring the fight a draw.

It was a scene, man. I mean, it was. My recollection is that, like, the crowd even thought that that was bullshit. And it was a Russian crowd. This was his last fight in Russia before his last Beltor fight. And it's just what makes it super sad, it's not just that he lost. like, you know, he really should have lost his fight. It's that it, to be, to have to be, like, ushered towards a win or a draw,

a, yeah, a win, a majority win, like an old man. Like, that's what's so insulting is that his handlers felt like, oh, no, it's okay. It's okay, Fadour, you can still win. Here's a win. And it's like that, that, go, him getting knocked out, whatever, you know, it happens. Him getting, getting gifted a win in such an atrocious fight, atrocious cause that the fight itself is actually really fun to watch. such an atrocious call is just deeply insulting.

And I'm glad, I'm glad I think more people don't know about this fight. But if you really want to know about the darkest period of his life, like, please look this one up. I will also say to you, A.K., you said that this fight's available on YouTube. It's also available on UFC Fight Pass. It's literally the first fight if you search Fado O'Million Anko, the first fight. They have all of his pride bouts, all of these monstrously important bouts. the first one that comes up if you starts Fadoo Mili Anko and fight pass.

It's this Maldonado one. So if you haven't seen it and you care at all about this stuff, the fight is more entertaining than I wanted to remember it because I mostly just remembered it as sad because it was very sad. But this has just has to be the low. This was when he went to Bellator coming off this was like, oh my God, we're about to enter a really dark place with Fader's career. And then it has turned out kind of okay in Belator.

if we're being honest, but tough scenes. Any other honorable mentions from anybody else before we move on? Sheen, it looks like you have one. I don't even want to, I don't have no other honorable mentions it is Fabio. Like that's the low point. That's the one. I do want to say credit to Fabio Montalano, though, because like, if I went through something like that and I have this win taken away from me in really egregious fashion, I'm

definitely never fighting in Russia again. And I'm definitely never fighting for that promotion again. And that man had that whole entire scene happen to him in June 2016. and by October of that same year, he is fighting again in Russia, again for Fight Nights Global, again against another guy in the main event. Like, dude just went right back at it. So credits a hit. He'll be way saltier than that man was.

He ends up winning the Fight Nights Global Light Heavyweight title a couple of fights later. So, you know, they knew how to take care of their sweet prince who took an undeserved L to keep things going for the rest of them. All right. Next category, although I do, because I don't have it anywhere else, so I want to throw this out here. Dan Henderson loss was pretty tough. I think the Bigfoot Silver one was worse, but getting the losing to a middleweight,

that was, I think when, certainly when I was like, oh, Fador should just retire. I sit on like the stoppage, but I get it. I mean, that was only five months apart. Like, that happened back to back. And I think, I don't know if this is a true story. I've always heard it as a true story, but I don't want to repeat it as a verifiable true story. I always heard that Dan Anderson put weights in his socks to make weight

for that or something like that. Because he was clearly not a heavyweight, but he had to make 206.5 pounds to be able to do that. And I always really wasn't extra weight on him. You know clearly wasn't a heavy weight either? Was Fador? Yeah. Yes. No, he's the best heavyweight.

Yeah. I mean, Fader, he really is a 205er. Yes. In any modern since any modern standard he's a 205 or yeah he would be a 205er yeah and i mean most of his like he he put on a little more weight early you know later in his career but that early pride run he's you know coming in at 220 or something like that he's super like early in pride yeah he ended up around like 240 for a lot of his career but yeah next category the uh i've changed the name this was previously the ivan minjavar award but it's just been that long enough and we have a great

quote that can serve as the title for this. It's the, Who the Fouk is that guy award? For the weirdest, most surprising opponent that Fadoo A millionenko ever fought, I have one real answer here, but Sean, this is your category.

This is where you've stood out. It's tough with Fador. It was really tough with Shogun last episode. It seems tough. Who's your answer, though? Give me what you've pulled from the depths for us. I mean, this is almost too easy. Like, that's why it's tough, right?

Because there's too many options. There's all sorts of weirdness. Like pride was about the weirdness. That's why, like, that's part of why we loved as much. And we've already gotten into that. So I won't reiterate it. But for me, I mean, I have a couple options here. I always think it's weird and wild to me that he fought Ricardo or Rona before

anyone knew who either dude was. That was always just a weird one that stood out of like. That's all that fight's important because that's arguably the one loss he did have in his career prior to thing. Like he ends up winning that fight, but you watch that Rings fight is very close. The Arona has a lot of control in that bout. Arona used to be a problem, man. Yeah. 205ers, two of fivers.

Two of fivers, man. But then otherwise, I mean, Zulu, obviously, like, what are we doing? We're just putting Fador up against giant dudes who this is going to be a very interesting looking poster. And then Hungman Choi, who we've talked at length about. But the one I kind of settled on was poor, poor, poor, you. U.G. Nagata, who this man had a really rough run in MMA. He was a pro wrestler in Japan, and they really did nasty things to pro wrestlers during the pride era.

This dude had two fights professionally in his entire career. He fights Crocop, loses, as one would expect. And then he fights Fador, because that's the natural progression of someone's career. And he loses again, two knockout losses in a combined 83 seconds, never fought again. 0-and-2 against Crowe Cop and Fador at their absolute peak. Pride. Pride-fighting championships, everybody. And Mr. Nogata is still an active wrestler in New Japan Pro Wrestling.

Is he really? He is. I saw him wrestle. He came to the state side during COVID. I've seen him wrestle. I was like, I was like, dude, that guy got killed by Fador. That's awesome. Wow.

That's all. On the same note, this isn't my choice, but in a very similar vein. if you look at Zulu Zino who you mentioned as a ridiculous one his pride fights were some dude named Henry Miller and then he fought Fador and then he fought Big Nog

because they were just like yeah let's do this this seems like a good choice so Zulusino and then he fought Butterbee come on you didn't even how can you know that out I didn't have that written down

so I must have just forgot like is there a Gringer quartet or like trio back to back to back fights then zulu fighting fador big nog and then butter bean and by the way losing to butter bean by americana of all that like like this is again pride was the best pride really was the best and true story i think when when i like talked to people about when my fandom started i was you know loosely aware of fighting when i was in in high school, like early, earlyish in high school. I think Zulu Zino is like, really, I think the point where I was like, I'm just all in.

This is incredibly dumb. Like, I remember the Randallplex happening that I was not watching Pride Live at that point, but I remember hopping onto the forums. And like, that was when I started being like, this is really sick. And then the Zulu Zino one, that was the clip I would show to friends, be like, because to your point, I don't forget who says. it earlier like it's hard to show him a fight with nog or whatever we just be like look at this look at this tiny dude beat the shit out of this big dude instantaneously any 15 year old dude like is

like oh that's cool and it resonates so the zulusino's fight has always held a special place in my heart it's so weird like has like you know mMA nerds that we are we're like oh these freaksial fights you know and everything they're the best parts but then when we show our friends who don't like this sport hey look at this free show fight. That's just those are what that's how you wrote them in. I know. How you get them in? It's amazing. I didn't have a chance that I just want to tell this one story about Fador because I didn't have really a chance to throw it. I love stories. So it was in Chicago when Fadour was fighting Brett Rogers. It was in Chicago? I think it was Chicago. But I'm at the I'm at the

fighter hotel. Yeah, I'm at the fighter hotel. I'm in a and it's just a regular a nice, I don't know, whatever hotel, no. And the fire alarms go off. I'm like, it's middle of the day. It's like three in the afternoon or whatever, middle of day during a fight week. Fire alarms go off like, oh, all right, all right. So walk out down the hall. And actually I see a bunch of smoke in the hall.

