MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - Fedor Emelianenko Resume Review | Bellator 290: Bader vs. Fedor 2

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

The Resume Review is back and the guys break down the resume of arguably the greatest heavyweight of all time.... Fedor Emelianenko. The guys start with his unreal run in Pride FC, go through his Strikeforce run and all the way up up to Bellator 290. You won't want to miss this episode. (00:04:45) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Semmy Schilt (00:12:00) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 1 (00:21:29) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Kazuyuki Fujita (00:24:45) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mark Coleman (00:27:35) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Kevin Randleman (00:32:20) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Naoya Ogawa (00:33:44) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 2 (00:35:55) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 3 (00:42:15) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Mirko Cro Cop (00:49:29) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Tim Sylvia (00:54:25) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski (00:58:35) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers (01:02:00) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum (01:06:30) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva (01:10:00) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Dan Henderson (01:14:10) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabio Maldonado (01:14:55) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Matt Mitrione (01:16:45) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Ryan Bader (01:18:10) - Fedor Emelianenko vs. Timothy Johnson Morning Kombat is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and wherever else you listen to podcasts.     For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit:morning kombat.store   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rise to rewards with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card. Terms and conditions apply. On February 4th, in the main event, live on CBS, the Last Emperor makes his last hurrah in mixed martial arts. Fedor Emelianenko returns to the Bellator cage to rematch Ryan Bader to get a win back against someone who defeated him previously, maybe even the Bellator heavyweight title, and then to ride off into the sunset. But before he does, we have to look back on one of the most

distinguished careers, literally, in mixed martial arts history. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. We are Morning Combat, and this is the Fedor Emelianenko resume review. BC, we'll get right into it. Not a moment to waste. Well, we've done a lot of these, and there's never been anyone with as impressive and long and

just insane career that's still going at 46. Holy crap, and a title fight on CBS. You know, he was the guy that brought in CBS to the MMA masses, and here we are back again. This is the most decorated individual that we've ever attempted to do this operation on. That's right. He certainly is. He's easily on

the Mount Rushmore of MMA. Certainly one of the best, if not the best heavyweight this operation on. That's right. He certainly is. He's easily on the Mount Rushmore of MMA, certainly one of the best, if not the best heavyweight of all time. It's a matter of debate at this point. But a very highly distinguished career, although a long-in-the-tooth one. He is 46 years of age. This is supposed to be his final fight, not merely with Bellator, but in all of mixed martial arts. He's had previous retirements before.

But, BC, when you went through the footage here, what stood out to you most? I'll tell you, first thing for me is certainly he has coming off that great win over Timothy Johnson, right? In Bellator, that was phenomenal out in Moscow and God bless him. That was a great win. But I will say watching prime Fedor, you forget exactly how fast and explosive and just a force of nature he was, those pride fights really take you home. My takeaway is I echo and mirror what you say, but I think I take it deeper. I don't think there's a debate, especially for me, for the first time in a long time,

going back and watching these fade-or pride fights, which, to be fair, I did not watch live when they happened, and I wish going back to have seen that connectivity and the build from one card to another and all of that. But I don't think there's a debate. He is the greatest heavyweight of all time, and this fun exercise of going back to have seen that connectivity and the build from one card to another and all of that. But I don't think there's a debate. He is the greatest heavyweight of all time. And this fun exercise of going back fight by fight and rewatching that arc just slams it home

and confirms that even if Luke, that was a different era from the idea of style and evolved full mixed martial arts game plan. Yet he still went in there against one killer after another. And in this, you you know your takeaway uh echoes in a way as well for me it's like pride was the the peak of wild west mma with the most dangerous cowboys galloping in and out of that heavyweight division and he was the last emperor but he was also the last man standing in that era that run of 27 consecutive wins over a nine and a half year period, most

of that coming in the pride cage, considering the level of competition and the guys that came in and out of there who all regularly traded losses against one another. There's, he's the best to me by far. When you, when you take the time and go back and see this and look at the quality of names that he's beat and the way he did it, even if that was a different era skill-wise and in some ways feels like so long ago, dude, doing two of these in one night, it was still that part of it on certain one of these pay-per-views. There's nobody like him. And this was an era where guys took insane punishment on the regular

and saw who was truly the last man standing each time around with 10-minute first rounds in pride to rejog your memory if that doesn't jump out first. But to go that long and not lose, I mean, that is one of the most insane stretches, even if there's gimmick fights in between, in the history of the sport. We talk about the renowned 16-fight win streak

in the UFC of Anderson Silva, which should be, right? Should be celebrated. How do you frame that 27-fight, nine-and-a-half-year run for Fedor at the top of this game at heavyweight globally? He was ahead of his time. He was an athletic marvel relative to his peers in his prime, and they simply couldn't deal with him. They couldn't deal with his speed.

They couldn't deal with his power. He was a tactical innovator. When you go back to the first Noguera fight, which we'll talk about in just a minute, there were just so many things he was ahead of the game on. Now, of course, he slowed down, the game caught up, and the story changed. But in that era in which he was competing in Pride from 2002 on, he was truly unstoppable. Now, the story begins a little bit earlier. Very quickly, BC, he had, I think, about 11 or so fights in rings, an organization called Rings, which at the time was maybe the best organization on earth

or at least having one of the better tournaments on earth. He actually has one loss there, too. Tiosha Kusaka was a Japanese legend, but that was just from a cut. In 17 seconds. Yeah, and it was just from a cut. He didn't really lose that contest. You could make an argument he lost to Hikaru Arona, but nevertheless, he enters that with a pride

on, he begins his career against Sammy Schilt in June of 2002 BC. Pride 21. Sammy Schilt, three-time king of Pancrase, former UFC heavyweight. Obviously, we know he's got a decorated kickboxing background as well. He's a seven-footer out of Holland, and Old Fedor

gave him the business. Well, dude, let's say this about Sammy Schilt, who, freak of nature's size, tough as balls. I mean, this fight showed you how tough as balls he is to begin with. He's traded a bunch of losses early in his transition from kickboxing to MMA, but entering particularly this Fedor fight, he was 12-1-1 in the previous two

years with Pancrase, UFC, and Pride, the only loss having been a submission against Josh Barnett. So, this, you know, there are some freak fights thrown in here. Let's act like, you know, that was always Dana's sort of the mounting evidence he would put against the idea that Fedor is as good as people say he is, the best fighter to never fight in the UFC, all true. But when he fought this giant, Luke, this guy come in with credentials.

This guy came in with damage. And this fight, although it was Fedor's debut in Pride, didn't play out differently than a lot of his biggest fights including some against Noguera he sets the terms that when he takes you down early in the round each round that's more or less where you're going to be for the end of it with him on top usually getting full mount and the speed the power that he lands with the ground and pound and the ability to turn that into submission threats while working out of it just the same dude ahead of his time doesn't even begin to say of where the ground and pound and the ability to turn that into submission threats while working out of it just the same.

Dude, ahead of his time doesn't even begin to say of where the ground game was for big men at that point and the skills he operated. He even made Big Nog, in a way, take the knee when they matched their ground games at times. You know, it's wild. He did. He had a remarkable career.

If you've never seen it, he, Sammy Shield, obviously, fought in UFC. If you've never seen his knockout of Pete Williams it's a front kick knockout to the body that he stopped Pete Williams Pete Williams was the guy that head kick KO'd Mark Coleman sort of famously uh he also got shoulder cranked by Frank Mir but he was a big player in the time and Sammy Schilt when he hit him with the front kick his foot is so big it goes from the waist to the neck nearly of Pete Williams like old Sammy Schilt was a bastard in there. He was a tough guy.

I mentioned before, three-time king of pancreas. BC, what also stood out to me on the tape was that the ease with which Fedor could go from strikes to takedowns and these huge guys could not keep their balance under this onslaught he would give them. The speed was too much. The power was too much. None of them had an answer for it. Sammy was just first. Absolutely. And I think it's a perfect fight to transition into the first of this incredible rivalry because although throughout the Fedor versus Big Nog rivalry,

there were certain periods where Fedor did have to respect the ground gang of Big Nog and kind of not engage and stand up. But for the most part, how would you surmise Fedor's ability to, he'll dart in and out from top position. He'll go from standing to bottom. I mean, he'll even try flying stomps on you, but he gets as close to getting caught in submissions as you can. And it's just so quick and strong and ability to bounce out of it. I mean, maybe that cost him when he started to slow down the Verdun fights, a big example of that, but he could just tease danger, man. And it never, it never touched him. Yeah. He, so guys would put him in trouble in various times, or so you thought, how about reversing position on him?

And then he would roll them over because he was so explosive and strong. Or to your point, we'll get to the Nagara fight because it was pretty important, locking up triangles, and none of them would ever stick. He would get to almost the point where he would seal it, and then he would just explode out of it. Or going for the Kimura, he'd limp arm. People don't realize this.