I'm like, ooh, I guess there is something. But then I see a bunch of security at a door and I'm going past the room. I walk by the door. I look in the room. The room is filled with smoke, but doesn't smell like smoke. I can tell it's like a sage or some sort of people, someone was burning, some sort of like, whatever, sage type of stuff. I look in there and this freaking Fador, when Fador fought back then, he used to bring these

priests of him and they had those little things that do the smoking thing that you see a Catholic priest use or whatever. They were doing it in the room and they set off all the smoke alarms in the hotel. So I walked by the room and there's just Fador standing there very embarrassingly talking the security saying, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Like that. And this is like maybe, I think this was the Friday before he fought Brett Rogers. So like after, after, oh, before the way ends.

Yeah. So I was just like, hey, this Fador. He set the smoke alarms off. I want you to know that the idea of that like Fador with some priests putting some thurables on it. That makes me really happy. I feel like that's just a thing that makes sense for Fadour. or if you know anything about him, like, personally.

So that's a great story. Here's my choice for this category, guys. I went Carrie Shawl. Many of the people may not know Carrie Shawl. Maybe some of you even on this podcast may not remember Carrie Shaw. The meat truck, baby. The meat truck, one, I don't know if there's ever. We talked at the beginning of this show about the best nicknames.

You know, I'm not saying the meat truck is the best nickname. but if you look at Carrie Shaw, there's no other name for him but the meat truck. There has never been a more appropriate nickname for a fighter than Carrie the meat truck Shaw. I had entirely forgotten. Because of course, I didn't watch like rings in the early 2000s or whatever.

But this, the rest of them on his thing, like there are some in there that I couldn't have pulled off the top. But I would have bet my life that Fado never fought Carrey. who, Carrie Shaw. Carrie Shaw, who, for me, is best known as getting on the second season of Tough and then getting kicked off it because I think it was a knee injury, but like before he even got to fight just out of there.

And so then he goes on, he fights Keith Jardine at the tough finale. And Joe Rogan is openly mocking Keith Jardine and Carrie Shaw in the flake. Because he's just like, I don't really know how Keith Jardine's works. He's winning this fight. but it's bad. It's like, because it's the whole, like, it's super awkward, but it's working because Kerry Shaw isn't doing anything

to punish Keith Jardine for being bad at fighting. And then he leg kicks Carrie Shaw to the win. It's one of the funniest things. And for that dude, the meat truck to have once fought and lost a fadour, blew my mind when I went back and dove deep into his career. So that was my choice. AK, who do you have here?

I don't really have a number one. Again, you know, Choi, Zulu, like the freak show fights are, like, are the ones that jump out of me. I guess we're going to give a shout out to Jideep Singh. You know, was Jadip Singh, his comeback opponent back in 2015. Yeah, well, it's just a weird, just a weird random choice. The guy was 2 and 0. I'm not sure how a fight like this even gets, like, authorized, gets cleared by a company. I mean, he was like a tick boxer, though.

Like, he had like, okay. Yeah, you draw from there. Yeah, you draw from that. You don't just look at the M.A. record. But boy, what a weird, random opponent. I watched that fight live. I don't recall any details of it. I imagine a lot of people feel the same way.

Again, probably don't even remember that fight happened. And it's also kind of weird to think that he, that Mark Hunt got a fight with him, the way that Mark Hunt did. Mark Hunt was on like a crazy ass hot streak. We all remember. Mark Hunt almost won that fight with him, baby. Right. And he lost a Josh Burnett in a tournament. so that didn't rule him out from getting a title shot at fate.

Again, this is what we always, like we say, we want to see more of in North American, like modern M.M.A. now is like, if people just want to see a fight, like, just make it happen. And Mark Hunt, you know, was very popular at the time, whatever, he lost Josh Burnett, but, you know, he'd beaten Vanderleigh. And he just, again, just not just crazy streak. It's coming a heavyweight contender out of nowhere. So whatever.

He lost the tournament, let him fight Fader anyway. It happens. Like you said, we got an exciting fight out of it. But really straight, Mark Hunt, one of the more peculiar career. years like high level mixed martial arts careers you'll ever see and uh i'm so excited about the hunt oh damn i know and i'm so glad that you know he got to be a part of he has a chapter in in fader's story as well mark hunt may be the the greatest fighter in history with a losing record yeah oh probably is yeah i remember that used to be a forum conversation like way back in the

day and it was like i think jonathan goulay at the time was like flirting around 500 like this guy would be good if he could take literally any punch whatsoever. But yeah, that's a pretty good one. Casey, do you have anything for this category? Oh, it was going to be UG. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's, yeah.

I want to quickly throw a shout out to Lee Hasdell, who was my runner up here, because Lee Hasdell's a semi-important figure out, not semi, he's an important figure in British MMA history, but I wanted to shout him out because he fought Fador when Fadoor was like 24. Prior to that, he had like an extensive kickboxing career where he fought Mirko Krokop in one of Krokop's first kickboxing bouts. He ended up fighting Fador and Kro Kopp in their like early 20s when he was on the wrong side of 30. So shouts to you. Shouts to you, Lee Hasdell.

Next category. Easiest one of the bunch, guys. I don't know if you have different things here. The first, a first in damn history. The fighter for which a category is named is going to be on here. It's the Fedor Sweeter of Absolute Victory Award for the piece of memorabilia from the fighter's career that you would most want. No surprises for me. I want the sweater of absolute victory from Fedor in the iconic photo.

Does anyone have anything else they'd like to offer in this one? The sweater. Just, just it's just in the spirit of picking something different. print because I assume that's what you would say. I thought you were going to make a rule like we cannot we cannot pick the sweater because it is so no no no okay I mean that's obvious. It's the first time we've ever had the the namesake in it. Yeah.

So it seems very appropriate. A second second I would love to have a copy of the MRI of his neck after taking the Randallplex because I don't believe I don't believe that he didn't die that day. I just think he just died and just came back like he just what is what is dead may never die. I want to know what his skeletal structure looked like after eating the ex-sup like. There's no way it was intact. There's no way it was in one piece. I know it's like, it might be like a HIPAA violation for me to demand this information. But I want it. I want to know. If this is lying in some file cabinet in some Japanese doctor's office somewhere, please, sir,

if you're out there, I will, I will, I will, DM me on Twitter or Instagram. Let me know how I can get a copy of this. I will pay money. I want to see this thing. Let's break some laws. Shane, I think you mentioned this sort of in passing, but we probably don't talk enough about how he fought like a month, like two months after that. Like he did the two fights in one night. Because like you could convince me that, oh,

adrenaline's really powerful. But like there's no way that he didn't feel that the next day. And then he's just like, I'll still just fight two fights in one night. A month and a half later. A month and a half later, and one of those fights was Bignog. Like one of those fights is.

Big Knog, man. The schedule of these guys used to keep. Pride ruled. Pride is the best. This is why PED should be legal for everybody. Always. Yes. Come on.

We get more fights, better fights, more superhero type of figures. Let's come on. What do we do? Couldn't agree more. Great. We can make up some time here. Oh, Casey. What are we got?

I forgot. DeFador Wama belt. Oh, that's a good choice. That's a great pick. A WAMA belt. That's a great. I love that belt, too in part because the affliction fights,

like that was the belt on the line, this semi-fraudgeon belt, and the announcing crew is treating it like it's real, the world heavyweight champion, like, okay, sure, it's fine. We know, we know. Way, Emma. Look at this photo. Look at this photo.

I just threw up on the back. Oh, juice drop. Look at that photo. You drop a photo of the belt. No, but look at the people in the belt. Look at the people taking the photo with the belt. Oh, my God. I forgot.

Not entirely. It's Oscar de la Jolla. Donald, I forgot that Donald Trump was involved, like, deeply in the collection stuff. Oh, my goodness. He was like a central figure to it. Yeah, like one of the key, the key movers in that. Good gracious.

All right, next category. The international player-hater's ball. This is where we nitpicked the fighter's career. I have one answer here. And then we'll get into the rest. My answer is brittle hands Because that was certainly a forum talk During a lot of his career

He broke his hands a lot But he largely did that Because he threw those casting punches Yeah Like where he's just landing on the side of his hand Instead of like a normal punch But that was definitely a forum point During peak fatal

Of like breaks his hands all the time And then I have a second thing Rind down because I know one of you is going to say this And I have my rebuttles ready So I'm opening the floor Who has something that they'd like to offer here. I mean, the obvious one seems to me that, like, dude just never got in shape, right?

Like, this is really the same as we did. We talked about with Shogun where, like, it's our career. He was kind of just, I don't know, was he doing a lot of weight training? Was he doing a lot of running? Like, what's he doing out there? I don't think he did any weight training. I remember at some point reading, like, he, like, all he did was like he would do 20 pull-ups as fast as he could.

And that was like the gym. He was like, yeah, if I can just rip those off as quickly as possible, and like, that's how I know I'm good. He's efficient. He's efficient with those. I would say that never really getting in shape. Definitely held on too long. Like, that's a given.

The fact that, again, he's been going 10 years after this, we thought he was done. And also, though, obviously the level of competition and pride. Yes. Thank you for saying this because I knew this was going to happen. It is very easy to poke a lot of holes. in the resume. Like as Casey and I, again, Casey and I are working on a thing together. And as I was going through looking for career moments to highlight, there's a surprising lack of them out there. Like there's the big ones, and we've hit a lot of those big ones. But outside of that,

there's not a ton there that's super impressive in retrospect. But that's just to get picking this. So I want to respond to this because this is, I teased this earlier. Here's the deal, right? Part of this is true. There's no defense where you can be like, everybody he fought was great, because that's very clearly not the case. But if you take the span at which he was the number one heavyweight in the world, you're talking March of 03 to June 2010. We touched on this kind of earlier. He fought a lot. During that stretch of times, he has 19 fights then with the eventual loss.

So 20 fights total. for all of the people who come at his resume part of that like I said is okay during that that stretch the UFC had 13 title fights and that's including that whole mess where they Randy was the champion but was trying to leave to fight Fador so they had the interim belts run in amok they only had 13 title fight during that stretch and those title fights were gonna run them down very quickly that's when Tim Sylvia fought Gan McGee he beat Rico to take it

and then he fought Gan McGee and I don't think any of us would be like Gan McGee's a hell of a win then there's the Frank Mir Tim Sylvia sort of section that happens when when Sylvia gets stripped because of the steroids Andger Olavsky becomes the interim champion

he beats Justin Eilers another marquee win in there Tim Sylvia beats Jeff Monson after the Arlovsky stuff we're really racking up these A plus wins that people are talking about. One of the worst fights in M.A. history, too. Just horrifically bad.

I remember so vividly being out of Buddy's House where we all gathered for that and unwatchable. Absolutely. I forgot the part where O'Lovsky also beat Paul Bwintello. So again, you're sensing the theme of

you want to poke holes in his resume. To some extent, it's just like, that's just how the sport was. There weren't like 20 great dudes in the world. There were specialists and there weren't guys because then you get Randy who beats Gabriel Gonzaga and I'm not. That's a great moment. I don't know if that historically counts as a like a substantial title defense realistically. Nog wins the belt.

We've talked about Fador beating the shit out of Nog pretty comprehensively. Then Brock Lesnar, Frank Mears, Shane Carwin, like that's the gap there. So during that entire run at Fador, yes, you can accurately point to the fact that, you know, he fought Zulusino. He fought Casacca and stuff. And those aren't like the most elite level wins. But his contemporaries weren't stacking up these sort of all-time great wins either. It's just sort of the lay of the land and you beat who's in front of you. And he, as I said at the start, super active.

So you mix in the fact that, yeah, some of those are turds for sure. but Mark Huntwin ages very, very well. Tim Sylvia Andreolovsky at the backstretch, those were top 10-ish, top 10, top two guys. Like, I think his, I think that is the part of his career that is the most overblown

is that all he did was crush cans. He crushed some cans, but he, he did that, he didn't crush cans in spite of fighting other top people. He also fought them. He was just incredibly active during that stretch, and nobody else was doing, doing like incredibly awesome things because that's not how the sport worked.

Super valid. And again, if you're giving me a world where Francis Ngano was fighting John Cena and, and, you know, Yao Ming between title defense, it's like, I'm super here for it. So I'm not complaining. How incredible that is an argument. I almost have my leg broken by Yao Ming, but I'll tell you that story another day. I want to hear that, but I don't think that has relevance to this particular podcast. Casey, AK, do we have anything else that wants to be thrown in the nitpicking of Fador's career?

Just, oh, sorry, nitpicking, yeah, the strength of schedule. That's it, yeah. I've always hated that argument. And I think, but you laid it out pretty well. It wasn't like there's anything better on the other side of the world. Yeah, there just weren't the dudes. For me, if we're just talking about, like, his abilities, I mean, I guess, again, we talked about earlier, could he have slimed down, could he have been more fit,

possibly fought at a lighter weight class? Would he have been more at home, you know, not having to deal with those frigging giants on the giants he fought at heavyweight? And, you know, what would he have done at 205? What would he have done at 185? He looks like he could make 185 with the right diet, the right training regimen. But then, and then the other thing is, did he rely too much on his durability? Was he too much of a risk taker?

We talked about jumping into Verdooms. That's actually really good, Nick. Head first into Verdooms Guard. But both those questions are classic, like, would you want to change, given what we know about him? Would you want to change those things? God, no. Who would even want to see that? I had the exact same question when we did Shogun.

I was like, what if he just was better? What if he wasn't a reckless lunatic? And he was like, no, that's not a what if I even want to consider because that makes him not fun. Yeah, I don't want to see fade over the six-pack. That's disgusting. That would be the most bizarre sight. Seeing like a ripped up, Fador. I know.

I got to say using the phrase bricked up. That means something else to kids deep days. It is. In my era, it meant something different. And now it very much means something, yeah. Yeah. Just also because you said it, A.K., I don't actually think he ever really could have made $185 in the same way that, like,

Daniel Cormey probably could have. But, like, we all know that he couldn't have. And it gives me a great amount of joy that two of the four best heavyweights of all time, are short fat dudes. Like, it makes me so happy. As the MMA gods intended. As the MMA gods intended. That used to be like a meme around the forums.