You actually don't want to force your arm out on a Kimura attempt. You actually want to limp your arm out. But he would just be so quick with it, they couldn't do really anything about it. So let's move on to there. So he beats Sammy Schilt in his Pride debut. This was a big show, Pride 21. He goes on to beat Heath Haring, who was a big name at the time, beat the shit out of Heath Haring, where after the end of the first round,

they had to call it off TKO doctor stoppage. Again, first round, 10 minutes. He took a 10-minute beating from Fedor. That just was outrageous. Dude, these 10-minute first rounds are outrageous. Dude, are gnarly on what it does to their gas tank. Now, a lot of these, Fedor, like in the Sammy Schilfer, as soon as he takes you down early in the round, he's going to spend most

of that round on top of you. Right. But the gas tank, the amount of energy exposed during these 10-minute first rounds is insane. I mean, would you ever? It's three in rounds plus in boxing. Would you ever want to return to that in modern MMA under any circumstance? I will say this. Josh Barnett, I thought, had a great tweet, which is, if athletic commissions are going

to be sanctioning slap fighting, quite literally, how is it you can't sanction more like pride rules? And you don't even have to have all the pride rules. You can have many of or most of them, including a 10-minuteminute first round would i like to see it as a default practice maybe not but it was a great thing for the time and by the way for folks who may not know around 2002 2003 remember the ufc has been purchased by the fortitas and by dana white and everybody else and there was this big idea who had the best organization in mma was it pride or was it ufc around this time it was clearly pride it stayed pride for a while. It got really heated in terms of their heavyweight divisions, who had the

best one when it was like Rico Rodriguez and Tim Sylvia and like Gann McGee. And then on the pride side, they had Fedor and Crowe Cop and Noguera and Igor Vovchanchin. And you can go on. Heath Herring was another member of that list. Um, this just, this was the first time there was a true, just absolute monster era of heavyweights where virtually all of the best ones were on this grand stage, and Pride knew what to do with it. Fedor was the one who was the king of the hill. Quickly before the transition here, how insane is, in your eyes, in heavyweight MMA, considering the run he's been through

and the insane damage he's taken, that Fedor is not only still fighting at 46, but still in a title fight. And I get some of it is not a gimmick. I mean, he knocked out Timothy Johnson. He's back in the title picture. But some of it is like, okay, it's a retirement fight. Let's see if he can go out on the way out. It's a rematch with Bader.

Yay. But would you ever have guessed when he was 28, 30, and he was taking on this run of killer after killer and the times that we counted them out in Strikeforce? I mean, how did his career have this longevity? BC, I mean, just look at this. Sammy Schilt, out of the sport. Heath Herring, out of the sport.

Noguera, out of the sport. Fujita, out of the sport. Gary Goodrich, out of the sport. Mark Coleman, out of the sport. Kevin Randleman, unfortunately deceased, but certainly would have been out of the sport at this point and on down the list. Mark Hunt, out of the sport.

Matt Lindland, out of the sport. All of the guys who were big names at the time in which he fought him, they're not even around anymore. He's fighting Ryan Bader for a title on CBS. Now this is, again, the very last time you'll see him in a professional cage, in a professional bout anyway. But his longevity, he was, I think that like there's a big tax on your body when you're a big heavyweight, body when you're a big heavyweight

and he was never a big heavyweight he was always light and limber I think he's taken good care of himself he has taken breaks uh it is insane dude again he fought not his pro debut he fought Sammy Schilt the month I graduated college but everything about his style especially back then now look his twilight which has been, he's a slugger. He either gets you or you get him in the biggest fights, right? But back then, dude, it was so much about scientific, but so much about grappling and pressure. Dude, every element of his game in his prime is physically taxing.

And I know it's not that he didn't have fights where he didn't gas a little bit, but, like, for the most part, I mean, he was unbeaten for a decade. 27 wins in one no contest in a decade. Here's the truth. When he was in his prime as an athlete, he couldn't be touched, right? He he was unbeaten for a decade. 27 wins in one no contest in a decade. Here's the truth. When he was in his prime as an athlete, he couldn't be touched, right? He was just so much better than everyone else. Tactically advanced and athletically advanced, right? And when his game slowed by virtue of aging and his athleticism declining,

the losses began to pile up. But the truth is he can still be dangerous, which is why he's still in this moment and still in this fight, having just come off this win over Timothy Johnson. Let's go back to pride We're in March of 2003 at the Yokohama arena in Japan He takes on Antonio Rodrigo no guerra for the pride heavyweight belt now Rodri Rodrigo at the time the minotaur Nagara was the number one heavyweight in the world

He had already come off the win. I asked you to watch this fight He hasn't seen it yet. If you've never seen Noguera versus Bob Sapp, I don't know what you're waiting for. Oh, I've seen it. I've seen it. Oh, okay. I meant for this project, anyway. 375-pound guy broided to the fucking gills,

pile driving onto his head and neck repeatedly, Noguera, and he still found a way to win. He was the best in class. He had the best jiu-jitsu. Let me tell you about why he was the best in class. He had the best jiu-jitsu. Let me tell you about why he was the best in class. Coming in as the Pride heavyweight champion, he was 19-1-1 at that point. His only loss, a split decision to Dan Henderson

before they came to Pride, which he had venged by submission early. On a 13-fight win streak entering the Fedor bout, which included wins over Gary Goodrich, Mark Coleman, Heath Herring, Inoue, Sapp, Schill, and Hendo in that rematch. I know in heavyweight MMA history, the ultimate showdown fight, tell me if I'm wrong, was Fedor versus Krogop.

Yes. This has to be second when these guys collide. This is number two, yeah. This is damn. So this was on an amazing fight. So this was Pride body blow, which to this day is one of the best MMA events ever. Kevin Randleman fought Rampage on this card. I think Dan Henderson fought Jungo Oyama. Like he, this, this card was Carlos Newton versus Anderson Silva was on this card, I believe. So we're talking about a very special card and a

very special night in MMA history. And at the top of it, most people expected Noguera to win. In fact, many thought Fedor was good, but really not that good for a guy like Noguera to win. In fact, many thought Fedor was good, but really not that good for a guy like Noguera with his jiu-jitsu. And right off the bat, it becomes pretty clear that's not the case. Fedor able to get takedowns effortlessly, basically. And drop him with punches, too. Dropping him with punches. But, dude, at times when he was going to the ground,

he could literally just underhook and fucking throw Noguera to the ground. Can we talk about the ground and pound? Can we talk about this? But here's the key. Now, remember, you could not elbow in pride. It's weird. You could stomp and you could soccer kick. You couldn't elbow, I guess, because of cuts.

But even then, the, Stephen Quadros was the commentator, and he said something in this fight that I thought stood the test of time, which is Fedor Emelianenko might be the hardest arm puncher in the game. BC, I think he was right at that time. Dude, this is insane ground and pound. I know everybody knows this, and this is a legendary fight, the first of this rivalry, which went to three fights, even if the second was shoddy in a different way. But look, I mean, we're talking about elite levels of all-time cyborgs.

I don't mean Evangelista or Christiane there. I mean guys with just next-level insanity, Dan Henderson, Shogun Hua-level chins. Even above that are Fedor and Nog. But even though Fedor wins this fight, and this is Fedor's era, Luke Thomas, can we pour one out for the willingness Noguera is to take insane leaping ground and pound from the feet to the ground

by Fedor, repeatedly landing with the most vile sounds of these right hands. And the announcers, you know, Bas Rutten going, every other person that that punch has ever hit is out cold. Yes. And Nog will not stop. And there was a theme that began in all these fights where the end of every round, after taking a long beating, Noguira would finally get the reversal he needed, finally be at the point of either landing his own stick round at pound

or hooking a submission, and the time would run out on him. But when you look at the history of Nogueira's career in Pride, he beat everybody, and if they got him for the most part, he got them right back in the rematch, except for Fedor. How great is Fedor that even Pride big nog, which, you know what the biggest shame here is, Luke? The biggest shame in heavyweight MMA history is not that Fedor never fought in the UFC.

In my opinion, it's that Big Nog, the pride version, didn't get to fight in the UFC because he would be considered the greatest heavyweight champion without question. I know he eventually got there. I know he was a part of big fights, and he traded wins and losses at the end of his career. He did get the interim title at the UFC. Absolutely. Let's not discount that. He beat Couture in an absolute war, or maybe it was the other way around. It was a great fight. I know he was a part of big fights, and he traded wins and losses at the end of his career. He did get the interim title at the UFC. Absolutely. Let's not discount that.

He beat Couture in an absolute war. Or maybe it was the other way around. It was a great fight. I can't even remember. My point is this. In his pride prime in that run, even Barnett got him by split decision, and he won the rematch. Dan Hendo got him by split decision, and he finished him in the rematch. Fedor was the only guy he couldn't get, and he got everybody else.

And this first fight was just repeatedly anything Big Nog would want to do, Fedor would make the adjustment and overpower him. Holy shit. Who beats Fedor on this night? Even in today's rule set, who beats that Fedor? Not many guys. At heavyweight, I'm trying to think. Even in the evolved skill set of having a serial ganu can fight like a middleweight,

having an enganu. Even on that night, he beats Lesnar. You know what I mean? On that version of Fedor, who, by the way, I think was like 26 years old at the time. Right? We're talking about the guy's 46 now, right? I mean, that's how old we're talking about. Dude, when he walks to the ring, Fedor, and the sweatpants and the t-shirt that doesn't match,

he looks like a high school janitor's mugshot on the local news because he just got caught with, like, hidden cameras in the boys' bathroom or something. Like, he looks like the most just from just off the beaten path. It's not, you know, not even a robot. Look look he just looks like he's in another world up here and of course he's an eloquent guy and he's a great ambassador of the sport but it goes without saying that he's able to take insane punishment because in nog might have taken even more but when these two collided i mean dude this was these this is the is this the best heavyweight rivalry i mean this really is it's it was it's not back it's not back and forth enough to be one but it it but was this the best heavyweight rivalry? I mean, this really is. It's not back and forth enough to be one.

But was this the best pairing of two great heavyweights at any one time? I mean, we had a Dos Santos versus Kane trilogy, which was great. We've had big fights like Verdum versus Kane. We've had Stipe versus DC three times. And we've had some big-ass fights in Gano versus Stipe twice. This is up there. This is up there. Has there ever been more talent?

I'm just going to say this out flat because I've been thinking it for a long time. I think other people might think of something as anything revelatory, but just to be declared, Noguera has the best chin in MMA history. Like, the best. And as great as Fedor's in, his chin might not even be on the same level as Big Nog's. It's just, it scares me. And also, I want to say this. Dude, how about the pride production values and how well you could hear and see everything?

Or the video packages. What did you bring into life? Did you watch some of those video packages before these fights? Did you get a chance to rewatch them? You can't believe it. They have that pro wrestling hook. There's that extra level of sensationalism to them. And it all leads to, if this guy beats this guy, he fights an even better badass at the end of the video game.

And it might be tonight or it might be next pay-per-view card. Dude, the connectivity of how they built these fights, man. I want to point out something in this fight, like why this is so important. Fedor is one of the first guys to show that, like, even when you have someone who is a very good guard player, ground and pound, scientific ground and pound beats good guard game almost every time. And that was not really known very well at the time. It was certainly known very well after this fight. The route that his punches would take, the route tree, the travel, the trajectory, came

from unusual angles, the timing of it, the way in which he would control certain parts of the guard. He, as Cuadro said during the bout, he set the blueprint on how to ground and pound a guy like Noguera. He wrote that. And no one had done even anything close to it before, combined with what you had mentioned previously, which was outrageous submission defense. And it wasn't as if, as we mentioned, Fedor wasn't willing to put himself up to danger.

He was willing to sometimes go too far over the line. But his ability to adjust to whatever anyone did that made it dangerous, in the moment adjust. Do you remember in that third round of this meeting where Nog finally gets the knee bar hooked? Fedor not only spins out of it in such quick instances, ridiculous, he then goes right into a soccer kick to the chest. Like the transitions in his ability to be like,

okay, you got me here, but right here is just insane. And also I want to point out something here too. Both guys were in their 20s as well. But the sweep that he used that the sweep that nogara used on fedor uh it didn't work because fedor was able to get it right back it's the exact same sweep that big nog used on tim sylvia to actually claim the interim heavyweight title exact same sweep that was the end of round one in this fight yeah that sequence was bad and remember round one is 10 minutes at the end of the 10 in this fight. Yes. That sequence was batshit crazy. And remember, round one is ten minutes. Yes. It was at the end of the ten minutes.

Just to go to show you, he used that same trick later on Sylvia, and it worked. Didn't work on Fador. Final note, as Nog needed to be carried off the ground, he was so exhausted at the end of this fight. Yeah. Boss Rutan says, there are no words. It's unreal talking about Fador. Dude, I wish I was, you know, Fador didn't really hit me until the Crow Cop fight in terms of where I really was like, oh, shit, we're building to something massive. Even I need to take notice.

I wasn't watching this fight by fight. At this point, were you in? Were you in on the storylines to build fight by fight? Yes. About 2003, yes. You know, this was him winning the Pride Heavyweight Championship against Big Nug. This is massive. What do you remember thinking at that time that this guy might be walking into Goat Ship here at the beginning of this run?

You couldn't have anticipated it. Yeah, so i didn't think fader was gonna win i thought he was gonna lose and he then beat the fucking shit out of him and i was like oh my lord what is happening and then i thought um i wasn't sure exactly what i thought of that but what the the true story is once fader did this he became the the consensus best heavyweight in the world. There were some people who wanted to say it was whoever the UFC champion was at the time. Let me assure you, they were wrong. It was not true. This was the guy. This became clear over time, especially by the Crow Cop fight in 2004.

That was the real big one. And I think he was getting pound for pound number one consideration after this fight as well. Yes, he was. He was on certain people's list. This was the big one where everyone thought, there were some people who thought he could, but more, I have to go back and check the odds, but more often than not, they thought he couldn't,

and he made it look easy. Easy. Now, we move along. He has another fight he takes out in your home country, Lithuania, before returning back to Pride 26, June of 2003, taking on Kazuyuki Fujita, which, by the way, is not really a big deal in the sense of who is Fujita. Fujita was

a big heavyweight name for Japan. He wasn't a very decorated fighter. BC, Quentin Rampage Jackson was also a part of the commentary booth for this. Everyone thought Fedor was just going to walk over him, and instead what happens, Fedor gets rocked, the

worst he's ever been in his career and has to hang on for dear life I didn't see this this wasn't on our list so you're you're telling me about it so I'll add it very quickly so he gets hit with a shot and he has to grip up and Stephen Cuadra says famously oh my god Fedor Milianenko's in huge trouble and he was and he falls to his ground and Fujita gets on top and tries to do what he does. They stand up. He tries to slam Fedor. He can't do it.

Fedor lands like a goddamn cat because I cannot overstate how good his athleticism was at this time. If you watch Pride, Fedor, and then you watch Bellator, Fedor, you can just see the difference in speed. It's ridiculous. And his balance, dude. His balance was sick. Yeah. Anyway, he gets up, and he hits Fujita with a body kick left hook right hand, and that sits him down. He follows it up, falls.

He wins. Crowd goes nuts, and Rampage Jackson says something that has always stood with me, and he goes, the way he came back, that is a champion. That is a champion. The way he withstood that and fired right back absolutely was. It would be the last time, by the way, he'd come back from the grave in the middle of a fight and then win it seconds later.

Well, see, we should stop for just one second and make that point. Fedor, we're making him out to sound invincible. And many times during his pride run or that prime run, he was. But part of the reason why I love what Jackson said was that the true greats, they're not untouchable, but they're resilient. Anderson Silva versus Chael Sonnen won. He wasn't the better guy that night, but he was resilient when it mattered.

Fedor had that too. Absolutely. And I don't think that at this point in this era of MMA, it had evolved to the point where people were at such a high level of complete well-rounded speciality all in one. True mixed martial artists that you would see at the highest level, some really technical fights from distance. But, you know, it goes without saying that back then,

even the highly skilled guys still had to fight their way out of trouble in big fights. And that was never, that was always the equation for Fedor. I mean, the big, actually, the dogfight was surprisingly so one-sided for the most part, right? So one-way traffic for the most part. But, dude, it's like even if you got your best stuff off against this version of Fedor, even if you put him in their peril, the fact that he was never out of it

but could think so clearly while clearly hurt is you can't teach that skill. It's almost unrivaled in the history of the sport how he's able to pull that off. And it adds to the lore. I don't know. I don't know how these guys have these chins, dude. How do they do this?

I don't know. It's remarkable what they were doing. Were they taking drugs that also allowed them for this impact not to hurt their body? I mean, I don't get it, Luke. Well, they definitely were taking growth hormone. I mean, I don't know about Fedor in particular, but the Pride era, yes, there was a lot of guys. But then he was never even shredded up, dude. He was always chubby.

He was always kind of a chubster, right? It's amazing. He had to be that. He was always kind of a chubster, right? It's amazing. He had to be that quick, have that good of a gas tank. I had a fat friend who was like, that's my favorite fighter because he reminds me of me. That's what he said. All right, BC, so let's jump now to two fights back-to-back that were a big deal, both submissions, both in 2004. We go to Pride's total elimination 2004 against Mark Coleman.

Folks don't know this, actually. Federer had a bit of a falling out with Pride at the end of 2003 and took another fight with Inoki Bumbaye. He was eventually able to come back in 2004, but now we're in the middle of a heavyweight tournament, right? That's when it got set into motion, as well as now there's a sort of a disputed sense about who the actual champ is. But against Mark Coleman, BC, who had won a previous Pride tournament

and was a heavyweight champion, that's right, he was a very celebrated figure. I looked at the rankings at the time. He was still considered top five at the time. He had won seven previous Pride tournament and was a heavyweight champion. That's right. He was a very celebrated figure. I looked up the rankings at the time. He was still considered top five at the time. He had won seven of eight coming in, and the only loss was a sub to Big Nog. So he's right there in contention at this level, no question. What do you remember about this fight? Coleman, only 33 years old.

Look, Fedor had finished the last four guys coming in, so he had continued that run in adding to his, you know, sort of stature already. It got wild right away, and I'd forgotten about that. I mean, it got kind of— I forgot this, too. Dude, Mark Coleman took his back. Dude, Mark Coleman was— Mark Coleman took him down, took his back.