It would be like showing, here's a picture of like Czech Congo is like what people think is peak male performance. And it's like, actually it's just Fador. It's just a fat dude. It's like a little fat guy is actually the bads fan of the planet. It rules. I love so much. next category the alternate universe award for the biggest what if in his career i have three things down

aka aka you want to lead us off here i'll i'm going to go with the not obvious somewhat less obvious thing first i mean everyone's everyone's going to ask what if you'd find the oc that's the big question what it what if that's not easy number one that's easy number one i don't i saw i'll let you guys elaborate on that more but yeah obviously what what if dana white had worked out a deal with with Fadour's handlers. What if just the money was right in Fader's head? Okay, you know what? I'm moving up.

I don't need my handlers. I'm just going to join the UFC and get X amount of money. But as far as we know, like, there was a lot of stops and starts. I'll never know how like, I guess at some point they're really close, but that cross-motion was always going to get in the way. UFC was never going to do that. And they didn't need to do that. You know, we sort of touched upon how big of a star is Fador in North America.

And honestly, probably never to the point that Dana White felt like, I have to pull the trigger on a deal. in the right world they should have made him a star I mean they could I feel like they could have made a lot of money with Fador but whatever it didn't work out with the UFC math which is its own thing entirely so you guys talk about UFC options more I'll go specifically what if Randy Koutur had been able to make a fight with him happen

outside the UFC not just because it'd have been a cool fight I would have love to see it to the two the biggest the biggest heavyweight in Fadour the biggest obviously you know North American star in Randy Coutor they could have made some money together somewhere else. I'll tell you. Of course, in the end, Randy settled things to the UFC. He came back. But that was like the closest we saw to, you know, what Francis just did, which is walking away. And assuming Francis doesn't in the next six months say, you know what, I changed their mind.

I'm going to resign with the UFC. Assuming that doesn't happen, this was almost the original that. This was a huge, huge star with the UFC, a fan favorite fighter, one of the best light heavyweights, heavyweights in the world. And he was going to go into business for himself and it just didn't work out. And again, only now are we finally seeing someone make a similar move. So I don't know how much the landscape would have changed if Couture had managed to pull that off and leave the UFC, get a big money fight with Fador, show that you can do things in MMA without the UFC. I think it would have changed. It would have changed so many things. But we know the reality that we ended up with.

No, that's a good potential sliding doors moment that I hadn't considered, didn't make my list at all. So I like that one. Shaheen, what about you here? I mean, for me, it's a lot, it's part of what AK said, which is like, what if we could have made the UFC work, right? Because there were a couple of big fights there. Brock was the big one that I always wanted to see, at least in the moment, Brock or Randy. Even like, you know, we eventually got it in Belator, but like Frank Mayer was UFC champ in 2009

right around the time where it might have happened. Any of that would have been fun to see, just to see him, you know, introduced to that UFC audience. But for me, the big question, the big what if alternate universe is if, like, what if this guy just calls it quits? What if he just does a Habib? Yes. What if he just does a Habib right after affliction? So right, he does his entire thing in pride. Stone cold knocks out, destroys the two UFC guys who are part of his era. And then he's 31 and one with the one being a fake loss, like a loss we all know really wasn't a loss. And, And at that point, he just walks away the only undefeated heavyweight champion in the history

of the sport ever, forever. Like, that's never going to exist again, an undefeated heavyweight champion. It's just not the nature of the division. We would probably just revere him as the goat period, like MMA period, right? Like, he would just be how I think a lot of us consider GSP right now. Like, he would just be the greatest fighter in the history of the sport. And he, that mythical aura around him, that mythical, you know, mythology around him. all of that, that would have never gone away.

That would have just exceeded and built upon itself over decades and decades after the fact of people like us being like, you guys do not understand. I watched our Muhammad Ali. I watched our whoever you want, Michael Jordan. Like, that would be who he was. It's the same thing with the Josealdo argument we had in the Josealdo episode where like Jose Aldo just leaves like sort of after the Chad Mendez, second Chad Mendez fight. And this doesn't encounter all these losses that he encountered against Vol.

and hallway and whoever, like, we revere him so differently. And that's part of the thing when people talk about Habib as the goat is just like, that's not an actual conversation because Habib left in his peak moment. Like, anybody can leave in their peak moment. And the way we will remember you is vastly different than if you went on the downside, that if you like sort of stretched it out and played it out, if Fador just leaves at that moment in 2009, like he's a god forever. And it's not even a conversation.

So that's my big one. I'm that that is my 1,000% because like yeah, the if he fights in the UFC, that's, I think that's the most obvious. But if he retires in 09 after that, like there the conversation we had at the start you're doesn't exist. He's the goat. Nobody questions it. Nobody questions his heavyweight goat status.

And then it's like, is, is he the goat versus Habib? Like it's just it's entirely different and that is honestly part of the reason that like the goat conversations kill me is Timing is so critical like if you just leave at a good point like that goes a long way in some of the perception stuff So I'm with you a thousand percent on that one. It's my biggest what if by far. Casey, what about you? This is a bit of a I mean all your what ifs were great, but my what if is kind of odd in the sense that what if Brett Rogers would have won? Oh my God.

Dude, he had Fatel League busted up. He was early. He was a hard competitive. He was hurting it more competitive. It was a tough first round. And remember, Brett Rogers was undefeated at the time. He had just come off a dominant, he was on CBS for the first Elite X show in CBS. He had a big knockout.

He had just knocked out, Andre Arlowski in 20 seconds, just right at beginning around. just blitzed him, knocked Arlowski out cold. Fredor Rodgers looked freaking scary. He was a scary man at the time. And after he lost that fight, of course, Brett Rogers' life, just his actual life went very downhill. And I still think he's in prison right now for things we're not going to talk about in this show. But it's just, if I'm talking about what if it's like losing to Bert, losing to

Fador Maniaco and such a. giant fight like that. Yeah, I just, yeah, just kind of, it's amazing how that can change your life in such horrible ways outside of getting knocked out. A much less serious note on this point, but I don't know if you guys remember when Fadoer finally, like, lost of her doom.

Dana White said something. His response was like a smiley face emoji or something, like just some real shit-eat and petty thing, which, you know, do your dance. you finally get to celebrate after a decade of just getting it in the teeth in that regard. I distinctly remember the Brett Rogers buildup was like how he's not a full-time fighter, how he still works at Sam's like do entire replacements and stuff. Can you imagine Dana White's response if Brett Rogers just knocks out Fador?

He would still be just so, so happy about that. That would be a moment that brings him joy. So I'm very glad that that what if didn't come true, Casey, because we don't need that. We don't need that kind of energy in the world. I also have to backtrack very quickly. I totally forgot that this was on my list where I just kind of blew past it. We all missed. We all failed on the who the fuck is that guy award because the actual answer, do you guys remember when Fadoor was doing real dumb shit with M1 in that middle period?

and he grappled Shiniayoki. Do you guys remember that? Never saw that. Yeah, but I, yeah. I think we made. I do remember that. That was fun. It was,

but it's just incredibly dumb that Fador, a heavyweight and one of the better M.MA grapplers ever is like, yeah, grapple Shiaoki, that seemed, we'll do that. It's fine. This is, I'm glad you brought that up because I,

you know, I know you brought me on the show because I do have a lot of Fador memories. I forgot. I was at. Were you there? No, no, no, I wasn't at that one. I was when Fador had a submission match against Gagard Musassi in Kansas City. At the same place that, at the Kansas City Memorial Hall, the same place in Victa has many events. I completely forgot that. Fadour and Musassi were there because I was actually there that night with King Mo. I was doing some video footage with him.

So, and just by chance, yeah, Fador and Missossi were there. And I was just like, in front of like maybe. So yeah, Fador and Missossi had a kind of a fake, kind of, I don't know, a sparring fight. I don't know what, I don't remember what it was. Weren't they friends? So like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It feels like they really didn't try in that one. No, no, it was a very fun, almost pro wrestling, a shoot match. But, yeah, and Fador and Musassi, were in the ring in front of maybe 1,200 being 600 paid, I don't know. Yeah, in Kansas City, Missouri.

That would have been a really cool event to have gone to. That's a pretty dope one to have under the belt, Casey. All right. Next category, the Habib Tony Award for the fight that never happened, what you wanted to see. I think there's one obvious answer and the second one that can go.

Randy Gator is the obvious one. I think we touched upon it a little bit, but that's the one that captured people's imagination. I also have Josh Barnett just because that fight like almost happened like six times and never they just never could get it over the finish line for whatever reason. Does anyone have anything beyond those two? Brock for me. Brock for me.

I always forget that like the Brock thing was a thing. Yeah. I always forget that that was a fight. But yeah. I got to throw an overream. I can't believe strike. force didn't make it happen. Oh,

they tried to. They tried. That's what's so frustrating. It was supposed to be it. Yeah. Yeah. Verdo messed it up. Verdoom was only messed up.

Yeah. And O'Reem. No, Verduan wasn't in the Grand Prix. So Bigfoot Silva was the G. Oh, yeah. Okay. Right. Right.

Spilville. Really messed it up. But did Overeem and even end up fighting in it? Like, Overdome wasn't in it, right? No. DC replaced him, right? DC replaced them because Overeem like bounces. And then later, Bigfoot Silva does not.

knock out over him in the UFC, but that's how DC has his coming out party. And no random Japanese promotion could make it happen. I guess, I guess Overim was, was he doing light heavyweight stuff when Overim was, sorry, when Fedor was heavy weighting it up over there. I don't know, but it feels like there in Japan. It feels like that should have happened. But yeah, I'm just surprised that one didn't happen. So I want, Brock would be like my number one that I want to see, but Overim just feels like

such a missed opportunity. It feels like it was right there and just pulled right out from under us. I still want to see Brock versus Fedor. I still want to see it. Like tomorrow, I want to see that. I'm comfortable not seeing that tomorrow. The thing about that, the thing about that fight, too, is if it would have happened, it would have happened right around 2009, 2010, because that was right around the time that

window was there. Brock probably might have, that's like, past it for Fador. I thought probably wins. Brock might have won in the same way that Antonio Silva wins, right? like Brock might have been the for doom in that situation. He might have been the guy that ends 10 years of heavyweight dominance. And can you believe, can you like imagine a world where Brock Lesnar is that guy, the guy who beat Fader, the first one to beat Fader.

Like that is him. It could that could have happened or Brock could just get punched out because Brock did not like to get hit. And few men get as hard or as fast as Fadoor Emilianenko in the history of this sport. People say that about Brock, but early, people say that about Brock, but early Brock did not mind it nearly as much. Shane Carwin, man. Shane Carwin hits as hard as any human being in the history of this sport. He hated every minute of Carwin.

I'm not saying that wasn't a tough SOB. I'm not saying he's a tough SOB. I'm not taking that away. But Carwin hit him and he turtled for the whole round and then Carlin was gas. And I don't think Fedor is going to have the same faults that Shane Carwin does in that title fight. Imagine. It would have been a spectra. I don't know who would have won.

It would have been a good fight. Listen, imagine if Brock wasn't only the one to end Fado's streak, but the Undertaker streak as well. That would have been incredible. Imagine that universe. Man, imagine that universe. Greatest Combat Sports Athlete of all time. Is that who we're talking about?

Unquestionably. Before we leave this category, I want to ask you guys, because I have a very strong feeling. If Randy had gotten out and gotten the fight he wanted, I think Fador whoops Randy's ass. Yes. Agree or disagree? Clearly. Clearly. Casey's thinking about it.

No, no. I was like the dog agreed. Oh, the dog. The dog did agree. Okay. Great. Next category. It's a new one.

I added it before this one. I gave everyone a very little amount of time. We're going to breathe through it because things pretty quick. It's the Mirko Krokop left leg cemetery award. If you could take one part of Fador's game, if you're creating a mythical fighter, out of all the pieces. What's the piece you take from Fador?

My answer, I want the stare down, baby. I want the stoic aura of nothingness and death. There is a great quote from, I believe it's Fiders Only magazine. Let me pull this up here. Yeah, it's Fiders Only Magazine. They talked to a sports psychologist about Fador. I was like, the best when it comes down, when it comes to the Stairdown is Fado O'Million Anko.

Watch him. He does not make eye contact. his entire expression is extremely relaxed. You would think he's about to perform a ballet. But here's the thing. When the referee tells him to head back, he darts his eyes, looks directly at his opponent or through his opponent.

It's the kind of look associated with antisocial behavior disorders and psychopaths. They don't look at you, they look through you. It's emotionless. It goes deeper than skin. You get a lot of fighters who will catch the look and realize I don't want to be there. Vandalea Silva has a stare down that makes you think,

this is going to hurt. Fador makes you think, think I might die. That's an incredibly accurate representation of that stare down. And it's the easily the piece I want from Fader the most. I have, I have, I have, I have stared down with Fadour before. It is all true. Did it reach your soul?

Because I remember you talking about staring down with Anderson Silva and that being like a thing. There, I've, I've, because, you know, my, for people listening, my wife is a photographer, so she does lots the studio shots with fighters. And for when the Fador fights, we're doing the studio photography, you know, she goes, okay,

can you turn to the side and kind of, you know, act like you're facing off someone. And a lot of times I'll come to the side to give him an eye line. And most people are like, you know,

we do our little face off. When Fador did it to me, everything you said was true. He was looking through me. Like, like my presence in front of his eyes were annoying him. It was. That would take a fly.

It scared the crap at me. And I kind of like try to giggle a little bit like, ha-ha. And like, nothing. Just, I was like, oh, my God. I've had, I've had that feeling three times when I've done kind of fake stare-downs. Oh, can I guess what? Can I guess what? Yeah, I go for it.

Yeah. Anderson. Yeah. And it's another one. I have no idea. And then the other one, Chris Cyborg. Scared the shit. Oh, that makes sense.

That makes sense. Yeah. I was like, we're playing around Cyborg. So yeah, give me the stoic stare. Does anyone else have a different item that they would like to steal from Fador to make their mythical fighter with? So I had something in the similar vein, but it wasn't exactly the stare down. For me, it was just the supreme calm, right?

Like that supreme calm under fire that you see in the random infight, that you see in the Fujita fight, that just any time things are going wrong to not be able to freak out to be able to stay, like maintain composure and just figure it out in the moment. I would submit humbly that he probably had the best in cage, just calm and ability to slow everything down just to be like, hey, we're going through this of anybody I've ever seen in this sport to the degree that it almost didn't make sense. And that to me, that I would want that because that feels very vital to how this guy was so good for so long.