I mean, his physicality in here to be able to hang and the speed to be able to hang with Fedor during the batshit craziness was wild, and they both landed wild punches, and there were crazy reverses where, where, you know, a fatal reverses into a guillotine and they know that would happen in big fatal fights. I mean, somebody could switch him and even take full mount on him for a half second,

but dude, would he switch that back on you? But look, you're asking a lot, whether it's Mark Coleman or anybody else to get in these type of back and forth batshit crazy sequences, especially in a 10 minute round and not be gassed out or too hurt at the end to stay there. It's like, you know, only a few on that nog level can endure that and take him to that distance. Krokop obviously eventually did it too.

But as good as Mark Coleman was in stretches here, you can't keep that up. You're either going to gas out or you're going to succumb to the power that's landing on you. And soon enough in this 10-minute first round, I caught up with him. Right, and he got the takedown twice. So he gets back to his feet.

He tried to throw Fedor over the ropes. He tried to throw him over the ropes, but he managed to stay up. He gets the takedown again because, you know, Coleman was a very good wrestler, obviously. And then Fedor underneath, he catches him with an armbar. I think the timing here, according to the notes I have, is a 115 of round number two. And boy, was that quick.

That's the second one. Excuse me. There's another one that came before us. Sorry, I got the wrong one up here. Yes, that came in round number one via armbar. And what was so funny about it was That's the second one. Excuse me. There's another one that came before us. Sorry, I got the wrong one up here. Yes, that came in round number one via arm bar. And what was so funny about it was 2-11 in round one is the actual time. His hips underneath were so fast and explosive. He could twist underneath for the arm bar.

You saw this with all his takedowns. His hips were explosive. With his balance, everything got into place where it needed to be. His punches, everything was off the hips. He was just a great example of what you could do when you had mobile active hips. And there was, I mean, by the time he latched on to the arm bar, it was so deep. It was so in. All he had to do was roll belly down and Mark Coleman tapped. That was all she wrote. Pretty easy win for him. We move on now to Kevin Randleman. Oh, baby. So Kevin Randleman, if you just look at the stats, we are the final

decision, which was he wins round one, obviously, Fedor does, via Kimura at 133. Doesn't tell you the story, though, does it? No, dude, it doesn't even tell you the story about the framing of coming into this fight and how big this was. Kevin Randleman had upset Cro Cop and did it by knocking him the hell out

with one shot, which was a total, I mean, it was a total wake-up call. Randleman's still 33 here, still with a lot in the tank. But did, and by the way, Morrow lost his shit on that knockout call of Randleman over Krokop. One of the great moments in getting to relive young Morrow in his prime, often paired with Boss Rootin in here, is just a joy to behold.

But Luke, did you watch the pre-fight feature on Kevin Randleman? I did not. Dude, he had just lost his father. This fight was on Father's Day. He had been telling the story of how in the prior months, not just his father, but according to Randleman, multiple other family members also died. And Randleman still hadn't fully recovered from that car accident when he had like a medical condition at the wheel.

And he went 120 miles and crashed and the hood of his car came down and peeled off the side of his head all the way back. He had 188 stitches to close this gnarly cut right here. And he's just like, yeah, fighting is my life. This is the biggest fight of my life. Let's go do this. And he said this interview in which Boz is sitting across from him

and they're almost crying, talking about dads. And you're like, this is the buildup for this crazy-ass fight? By the way, Randleman and Boz, previous opponents. This is the buildup for this crazy-ass fight? And then tell me if I'm wrong. Is this the craziest oh-shit moment in the history of the sport? Maybe Bob Sapp doing it to Nagas close, and there's a few other great crazy knockouts or slams of this variety.

If you just think of all-time greatest slams, I don't think it's greater than Rampage's slam over Arona. Okay, but this has something different because Fedor went from being in the worst position possible in a big fight, a title fight no less, to winning seconds later. It was almost like the opening sequence of Ronda Rousey versus Kat Zingano.

It was almost like that only. Ronda didn't get knocked, dropped on her head before she transitioned to that submission. So basically what happens is you have Randleman get a takedown. So Randleman's on top. Fedor's underneath. Fedor turns. Randleman keeps the spot. But now he gets behind an arm, and he picks him up and turns him up.

Dude, that strength is ridiculous. Not only the strength. I want to point out something here. He didn't just pick him up and turns him up. Dude, that strength is ridiculous. Not only the strength, I want to point out something here. He didn't just pick him up and drop him. Go back and look at the replay. When Randleman picks him up, he jumps in the air, turns Fedor over and drives him into the mat. And when he drives him into the mat, pay close attention to the feet of Kevin Randleman.

He has left his own feet. His feet are not touching the ground. He has left his own feet. His feet are not touching the ground. He is going up so he can drive him down as hard as humanly possible. And he landed on the back of his head and neck. He was un-fucking- phased. He was

un-phased from getting dropped on his brain stem by a guy who, I have to add that, his dad just died. It's Father's Day. He overcame a gnarly accident. People in his family have died left and right. He knocks out Prokop to win this title or win this chance to go in there,

and he drops the dude on his head in a way that would have not just finished. When you watch that, you're like, did he live? Did he get up? Did he walk? There was a famous thread on the UG at the time, the underground, which at the time was MMA.TV. It became MixedMartialArts.comcom where people were joking about they needed to see x-rays from fedor to make sure he didn't have adamantium in his in his skeletal system because it was like how is that to

your point like just biologically even if you wanted to like resist that how could you well he did not only did he do that he reversed his position about 30 seconds later, then locks up Okamura, and then closes the show. This is what I mean. Not every time was he dealing. Sometimes he got dealt. It just didn't matter at this stretch of his career at all. I mean, Randleman, unfortunately, would go 2-9 the rest of his career, and I know he's no longer with us,

and I love that he got the UFC Hall of Fame induction because this guy was somebody that mattered, you know, in these early stages of heavyweight MMA. But that transition, Luke, I mean, it wasn't as quick as Rousey Zingano, the comparison I made, but you went from questioning if he's alive to, oh, my God, he made the transition and he won. Moro's call, it's up there, right? The, oh, my gosh, right on his head, oh, my God.

And then the subsequent reaction to that, the reversal and the submission. Fedor brought out guys willing to do things they wouldn't ordinarily or could do. And they would try it. It just, again, at that point in his career, it just didn't matter. This era will never be again, right? It'll never feel like it felt there in the past.

There were parts of early UFC, I don't mean early in 93, I mean 05, 06, where at times it still felt like this because that was the MMA climate at the time. Gunslingers, even if you're skilled, gunslingers going out there and just going after it. You'll never find a time like this stretch of the Pride Heavyweight division.

I know some guys floated down to Light Heavyweight, whatever, but, dude, this stretch, these are insane fights of all-time greats that all collided in the same organization at the same time, and it had the best rules we've ever seen, the best presentation. Like, dude, this is it. This is it.

This is what made people fall in love. If you watched Pride when it was around, you're lucky. You're lucky. I didn't watch it day by day. I caught it, you know, those years later recaps and all that kind of stuff online. I never watched it live. I didn't even know it was, you know, I didn't have that same access and connection at the time. I was following the bigger people in UFC, but it was a boxing stretch for me.

Dude, this is, I want to go back, get a lot of Delta H and just rewatch the entire thing in order, year by year, card after card. You might be asking, what's the significance of beating Kevin Randleman

all the way back in 2004? Kevin Randleman was a top five opponent back then. He was top five. Then BC, very quickly, he fights Noya Ogawa. This is one of my favorite Fatal War fights. We won't talk about it very much, hardly

at all, but Ogawa refused to shake his hands at the face-off there in the middle of the ring, and the crowd goes, ooh. Ogawa was a judo medalist, a silver medalist in the Olympics. Fedor did not take kindly to his lack of professionalism, because Fedor stuck his gloves out to touch, and Ogawa refused.

So Fedor beat the fucking shit out of him in 54 seconds, and that closed the show, which brings us, BC, to the second Noguera fight, which was stopped at just 352 of round one. Tell me this. Morrow had a quote in the build to this fight, which we learned a little bit. We can't say we didn't learn anything in this fight.

I'll get to that in a second. Morrow called this the most prestigious tournament in MMA history. What was the setup that led to the second Nog versus... I know that they had to fight two fights in the same night. So Big Nog beats Sergey Haritanov in an absolute war over two rounds, gets the decision, is allowed to advance. And who did Fedor beat that night?

He beat Ogawa. Okay, so it's the same night. So he fights these two, and he goes from Ogawa in the same night to Big Nog. So was this matchup, this rematch, that had to be in terms of your anticipations that it could happen that night? Yeah, well, this was the full 2004 tourney, the heavyweight tourney. And this was supposed to be the finals of it with the semi and then the final in the same night.

And then it just didn't get off because of an accidental cut. So what's the story here ultimately? What can we really infer from the second fight? Well, Nog nog after losing that first fight to fedor had gone five and oh he defeated rico rodriguez crow cop for the interim heavyweight title and heath herring among that stretch but i think luke it wouldn't fully be taught to us until the third fight but nog figured out how how to be dangerous on the ground to dissuade fedor from from controlling him in top position for the whole round.