Are you telling us, Cheyne, this is not the calm with which you have approached being a father, changing diapers, you are not fit or like when you're not fadol like

when there's vomit all over you, poop all over your. When the shit is flying? Yeah, it's literally flying. You are not fader like in nature? I try my best, but I don't know that I succeed if I'm being able to have.

All you can do is try. I would, I would, I, the same durability that I said, you know, was this like did did he rely on it too much or in his career that i would i would love to know what it's like to not be able to die so if i could have that gift from phaedore i'm i'm afraid i'm a very

cautious fearful man in my day-to-day life i would love to not be afraid of things and i would so if i could have a little bit of that that would be that'd be pretty fun fantastic uh i'm gonna try and speed things up because we are let's get a little little bog down next award the brad i'm Are You Serious Awards for Statistical Fun Facts? Named after Brad Oms, the Hillbilly Hardthrob, who once won Back-to-Back fights by Gogh Plata. Any impressive, unbelievable career statistics? Casey, do you have anything for this category?

Oh, no, not right now. Pass, pass, pass. This one's tough because, like, usually this is the category where you're going to have the most hit or misses. I really, I tried to play around with a couple of other ones, but it got tough, so I couldn't find the thing, like the punchline I was looking for. So I went for the old tried and true. Simple, easy.

From March 16, 2003, June 26, 2010, he was the consensus, best heavyweight on the planet of Earth. It's 2,659 days atop the sport, seven years, three months. The next closest title reign of that ilk, Anderson Silva's legendary UFC rain, lasted 2400 days. Fador was the king of the mountain, one of the best pound for pound fighters, the best heavyweight, the baddest man on the planet for six months longer than Anderson Silva's impossible reign

atop the middleweight class. That, like, if you condense my argument for why his goat down to one thing, is that, it's just straight up that. Like, it's impossible to be the baddest man on Earth for seven and a half years. If that was the thing, If you want to bring up one weird statistical oddity, it's like he was a submission machine through the first half of his career.

He was always a good striker, but his finishes were coming via submission. And then the second half of his career, he's just bolting people. He's just like, I'm going in there and I'm throwing. He converted to swangin and banging pretty much in the second stage of his career. A disciple of Derek Lewis, one might say. And really, if people look at this, again, I don't know. I didn't, I didn't look at this top before, but he has 60. career knockouts, 15 career subs, and it's almost an even split.

The majority of those... It really is very close to split. The majority of the 16 knockouts, the second half is career. It's very strange. It's, dude, he, like, almost has a bunch of cool things. Like, he almost has more arm bar wins than Big Nog. Like, he, because he has, like, seven off wins. He's got, like, a bunch of very close to being statistically, like, aberrant things.

But in the end, it's, dude, he was champion for. seven and a half years. That's, it doesn't make sense. That's not a thing, right? I mean, that was my stat for this. It's 33 fights at heavyweight without a true loss. Like that's, we're never going to see that again. Ever. Like that's just not ever happen again. That does not make sense. We are, the fact that Habib, you know, went 29 and O is this unbelievable celebrated thing. And lightweight is, maybe lightweight's harder to do that at like on in totality because that division is so good, but I'm not sure that that's even the case because heavyweight, the margins are so small.

Like any, any dude can randomly just knock you out at heavyweight. And especially how Fador fought. Yeah. Oh, risk-taking, right? Yeah. The risk-taking he took was that that's what. He was not Floyd Maylor. They're out here.

Yeah. That's what confuses the heck out of me. How he was so aggressive. Yeah. He was not a defensive genius to get there for being honest. Defenses for cowards. I brought A.K. on this show for one reason. We talked about the reason I said, but the true reason, we all know.

It's for this next award. The Sean Ferris Award for Actor Who Should Play Him in a Movie. Steemed Colley, Alexander Kaylee, loves this category. It's named after Sean Ferris, who plays Jake Tyler in the greatest movie, maybe of all time, never back down, AK, the floor is yours. Who do you have as an actor to play? play the great Emilianenko Fedor. Jed, I struggled, man.

I don't know a lot of Russian. No, you don't have to cast a Russian, but my first instinct was, I literally just went to Google. I don't know why this was your first instinct. Listen, you can get British people to play anything. I understand that. Didn't you watch Chernobyl? Everyone in that show was British. I was literally just think.

I was like, who was in that show? Like Jared Harris? And I'm like, he's not Russian. He's very British. I don't think a single Russian was in that show. There might not be an actual Russian with a speaking part in that show. So then my, so I was like, okay, is Oleg Taktarov available? I mean, listen, he's got the fighting chops.

Oh, that's actually a really good choice. He might feel a little old to play if we're doing the story of Fadoor's life. He's a little long in the tooth, but he's got a lot of movie experience, obviously the fighting experience. So I landed on, I still went combat sports. I'm landing on, I landed on Miro, AEW's Muro. Some people know him is W. I don't have any idea. How do you spell Miro?

He's a little, there's a few problems. He's very well known for his beard, but if you shave him, he's. He's confined. He'll probably pull it off. He does not look like Fador at all. But I'm just saying, and he's almost, this man is, he's too shredded.

And he's too shredded. This man's definitely too shredded. This man looks like he's seen weights before. You've seen people have to like bulk up muscular muscle-wise. He'd have to let go to portray the last emperor proper. Though, knowing Hollywood, they would probably like, they'd probably be like, oh, no, we don't want Fader to look like he looked like in real life. We want a more muscular Fador.

Probably true. And Miro, I should say, Amira, by the, it's not right. He's Bulgarian. It's not the same thing. So I don't mean to lump all those ethnicities together. But, you know, at least vaguely closer to the region than just grabbing a British actor, an American actor, Ashton to do a Russian accent. So that's kind of what I landed on.

Not my favorite pick. I wish I knew more Russian actors, even Russian-American actors. I'm not familiar with too many. So I'm going pro wrestling. Okay. Casey, who do you have here? Sean Aston. Oh, okay.

Oh, he's a little short. He's a little small, but we can. We can do some camera tricks on him, but he's a quality actor. Give him like two months in a gym. Just two months. Nothing crazy. Get him a one pack and then, John Aston. A one pack.

Rudy. I like it. I frankly like that better than this WW wrestler who I've never. I like it to. I love Sean Ashton, so I'm a fan. Yeah. So you were thinking about it. So.

Okay. Shaheen, who are you bringing to the table? I have three here. I maybe feel okay about one of them. I feel decent about one of them. The other two, I'm kind of iffy. I think it was just kind of like, just automatically going to bald guys.

You know, bald brother, got to go to bald brothers. That's how you got to do it. Yeah, like, you know, let's just, we got to keep it within the family. So I had Dean Norris, who, you know, you've probably seen him on Breaking Bad. Yeah. Kind of has that vibe a tiny bit.

Don't really like that. Vincent Dinoffrio, who's Kingpin. That's a very solid one. I used him for a different one of these previously. I thought for a second, you were going to say Vin Diesel, and I was going to start clapping. He could play it. He could play it. He's got range.

Let's go with the whole. The one that I settled on, which maybe is super not right. And maybe it's just in my head. I've been watching a lot of content from this man on YouTube recently. the departed James Gandalfini. Oh. If you maybe like get him, great actor.

Yeah, maybe you get him like tiny bit muscled up a bit. Wow. He has that presence, that very menacing. He definitely has the aura. The breathing, like the heavy breathing and just,

you know, kind of like the bear element to the human, right? Like he's kind of got that bare chest and stuff. Like, I don't know. I feel like he could have pulled off a really interesting fador.

Hold on. What about his son who just recently the Sopranos prequel? Michael Gandalfi. He did the last whatever, St. Newark. Newark. Yeah. I don't know if I can get his on board with that one. I don't know that he has the same aura, but we'll see. His face though. The kid's got to, he's got to develop some acting later. I like Gandalfi in general. Was he bad? Was he bad in that movie? It wasn't bad, but it wasn't. It wasn't Gandalfini, you know? It wasn't bad, but it wasn't dad, would you say? Nice. Well done. Well done.

This podcast is real quick. Real quick. How about an out of shape, Tom Hardy? He'd love that. Tom Hardy can do literally no wrong. I mean, he can do anything. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah. I have a Tom Hardy cutting boy. I didn't want to go there. I thought that was the first choice. Okay. Oh, my God. I got two for you. One of them I actually love.

The other one I love for very different reasons, and you guys are going to hate me for. The first one, he's old, so maybe we have to go back in time. Brendan Gleason, who is a renowned actor. He's in the Banchies of Inashirin. Nominated. Yeah, yeah. I was nominated a name from, yeah. All right.

How about Domnaudy and Harry Potter? How about his son? Domnawleason. How about that? I don't know if I know this man. He looks like. He could not look less like Fadoor if he tried. Oh, no.

Yeah, I just Googled this man. Absolutely not. he could not look less okay uh so that one's the one that i actually think works the best oh that dude's his son had no idea doesn't look like forward in anyway this guy was the lead villain in the patient show and that was a good show i liked that show he's been around a lot he's done a little star wars you may have heard of he's been in some star wars movies he may heard of he was also in harry potter um here's the one no bullshit i woke up in the middle of the night last night for whatever reason, this came to me while I was asleep. I have no idea why it did. And it's insane,

but now I want it to happen. It's Jack Black. I want to see Jack Black pull off Fador. And I'm dead serious when I say, I woke up in the middle of the night and was like, Jack Black is the answer to this question. And I don't, there's no reason for it. Just my brain went there and now I would be fascinated to see Jack Black try and fight every urge of himself to pull off quiet stoic Fedor. And it's the only thing I want in this category.

I send it back. Sheen's not interested. Sheen does not like the flavor of that particular dish. It's like a remake it not to be gray, but as a fadour. Look, I'd watch it. It's all I'm saying.

Next category. Cole Conrad career change, We only got a couple left. Let's wind it down. What would the fighter do if they weren't a professional fist fighter? For me, maybe this is cheap. I don't know. Fador is the most blue-collarish dude I've ever seen in my life.

Like, he went to school. He went to trade school and became an electrician before he did the fighting thing. And honestly, that feels right. Like, he should just be like a tradie. Like he, you know, just salt to the earth. Good old boy. Just a Russian good old boy feels like that fits to me. Does anyone have anything else to offer?

I have one. That same interview I mentioned at the top of this show 40 hours ago. Long time. It's been a long pod. The 2006 interview where that random newspaper guy was just asking him, you know, the humanizing athlete style questions. he asked him, what do you like to do? And Fedor's answer was, well, I'm somewhat of an artist.

I like to draw a lot. And that was baffling to me, maybe, mystifying. It caught me off guard. I don't know quite the word to use, but I did not expect it. And now I very much would love to see some sketchbooks of this man. So artists would be my answer, because now I just really kind of want to see what Fador art looks like. it might be awesome i could buy it he's good at everything else he's ever done why wouldn't you be

good at that yeah i i went the electrician rud as well as you said he trained to be one he's it's that's the key is the kind of and she mentioned the calm no matter what the problem is he's gonna make you feel calm he's got to be no nonsense he's gonna take care of it he's gonna you know he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna he's gonna just here's the bill you got no more problems call me again if you have problems he's not gonna like waste your time talking to you if it's socialize if you don't want to. Not that people are going to think I'm being like boogey, like, oh, I don't want to talk to my repair man or something. But listen, your average electrician probably makes a lot more money than I do. So trust me, I'm not talking down on any profession. And, and quite a bit more than your average MMA fighter. So except for the fact that Thater became a multimillion dollar, you know, ticket in MMA, it's not an electrician, not a bad line of work. Very honorable. And he probably would have had a fine living.

We need more electricians. really do. We need less lost. I love them. I love MM. We need less MMA fighters. We need more electricians.

True. Casey. No, I'm just imagining Fador and knocking on my door, like, I'm here to install your ceiling fan. Didn't you with the stare down? Yeah. Totally.

I'm sorry. Were you unhappy with our service? Glaring. I. I just be anything for this? Leave it. Leave it. Leave a good review on Yelp.

Do you, honest question, do you think Fadour knows what Yelp is? I feel like Fador is not the kind of man who's tuned into things like Yelp. I would imagine there's like a Russian version of Yelp, right? Like, they probably got their own. I'm just curious, like, what's Fadour drawing? Is he drawing like flowers? You're drawing horses? I bet it's, yeah, I bet it's like.

Still life. He's trying like tanks. just tank shooting at castles he's got like pictures he's got like all these illustrations of charmander and like squirtle in his

sketchbook nothing would make me happier than if Fador's post career he becomes like a Russian PBS I don't know what they're like a Bob Ross

just yeah just doing Bob Ross Fador things would be it would be my happy place It would be the one true good outcome of this sports ever offered. All right. The penultimate category, recently name changed as well for much better or sadder reasons, I guess. Look at me now! Leon Edwards Award for Fighters Career Pete.

When did they cap out? When did they knock out Kamala Usman with a head kick and descend to the very top of the sport? the only answer, I believe, is the Mirka Krokoop fight. If anyone disagrees, speak your peace now. Otherwise, now is the time for us to finally speak about one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport. I think 2009, I think you have a case for 2009 when he sort of puts the stamp on the apex. When he puns Arlofsky out of the air, May is the runner up. But it's got to be crocob.

I mean, that was the biggest fight of all time at that point. How long was that the I was trying to figure this out on the pod because I didn't think of this beforehand until Aldo McGregor Oh do you think Aldo McGregor is the line so 05 to Aldo McGregor is when 11 said right I'm not good at these things this what we need hose I can't do math I just don't remember when the Alder McGregor fight happened that was 14 maybe 14 yeah Mendez McGregor was 2015, so it had to have been 2016 or 2015. Same year? It was that same year.

Yeah, 2015. Yeah, 2015. So from 05 to 2015, for 10 years, the biggest fight in history is this one. And I think that that's true. Like, that, that fight was definitively bigger than this one. And I can't think of anything in the interim that that was bigger. Like, it was monumental. And at the time, like, it lived up to.

the hype is the best part of that fight too. Like that fight rules. You show back, watch today and it's great. Maybe it doesn't hold up as one of the all-time great fights, you know. But it is still a good fight. It's a high-level fight. And for all of the, that's what I wanted from Alden McGregor.