If you look back at the first fight, except for the final sequences of each round, when Big Nog would finally make a transition on the ground, right away in the second fight, and this led into the third fight, Lucas, the second fight was stopped when Fedor got that vicious cut. And, dude, has there ever been a grosser cut? Has there been a wider, grosser cut that you've ever seen

than the one on Fedor? I've seen some pretty gross ones. It's up there. Would you agree that the second fight at least showed us the tease that we'd see in the third, that Fedor no longer wanted to be down there full time with him? Introducing the new McSpicy from McDonald's. It looks like a regular chicken sandwich, but it's actually a spicy chicken sandwich. McSpicy.

Consider yourself warned. Limited time only. At participating McDonald's in Canada. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Fedor was now willing to leg kick while standing while Nag was on the ground. Nag would always pull guard in some of these situations, get touched with a punch and pull guard. But it was enough of a threat to make Fedor want to time his darts in on the ground rather than just go in there on the mat. I wouldn't say he was careless in the first fight, but he was comfortable, comfortable.

And I think Naguera was trying to dissuade some of that, put him a little bit more on edge. We just didn't get a whole lot out of it. So we fast forward now to Pride Shockwave 2004. So the first fight was in – excuse me, the second fight was in August of that year. Now we're in New Year's Eve, which in Japan is the biggest night of the year by far. For folks who may not know, Japanese New Year's Eve is equivalent to our Super Bowl. It's a huge night where Japanese families, and I'm not making this up.

Yes, of course, going out is part of it. But Japanese tradition is to get together as a family and to watch the biggest TV programming that night. But let me ask you a question. You can tell me if I'm wrong. So obviously they thought the final of this tournament would have been finished in the second Big Nug versus Fatal Fright, which we just talked about, which was a no contest. So it had to delay it to New Year's Eve. Typically, would you say Fatal would fight more attraction fights on New Year's Eve before this,

or is that not true? I'm not sure if that was actually. I'd have to go back and look. I think he fought Yuji Nagata, which was the Inaki fight, when he had the falling out with Pride back in 2003. But in general, I'm not sure how true. Okay, so how big was this? New Year's Eve 2004, Pride shockwave there, the third fight, Big Nog versus Fedor.

What do you remember about that? The stakes, the anticipation, the feel? 40,000 people in attendance. I didn't have as much trepidation about Fedor winning, but I wanted to see how he got it done. How does he actually pull this off? Because this is technically a unification, this third one, because Big Nog had beaten Cro Cop for the interim title.

Correct. Why was there a need for an interim title? Because Fedor had the falling out in the end of 2003 with Pride, took the one fight with Inaki, and then he came back, but then that's when they set the tournament in, and then he still claimed he was the actual heavyweight champion, but they had awarded the interim, and so blah, blah, blah. So this was also a title unification.

40,000 people in Japan. Obviously, you mentioned Mauro Ranallo, Boz Rutten on the call, and BC. No, Mauro Ranallo, Boz Rutten, and Randy Couture on the call. Randy Couture, yes. I forgot, yes. That's my favorite team of all time, and I know they didn't do it a lot,

but to see them come together here and knowing that Randy wanted to be a future Fedor opponent in the way that he was talking about both. Before I let you transition, though, dude, what was up with the pronunciations back then? Because Randy went full-time with Fedor as if it's like a hat or something, and Boss was doing Fyodor, but he was making it sound like he was saying Theodore, and then Mora was doing more of a modified not quite Fedor but not quite Theodore.

He would do something right in the middle. So the way it was explained to me by Fedor's people is, again, I don't speak Russian, and if I'm wrong, I'm happy to correct me. My understanding is the proper pronunciation is something more along the lines of Fyodor, like a F-Y-O-D-O-R, rather than Fy or Faye, Fyodor. So you can get all kinds of weird varieties as a consequence. And again, he had risen to prominence, but I think that MMA was growing

in many ways. The Ultimate Fighter was being shot around this time, or not far from this time, but MMA was growing east a little bit, and the Japanese, for folks who were in on it, this was still, some of it was somewhat new, or, you know, just not fully explained, and so people were making some of these kinds of errors. But BC or, you know, just not fully explained.

And so people were making some of these kinds of errors. But BC, here's what I took from this fight. Fedor wins it, and he wins it relatively convincingly, in fact, by the third round. I would say the third round of this fight reminded me of most of the rounds of the first fight, right? By that point, Noguera had settled in. I'm not saying he had given up, but he just didn't have any other answer at this point. Fedor was doing ground and pound in this fight, but as you noticed, much more selective about it,

using stomps and soccer kicks at times. And almost dancing. Dancing, he'd kick the calf while Nog was on his back and was making Nog come to him. There was a lot of stand-ups. And if you notice, Fedor's boxing from the outside. Not a traditional boxing sense where you're using the jab to build. It was more of like lead right hand.

Yes. But his ability, once he had it, okay, he would use the first 10 minutes of round one to do batshit crazy things and wear you out. There's a sequence in round one in this trilogy about where Fedor, this gnarly combo, he hits a right hand into a takedown attempt. And as soon as Nag pulls guard, he plays it into a soccer kick and just fluid transition, which is crazy.

But after, if his opponent survived the first round, Fedor would start to snipe more from the outside. And in this fight particularly, dude, he's still so quick. We know what he can do in terms of taking you down and ground a pound, but he can also own distance and be there and not be there for the counter shot, dude. Fedor at this level, at this time in the evolution of the sport, was so masterful. It's ridiculous.

Dude, he did it again he did it again and also here's now get a couple scares a couple near submission attempts normally at the end of the rounds but dude he beat him twice i mean this is this is the only guy that could do this to nog at this point no garrett did get a takedown to the end of the first 10 minute round but it was not much to really do with it it was very close to the end of the round bc this is what i took from it not only did Fedor make some adjustments about where he played the fight, but also he beat Noguera standing. He beat Noguera on the ground.

He beat Noguera with the wrestling. He beat Noguera basically everywhere. Noguera couldn't say, well, the first fight, you could say, well, he beat me on the ground. Let's see how we do stand-up. Because remember, at this time, Big Nog was training with the Cuban boxing national team. Yes. So he was really trying

to work on his hands for this fight. It didn't matter. It didn't change the equation at all. It was not quite the beatdown that the first fight was. That is true. Nogueira, I thought, took some big shots, but not nearly as many as the first one, but he just could never get anything going. There was a

sequence at the end of that 10-minute first round, though, where twice Fedor dropped him with big shots, and then there was a sequence at the end of that 10-minute first round, though, where twice Fedor dropped him with big shots, and then there was a sequence after that where Nog was on his feet, but look, he was absorbing just hellacious right hands one by one. Morrow actually made the comment. Do you remember this? Morrow openly questioned whether Big Nog

will pay the price at the end of his life for all of the damage that he's taken in these fights because, I mean, look, this is the third time they fought, but this was the second time where there was such a violent stretch of one big shot after another that would have knocked out anybody else, and he's just shaking it off like it's nothing. Dude, that's back then Morrow had the, you know, almost the kind of like that thought of like, man, this is fun to watch,

but how much is too much here? Right. So in any case, I want to point out Fedor was now at this point, his record, 21-1. He had beaten Noguera twice. No controversy this time on like the second time, which we had indicated was with the cut. This was the guy. This was the guy at heavyweight. No doubt about it. Now we're into 2005. Now the ultimate fighter has launched over in the UFC and it brings us to BC. There were some other fights after this one. Obviously, he had the fight against Toshiko Saka, who was this previous rival, was a big Japanese name. He couldn't do shit to him. And it brings us to Pride Final Conflict 2005. This took place in August of 2005.

BC, I remember this one so fucking clearly. I didn't watch this live, but this was the first fight where I had to start to like, okay, who is this Fedor guy? I got to take it seriously because Crow Cop was coming on, even though he'd been up there before and he'd been knocked out by Randleman. He had four straight stoppage wins entering in here, meaning Krokop. That was a TKO of Barnett, a sub of Kevin Randleman and a KO of Mark Coleman. So you could not have beaten more prestigious names to get to this level.

And also don't forget, don't forget, Krokop had knocked out Alexander Emelianenko, his brother, when Fedor was backstage. And at the time, Fedor and his brother were much closer. They were part of the same team. They were with Russian top team together. Then they founded their own club, Red Devil Fight Club, and it went on from there. But so there was, you knocked out my brother.

You're clearly the number one contender at this point. This was a build. And by the way, what did Krokop have? He had great strikes. Obviously, he was a kickboxer. And at that point, he had worked on really good takedown defense. And a chin, too. And a chin.

But so you're thinking to yourself, how is Fedor going to fight someone who's better on the feet? Yes. And he figured it out. So this was named Fight of the Year and Fight of the Decade. And even though I've watched it before, you know, probably a couple years after it took place, dude, I forgot how fun and awesome this fight actually was, dude. That's the part about pride during this era

there's a lot of old eras of MMA that don't hold up and I'm not saying all of these fights do, but many of them do. Now there's moments in the second and third round but they're different from the first. The first is 10 minutes of mayhem. This is a time capsule of how great this version of MMA can be and these are the, maybe, I mean,

Nog in this category too, but at this moment, these were the two best at what they did. I mean, the back and forth transitions, the ability to both hurt each other and counter each other with big shots that they hurt. Crow Cop showed on a striking level that he's just as good as Fedor in this. And that's why they were... Not quite. Not quite

in the full game together, but he could hang with him and he could take some big shots. Whereas Nog was just taking the big shots and not having his own striking moments for the most part. Here was Krokop having some moments in there. And now never with the home run strike, which was the big kick, you know, left foot ambulance. Right leg ambulance, left leg cemetery. But the constant threat, especially in that first round,

the constant threat that it was coming, and then a couple times he did it, and dude, Fedor just barely got out of the way about two of those, and Fedor was also coming out with high kicks of his own. That's something that we don't regularly see in his offense. Obviously, a much younger version of him. He was willing to put that in to show Crow Cop that that threat was there, too. Fedor's eye was fucked up at the end of that first round.

Ten minutes. He would have continuous problems with that eye, by the way, throughout the course of his career. Those up kicks from Krokop were lethal, dude. Yeah. Both guys finding offense in unique ways and wherever it was. And, BC, here's what I also remember about the fight. And this is what I remember before it ever got started,

but I felt it throughout. Once it settled into the third round, again, not so much. Right. But through the first particular, dude, the amount of tension in the fucking room, there's 50,000 people there, and you could cut the tension with a knife. You couldn't believe how incredible it was.

Dude, every time Cro Cop would barely miss a high kick, the crowd would... And dude, do you remember in the middle of that first round, he just misses a high kick. Fedor quickly transitions to take him down, but the momentum sends Fedor through the ropes. Like, there was just some bat-chick crazy swings of momentum there that was sick.

But second and third round, Fedor started figuring out the distance, and it became that right hand, dude. When he could start to time you, I'm not going to compare it to... I'm going to say it's a little bit different. Go ahead. So the lesson for me from this fight was, what did he learn about Krokop that could keep Krokop off balance? Again, first 10 minutes, bananas. But what he eventually figured out was he got him backing up

and not in huge ways, because if you just pressure Krokop, he'll beat you at that too. But what he got him to do was slightly readjust position by pushing him backwards so he could never set his feet for the big attack in a dominant way. Krokop is not a volume guy in that sense. He can throw big combinations and he's got the big attack in a dominant way. Crow Cop is not a volume guy in that sense. He can throw big combinations, and he's got the big strike potential, but he's not going to pop you with volume. So Fedor figured out, if I could get this guy inching backwards all the time, he can't ever set to throw his big kick,

and that's what also a lot of people eventually wound up doing to Edson Barboza. Pressure him so he can't actually set down and use a dynamic kicking game of his? I have a key question here. This was August 28th, 2005, the biggest heavyweight fight of all time in the sports history. Fedor would go on to eight more wins after this before that losing streak started, ending the 10-year, 27 fight, or 28 fight unbeaten streak with a one-no contest in there. But was this the mountaintop? Was this the very best he ever was? And even though he was still great afterwards and still great to a certain

degree today, never, ever better than, than this, this, this was, this was, I mean,

it was all, even when he beat Noguera, this, he was the king of the mountain, but this was so big. This was so dramatic. This was so clear that it was the number. This. But this was so big. This was so dramatic. This was so clear that it was the number.

This is why it was so important. There was just no doubt this was number one versus number two heavyweight on the planet. That's what this was. No question about it. That's exactly what it was. Number one versus number two. I think both guys were in. Certainly Fedor was in his 20s at the time. I have to go back and look at Crow Cop's age.

I think it was similar. So we're talking about guys in their prime at the time. I have to go back and look at Crow Cop's age. I think it was similar. So we're talking about guys in their prime, at the best, with an enormous audience there for all the bragging rights, for revenge for his brother. This was the peak.

And what was he? 22 and one, I think. Or excuse me, I think he ended up being 23 and one heading into this contest. An insane record of dominance. An insane record.

Now, the narrative at times pushed by UFC during the back-and-forth war, words between Vadami and Dana, you know, during that sequence, was that essentially after this time, Fedor still stayed on a lot of people's number one pound-for-pound list or the idea that he's the greatest heavyweight in the world and of all time. But I think sometimes the narrative became, okay, this became the beginning of soft matchmaking

and fighting more Hong Man Choi type fights, but that's not the case when you look at this eight-fight stretch between the Crow Cop win, which is like the mountaintop, and eventually the Fabrizio Verdum loss and the transition to Strikeforce. Yeah. It's actually not.

I mean, okay, Zulu Zeno is a wild card fight, but he rematches Mark Coleman, fights Mark Hunt, Matt Linlin. Okay, you got Hong Min Choi in there. But Matt Linlin was a middleweight. All right, I hear what you're saying there. And also the famous thing in the Matt Linlin fight was Fedor grabbed the ropes on a takedown.

So would you say, though, that that was the beginning of a stretch of soft matchmaking for sure? So, I mean, you got to remember, during this era, so historically speaking, this is when the Yakuza was beginning to cause problems for for pride remember they were sold in 2007 so this is not long after this about a year and a half after this basically um and so he was able to bounce around a little bit so to your point he fought zulozinho then mark coleman pride 32 which was the one in las vegas that's the famous

card where folks don't remember where nick diaz go-go-plotted Takanori Nomi. Oh, yeah. Famous card that he fought in Bodog fight, Matt Lindland, but he grabbed the ropes on that one. It was kind of weird. And then he beat Hong Man Choi in the Yurinoka fight, which was also kind of weird. And then it was pride just went away,

and so there was just all this. It was just a moment of transition. It was the WAMA era. It was the WAMA era. So it takes us now all the way back to 2008. So I got to ask you before you get into these, because we're going to talk about back-to-back affliction pay-per-view fights. And to a certain degree, they were received as somewhat legitimate at the time.

Yes, they were. Especially since this new WAMA heavyweight championship is on the line. And the first one was Tim Sylvia, who you wouldn't say was in his prime anymore, but he wasn't considered washed up entering this fight. But I want to ask you on the whole, what was the idea? You know, what was Affliction?

I mean, it was a t-shirt company that suddenly was a chief competitor for the UFC. Yeah, that's a strong word. I mean, I think it was the first

Affliction show they had, like, let's take a break and just watch Megadeth play. And I remember I got killed. At the time, I was editor-in-chief of BloodyElbow.com.

And I remember getting killed being like, who the fuck, why the fuck is Megadeth? Get these guys out of here. What are you doing? Meanwhile, the trailer's like, that's BloodyElbow.com, and I remember getting killed being like, who the fuck, why the fuck is Megadeth, get these guys out of here, what are you doing? Meanwhile, Triller's like, that's a great idea. Yeah, I know, that's why when Triller did it, I was like, guys, I've seen this movie before,

you know where you're headed? Bankruptcy. Hey, did that end up being right? Oh, it did. Do you guys need help with moneying? I got friends over at the... Yeah, yeah, just pointing out, it's like every time you guys disagree with me,

just be sure that we haven't seen this movie before. Anyway, we had, but they were, at the... Yeah, yeah. Just pointing out, it's like, every time you guys disagree with me, just be sure that we haven't seen this movie before. Anyway, we had. But they were, at the time, Ed Hardy shirts were very popular, and Affliction had sort of made garish, awful T-shirts. They are awful. They are awful. And they wanted to be a part of the MMA business, so they decided to launch a show.

Now, at the time, they had presented it as more than just a show, that we're going to be an alternative to the UFC, but, of course, that's very, very difficult to do. Nevertheless, the shows did attract a lot of attention. Affliction 1, as I mentioned, July 17th in 2009, it had Tim Sylvia on the card. Can you mention that without mentioning the Donald Trump influence? Was he the financial backer in this? He, I'm not sure if he was a financial backer or not.

I don't recall him being. But he was competing against his old friend Dana, right? He was trying to get into the business. A little bit, yes. That's right. He was a supporter of them. And this had done like around, I think, 100,000 pay-per-view buys and a $2 million gate.

Sylvia had come into this as the previous champion. But to your point, BC, he was, you know, a lesser version of himself. Yeah, not quite Ray Mercer level fights. He had beaten, in 2006, Arlovsky again, then Jeff Monson, then he lost to Couture in Couture's major comeback. He rebounded against Brandon Vera, who was probably competing at the wrong weight class. Then he lost to Noguera.

And then he was, by the way. Was that where he got his arm broken, or was that the Frank Mir? That was Frank Mir. He got submitted by Noguera, but I want to point out something. He was beating the bejesus out of Noguera before Noguera turned it around, which made it a legendary Noguera performance. And it's a loss on Sylvia's record. But if you watch that fight, Sylvia was piecing Noguera up in that contest big time.

So then he leaves the UFC, right, having lost two of his last three. But in general, still like a viable contender. And so you thought, okay, finally, finally, Fedor's going to fight. Pride's gone. Fedor's free. In the States, too. In the States, we're going to have Fedor. This was his U.S.-American debut.