Like, we did not get that with Alder at all. But like, that's Crowcop was supposed to be the dude that threatened him. Like, here it is. Here's the guy who can beat him because he's got great takedown defense and he's a K-1 champion, et cetera, et cetera. And that was when Fador, if Fado didn't become a mortal with the Randolplex, he became a mortal in the Krokoop fight. Like there, you could never, he was undeniable

after that as an all-time great as far as I was concerned. And until the affliction excursion, that was his last great challenge for a bit. Because right after Kro-Kopp, he goes from Kro-Kop to Zulu. And then- That's a fair. I think we don't do it. enough of that when you have these big moments right you need a pallet cleanser afterwards he goes on crocob de zulu coleman rematch he's already beaten coleman beats him again again mark hans coming off a loss matt linlin's not a heavyweight and then hong man shoy and then affliction happens so like it really was crocob felt like the last like if if if coqop doesn't beat this guy he's not we don't have anyone left for him for a while until the contender well you know builds up again or again he he goes somewhere

else to find new opponents. So just an absolute definition of a rock star matchup. And again, yet one of the, if not the biggest fight, you know, one of the five biggest fights in UFC history still, uh, UFC, excuse me, an MMA history still. Um, so yeah, we, I feel like we've short changed. We've kind of touched upon it throughout this, you know, we didn't, we talked about other fights and just touched upon this and mentioned it. But yes, just an enormous, enormous fight.

And the peak of him being an absolute superstar, um, in Japan and across the world. I don't think there's a fight in the history of the sport that I more wish I was in attendance for. Maybe Habib McGregor just because that is the biggest fight in history. And I knew that going in, like it felt like that for years in the buildup. But it being in Japan with the ring, and I'm not even as big a ring guy as you guys are. I know y'all love the ring. But I can't think of a bigger scene, like, in the history of this sport to have said, I was Cajah, I was ringside for that one.

Like, that feels like our MMA's, you know, thrill in Manila, right? Like, that feels like it's that kind of a moment. And so that brings us to the end, ladies and gentlemen. The last thing we talk about, the Legacy Award, it's not really an award. It's mostly just an opportunity for us to all say whatever we feel about Fador before this final ride. of his the last ride of the last emperor. E. K. Saladin, Mr. 324. Let's start with you.

Sum up, Fador, your thoughts for us. Less is more with him. I mean, that's what I've always liked of him. Just, we, he did it. Actually, I think even toward the end of his career, I think he's done too much media, to be honest.

But I've always liked less is more of him. Just don't, I almost didn't know that I just like you. This guy just came from the wood. of Russia, knock fulls out, the little fist bump, and then left. And there's nothing, there's going to be no one like him.

He came at a perfect time for the sport. He's the goat. He's the first great heavyweight in this sport. And he's the standard for heavyweights and mixed martial arts. A.K. Lee, hit me. And summing things up, I would ask people

to watch a commercial, a South Korean Snickers commercial that is on YouTube. It's a 30 second spot. It's really, I don't know how it. It's very simple. It's just, you know, a bunch of fancy Fador and he just kind of reacts to them. And he barely does. And it's Fader.

He barely does anything. Barely does any acting. At some point, they ask him to change his expression sort of go from a smile, a little smile to a grimace. Not grimace, like a sneer. I don't know. Whatever. It's on YouTube.

Korean snickle commercial, Fador. And it, it just really encapsulates that aura, that effortless cool. And also something we probably didn't discuss enough on this episode, like what a massive star he was outside of North America. He has some popular in North America. There's no question. But he's still, he's nowhere near one of the, if you're saying just in mainstream North America, M.A stars, he's probably nowhere near the top like 30. Like there's just like Kimball Slice is far more famous in North America than Fador ever was. Like that's just a fact.

That's just how MMA works. That's how celebrity works in our side of the world. But much like, you know, whatever, you know, Football Stars, Association Football Stars, this guy is a household name in many, many other parts of the world, was a massive star. We talk about him, his greatest, from his greatest fights happening at Saitama Super Arena. We're talking like almost 50,000 people coming out for his biggest fights. The UFC would love to draw those numbers for some of their huge shows. And Fador was the man who was, I mean, these shows were amazing and had a lot of stars,

but he was the man around whom a lot of these cards were built, as John Iannick would have said back then, if he were covering pride events. So watch this commercial. It's such a little thing, but it does show, like, man, what a, what a, an unspoken charisma this guy has, what a big deal he was at the time, again, pretty much everywhere except in North America. And even here, you know, I think he's, he's gotten his flowers to some degree. Shane.

A.K. just touched. I mean, Fador versus Kimbo, that's the fight we lost. How do we never get that fight? Come on. Please. I would have shattered every television record in the history of this sport. Are you kidding me? people would still be talking about that.

No, man, I mean, I think we've said a lot over the course of these couple hours. And going back to what I said at the beginning, ultimately for me, Fador was the first genuine extinction level event in the heavyweight division and really just in MMA. Like he was the asteroid that killed off all the dinosaurs and he restarted a different era and then dominated that era for birdie methods, the entirety of it, in a way that we just do not see. And we've said in a lot of different ways, so I won't reiterate it. But it's just the level of dominance and the level of just the way he elevated the game without having to do like Connor McGregor elevated the game, but Connor McGregor elevated the game

in a certain way, right? Like he was very much a boisterous out there, promotion promotion machine. That was not Fador. Fader elevated the game with what he did in the ring and the legend, the mythology that he built around himself. And it's just, it's never going to be matched, frankly. like he is the unicorn of the heavyweight division the heavyweight god argument will go on to the end of time but there will never be another heavyweight that truly it was a unicorn in the way fador was and again

just to say one more time like that is the golden era of mma to me that is the greatest era of mama that we have seen and fado was the most important beloved central figure to it all he was the george was the george washington on that mountain rushmore of that era and that's just that's that's that's that says it all to me. Like, if you're the central figure in the central era, you're the guy, man. That's it. Yeah, I think, as we wrap it up here, I think that's kind of the big takeaway for me from Fador is when he came along, MMA had found its footing but didn't know what it was.

It was still in its tweener stage. It was still figuring out what it was going to be. And Frank Shamrock is kind of widely credited as the first real MMA fighter, a guy who mixed the martial arts. Sorry, A.K. I know you hate that. I think that's true of Frank. But I think Fador took that really and truly encapsulated.

He is the first guy I think of as the kind of dividing line between what was old and what is new and what this will be. And for 10 years, he was the standard by which all fighters were judged, not just. heavyweights, certainly heavy weights, but every fighter at that time looked up to him and said, hey, he's the guy. That's why he is my heavyweight coat. That's why he will probably never get knocked off that pedestal unless we see something truly remarkable. And the fact that he is 46 years old and he is about to make the walk for the final time and do so fighting for a major world championship and not a gift. Like he made, he made.

Maybe it's not like he's an undeniable title, you know, deserves a title shot here. But Tim Johnson was on a real good win streak and Fadol knocked him out. And so at 46 years old, a decade, over a decade after his best years were gone from him, he is still competing at the top of this sport. And that is, that doesn't happen. Like, that just does not happen anywhere. and that just speaks to how good he was. And so as we prepare for the last ride,

the last emperor, I just say, thank you, Fador. Your career has meant a tremendous amount to me in the sport and the rest of us. And damn, you were good. That's it, ladies and gentlemen. Another episode in the can.

It's a super long one. If you stayed with us this long, truly appreciate it. Because we're so late, I won't give everybody a chance to sign off. I'll sign off for us. Three case slide. and missed 30, 24 himself,

for Alexander Kali, for Shaheen Al-Shadi, and for the whole team in Amatefighting.com, we love you guys. Until next time. The Vox Media Podcast Network.