We're going to get him versus a former UFC heavyweight champion who's not washed. All right, this is going to tell us something. Well, it told you that Fedor was many things, not least of which a terrible matchup for Tim Sylvia. What do you remember? And I watched this pay-per-view live while working at ESPN. I was working behind the scenes at MMA Live at the time. So I had some elements of my job was actually covering the mixed martial arts scene. Randy Couture, Jake Lazor, Frank Trigg on commentary.

But they did have Michael Buffer. I mean, parts of it I look back and it feels minor leagues. But parts of it also felt big heading into that. So here was the blessing and the curse of it. I actually tweeted this yesterday on my own personal Twitter account. I found in doing research for this, just to go back and watch, we're going to talk about in just a second, the Fedor versus Verdum fight and how Jimmy Lennon Jr. did the intros for Strikeforce

and how cool it was to hear a guy like Jimmy Lennon Jr. do MMA fighters. So classy. I got to tell you, I had the exact same feeling listening to Michael Buffer call these ones. It was great. So they spent money in a tell you, I had the exact same feeling listening to Michael Buffer call these ones. It was great. So they spent money in a lot of ways that now look like very cool. At the time,

they did not make their money back on pay-per-view and they had huge, huge debts to pay essentially in terms of both what they owed the fighters and then the show itself. They didn't make any money.

They tried again and then it was a disaster. They tried a third one which Josh Barnett kind of fucked up for him. One thing I don't remember in hindsight, I wonder if you do, was Dana counter-promoting this? Was he trashing it publicly? He was trashing it publicly. In fact, he, the guy who was in charge of affliction, uh, Dana was calling him the t-shirt

guy and he would make a big argument. He was like, imagine that people just said, we're going to be an alternative to NASCAR and we're going to call ourselves, this is what his thing was, was called, we're going to call ourselves gas car and we're thing was, was called, we're going to call ourselves Gas Car, and we're just going to be different. Dana said that? Yeah, that was his. You mean the CEO of Power Slab said that? Yes, that was his big retort. Gas Car.

But, you know, in general, what he really did have was, this is where Dana, the, you know, the megalomaniac controller comes into play, but also Dana the fight fan, and he just knew, just knew what these shows cost and what was required and what kind of bandwidth they actually had, and sure enough they eventually imploded, but BC he catches Tim Sylvia

with a three-punch combination to start it off, basically. And I think we can loop this into the second and final Affliction pay-per-view here for Fedor, where he also took on Andrei Arlovsky which again, at the time you could make a case I mean, Arlovsky's career... Arlovsky was 29 at the time. After winning the heavyweight championship and then losing and being in

those rivalries there, I mean, there were some peaks and valleys. So it's hard to remember, of course, exactly what we were thinking of him at this time. But those were both credible fights. But was it the fact that Fedor mopped up on them so easily? Do you think that almost hurt his standing? Like, these two fights in a way can say, okay, here's two guys from the UFC that Fedor getsped up on them so easily. Do you think that almost hurt his standing?

Like these two fights in a way can say, okay, here's two guys from the UFC that Fedor gets to fight in the States. So it could justify those that stand on the line that say, no, Fedor is the best heavyweight even though he hasn't fought in the UFC. Obviously by this point, the UFC has passed out pride and even strike, he's competing with Strikeforce,

but you get my point here. He almost beat him too easily where it almost made those opponents look like they were no longer ready for primetime. Well, yes and no. Sylvia, yes. I mean, Sylvia just got completely mowed down. The story for me of Arlovsky is interesting.

Arlovsky was landing the right hand several times. He fought well. And push kicked Fedor into the ropes. And then if you watch it in real time, you're like, how did Arlovsky fall? And then you see he ate a huge punch jumping on the way in. Again, to me though, at the time we were like, okay, Arlovsky showed that Fedor is human, but Fedor is also Fedor, right? Where again, sometimes they're just dealing. And then sometimes the reality about a guy that good, a champion that good is you're going to get dealt with at times you have to come back.

And he did. People made more of the Arlovsky success than deserved to be, but Arlovsky did perform ably and did show he could be hurt and landed on. And it was an interesting way to sort of think about it. Let me correct myself in real time. Arlovsky entered that Fedor fight on a five-fight win streak. Yes.

In some of the names, a decision went over Fabricio Verdum, a knockout of Jake O'Brien, a knockout of Ben Rothwell, a knockout of Roy Nelson under the lead. Yeah, dude, that's a pretty goddamn good run. So, yeah, he came in there absolutely legit. The Fedor loss, though, would be the beginning of a four-fight losing streak

where we began to count him out, but he was, even up until today, he's always found a way to reboot. Okay, so affliction goes away. Fedor gets those two wins over known American names. Do you remember that transition period between what's going to happen next and what ultimately led to the cross promotions between Scott Coker and Strikeforce and M1 Global?

Basically, Dana and the UFC promised that they were going to sign Fedor. They went to a private island to meet with him and they were like, we're going to make this happen. They threw a ton of money at him. We've had this Francis Ngannou conversations and these are different. I just don't think Fedor liked Dana White as a person.

Yes. Or at a bare minimum, just didn't like the way he did business, which was very American, hard-nosed, in-your-face. You know, we'll pay you a lot of money, but, you know, we run the show and you're here with us. I mean, UFC was never going to co-promote with K-1 like Coker was willing to. M-1. Like Coker was willing to do in order to make that happen.

That's right. They were never going to let that happen. And by the way, it was successful. They ended up on CBS, you know, and doing 5.4 million peak viewers against Brett Rogers, which we'll get to in a second. But I get it. If that was the point of no return on the negotiations for UFC,

I get why it didn't happen. You wish it could have happened. It is the heavyweight fight that got away. Maybe Jones and Gano will become that as well. But as it stands in your memory banks at this point, who would have won? Randy or Fedor if they fought right here after Fedor had gotten out of pride, the unbeaten

streak still alive. He just knocked out the two best heavyweights he could face in affliction. Who wins Randy versus Fedor right here right now in 2009? Probably Fedor, but that's very hard to say. Very hard to say because I could see him, especially in the cage, getting trapped and getting beat

up on. In fact, that would happen in 2011. I was actually at that fight. So let's move on. Well, did you see any signs? Because we're going to move on into his Strikeforce run, which is the beginning of human Fedor, right? Yes. So did you see any signs before the Brett Rogers fight that he was human again?

The Arlovsky fight was the one where folks were beginning to say, again, Fedor pulled it out with Fedor tricks. But the fact that he was getting touched up as easily as he was by Arlovsky made people go, hmm, that's interesting. And then, of course, they had this big attempt by the UFC to sign him. It doesn't work. Strikeforce has this huge press release. I'll never forget getting it.

I was actually taking a shower, and I looked at my phone. I was like, holy fucking shit. This is, no, sorry. I had gotten out and checked my laptop. And then I told my wife we actually couldn't go to a family thing because I had to cover the news. Anyway, so he ends up fighting Brett Rogers on

CBS in the main event. And he wins in just the second round. But BC, the first punch from old Brett Rogers, it breaks Fedor's nose and bloodies him up. It's a jab. It's a counter jab. It's a jab.

What do you remember from this bout? I remember thinking the beginning of, oh, my God, is Fedor human? But what I didn't remember in hindsight, I always remember because I watched it live. It was a monster deal. Dude, it peaked 5.4 million viewers on CBS. I mean, this was as big at that moment in time where TV was and ratings and expectations. This was big. Fedor was a 6-1 favorite coming in. Brett Rogers

was 10-0, but when they made this matchup, we were like, oh, Rogers is a puncher. This could be fun. But I remember distinctively thinking, dude, Rogers is going to be out of his element in this fight, you know, skill for skill. He's probably going to gas out. He's going to get handled. To some degree, that still happened. I still can't believe what happened in the lead-up happened,

which is that counter-jab early busts Fedor's nose open and becomes a problem with his breathing. And also, dude, we have to give Brett Rodgers credit. Now, his career would kind of begin to slowly unravel along with his personal life after this fight. This is certainly his mountaintop moment in terms of being in as big of a fight. But, dude, he showed out the best he could.

He was not remotely afraid of the aura of Fedor which dude it happens to a lot of people and whether it was their transitions on the ground or him getting out of submission attempts or him just standing up and being physical along the cage dude there were a couple moments of his Fedor in over his head here against just a hungry guy that maybe he he you know he didn't anticipate I thought that folks kind of exaggerated a little bit of his weaknesses, but I thought that, you know, one of the things that really began to, this was the first time I had thought Fedor really athletically slowed down. He wasn't the biggest heavyweight, but by virtue of his explosivity

and he was strong and his speed, he could just kind of manipulate guys and move them around. And it didn't work against Brett Rodgers. He was way too strong. It's one sequence that's really the highlight clip for Rodgers, but when he landed about four straight punches. It reminded me of Fedor Onogera from their first fight where he was bopping the head back.

It reminded me of Silva on Fedor coming up here too, but he actually got out of an armbar attempt too. So that was the beginning of thinking, dude, it's kind of caught up with Fedor because Rodgers, I gave credit for being that ballsy, but you didn't think he's world-class at that point, correct? You thought he was tough. He was 10-0 with 10 first-round KOs.

I'm not trying to say, but it wasn't the same as Shane Carlin. And by the way, I think he had beaten, I believe he had beaten Arlovsky on the way to that point. Correct. He had knocked him out inside of a round. 22 seconds. Right. So you were like, okay.

But that was like one of Arlovsky's like really bad moments in his career. He essentially rebounded obviously quite well. Um, but this was the first time I did see him athletically, not quite have the same, you know, remember if you're muscling around and moving around Kevin Randleman, you gotta be doing something right.

He couldn't do it to Brett Rogers. He was just too big. And Rogers gas, dude. He Rogers gas. But then fade or did what fade or at that point had always done miracles. And he landed a fucking bomb of a right hand. The sound of that, rewatch it.

The sound of that is insane. It's like a firework going off. And it actually not only just drops Rodgers, it actually spins him a little bit the same. And that was really all she wrote, which delivered for CBS. And by the way, created controversy. Because between the Arlovsky and now Rodgers fights, you're like, wait a second, I've seen Fedor hurt.

I've seen him bleed. We haven't seen him really bleed that like, oh, that's not quite true. We haven't seen him bleed and also look vulnerable in the way that he did. This was a culmination of like weaknesses beginning to pile up on each other, which led to arguably the worst stage of his career. No question about it. A three-fight losing streak. Let's just put it out there.

He loses to Fabrizio Verdum. I think you have to stay there for a second. Let me just read them out real quick. Fabrizio Verdum, which was in June of 2010. Then in, let's see, February of 2011, he lost to Antonio Silva. By the way, he got stopped in that one. And then he got stopped by Dan Henderson in July of that year. Go ahead.

I don't think you can go that fast because not only was the silver the announcement of the Strikeforce Grand Prix, which having Overeem and Verdum under the banner along with Fedor was a legitimate idea of we are competing with the UFC. There was a damn video game by EA Sports, right? Yes. That Strikeforce, like I remember wanting that so badly.

Dude, tell me if I'm true. Of everything that's happened in Fedor's career, and he's been in bigger fights, of course, like Crow Copper, and bigger moments like getting slammed on his head by Randleman to some degree. The where were you when it happened moment in Fedor's entire career for me is this Verdun fight. That's right. 27-0 with one no contest for nine and a half years coming in.

And he not only lost, dude, he kind of, I mean, he almost got subbed and he got out of it, and then he got subbed again, dude. It kind of was a bad look on top of that. Dude, that was a before and after moment. I remember what life felt like as an MMA fan before and then after, and even though the Rogers fight was a harbinger of the doom that could come,

this wasn't like Fedor got stopped. It wasn't as messy and gross as the Silva fight. This was, he just got caught in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, jiu-Jitsu 1, which was Gus's favorite. Well, I had this argument. I remember when Verdum fought Nogueira. I was like, dude, Verdum is way better on the ground than Nogueira. Nogueira had this aura

from his pride days as being like the best submission-oriented heavyweight. And I'm like, no, Verdum is radically better than him. Like, in every way, he's much better than him. Even this, and this was not the fully formed version of Verdum. This is a Verdun that had his shit rocked by Antonio Silva, right, and had barely eked out a win against

that guy, and you're like, okay, he's okay. And he could be vulnerable on the feet at this point. Super. Remember JDS uppercutted him and just dropped him down, but you knew from sport jiu-jitsu that Verdun had a sick guard. Obviously, he was a world champion in and out of the Gi, so you knew he was legit there. And BC, I went back and I watched this, and now I have a much more educated eye than before.

It was so funny. How does he win? Fedor drops him, right, and tries to get on top. A triangle nearly gets locked up, and he can't quite do it, and Fedor gets out of it. But what does Verdum do? Verdum, instead of getting his legs passed to the side, he just inverts and rolls to the back of his neck.

And when he does, he's able to reorient his guard right underneath Fedor. At the time, Fedor never was able to get out of it. The way to get out of's able to reorient his guard right underneath Fedor. At the time, Fedor never was able to get out of it. The way to get out of it was to go where the fence was, which was blocking him, so he gets trapped in the guard again. And I'm sorry, dude. Once a black belt world champion has his triangle locked on you, and by

the way, this was like a minute into the fight, so you're fully dry. It's a wrap, homie. That is over. I remember so many videos were made by jiu-jitsu experts, Gracie Brothers and stuff about how this happened. It was considered a wrap, homie. That is over. I remember so many videos were made by jiu-jitsu experts, Gracie Brothers and stuff about how this happened. It was considered a monster victor for BJJ because Johnson called it out with his famous call of Brazilian jiu-jitsu finally dethrones the champion.

But dude, the idea of is Fedor the greatest heavyweight of all time or is it Randy and could that fight still happen was still so fresh heading into this fight because Dana famously tweeted what? Was it LOL or haha right after Fedor tapped? Maybe a smiley face or something. Yeah, something like that. That was just like the ultimate,

I told you guys he was fighting can crushers, even though that's not the accurate. Meanwhile, it was actually the toughest heavyweight that they had. But dude, that was insane, that moment. It was like everything we believed. It's Silva getting dropped by Weidman. It's finding out about Santa Claus.

That was that type of moment, dude. It was GSP getting knocked out by Sarah. That's what it was. Like, however big that was for you, it was that. I will never forget Verdum's celebration. The look on his face. I'll never forget that moment, that stunned feeling of like, holy shit. Dude, you can see the Showtime execs with their headsets on, like the production

team. Gob smack. They're like, oh, they can't believe it. I was like that, too. I'm not even mad at them. I was like that, too. And also, the crowd in San Jose, quiet as a church mouse. I find it crazy that we never got a Crow Cop rematch for Fedor, because considering Fedor

is still fighting. I find it crazy we never got a Verdum rematch, considering how quick that was. I know. But, Luke, that suddenly changed the idea of exactly where Fedor, considering Fedor's still fighting. I find it crazy we never got a Verdum rematch, considering how quick that was. I know. But, Luke, that suddenly changed the idea of exactly where Fedor's at. Like we said, now you go back to the Rodgers fight. We started to see a lot. It's culminating. But yet we still have this monster tournament to announce,

and we know what happened. They wanted Overeem versus Fedor more than anything. Put him on the same side of the bracket. We didn't get there. It didn't happen. And a big reason why is because Antonio Bigfoot Silva, while we talk about him much differently now, dude this point he had put things together and he was becoming something yeah he folks forget silva now has turned into i hate to say it a bit of a punchline

at least certainly a cause for concern but he was the previous when this mattered he was the previous elite xc heavyweight champion he was a black belt in jujitsu i remember he went on to beat guys like travis brown he went on to, or no, he beat Overeem as well in UFC. Like, he was far, far from, not even done, far from his peak at this point. And BC, I was actually at this fight. I'm still mad at Strikeforce to this day. I've told you about this. They held

this fight at the Izod Center in some absolutely horrible part of New Jersey. Newark. No, Izod Center? Where's the Izod Center? Oh, that's East Rutherford, right? East Rutherford, yes. It's way down there. So that's the old Brendan Byrne Arena. That's where the Nets played, yeah.

And I remember they sat me so far away from the cage. The real MMA media at the time, again, I was running SB Nation at the time. The real MMA media got to sit when it actually was the penalty box of the ice hockey rink. And they put me all the way back at the, there was literally not a seat behind me. Like the only thing behind me. And you still hold the Scratch today again. Yeah, so they put up pyrotechnics behind me, and when they lit the flames, I could feel them,

and I had to pay for travel out of my own pocket. Like this was back when, you know, because Vox Media is a terrible company. Whoa, whoa. They wouldn't send me anywhere, so I had to pay for this out of my own pocket. Vox Media was the professional matchmaker that made this happen. Yeah, in a way. But the point being is I paid for that out of my own pocket. Vox Media was the professional matchmaker that made this happen. Yeah, in a way. But the point being is,

I paid for that out of my own pocket, the hotel stay and everything, and they sat me all the way in the back so when the pyrotechnics were on, I could feel the heat on my neck. And the Izod Center screen was so small, BC, I couldn't see the fights or the screen. It actually ended up being a giant waste of time that I went.

So was it Danny Brenner's fault or not? That's the real question in hindsight. I've asked Danny Brenner about that. He has denied it, but I don't know. I actually don't know who's at fault. I got similar seats for the second, no, the first, I'm sorry, the first Canelo Triple G,

and I'll never forgive Golden Boy for this. I got similar just put out to pasture where the ring post is blocking you from the corner and you're far away, but who cares? Luke, this knocked him out of the tournament, but even worse than this, dude. Like, this was one of the saddest moments of my MMA fandom.

Dude, just the way that Silva beat him, and then this is what really always stands out to me because I had to stand up and watch. I'll never forget standing up and looking across and seeing Antonio Bigfoot Silva mounted on top of Fedor, raining punches like this, and Fedor unable to move him. Dude, he wasn't even up.

Forget blocking them. He wasn't even in his face to turn into hamburger. And because of Fedor's reputation for taking a beating, they did kind of let this go on, right? They did. They let it go too far. It kind of went on too far. And it was a monster moment for Silva,

and he would go on to kind of put over Daniel Cormier, getting dropped by one punch. And this whole tournament, which was supposed to be about Overeem and Fedor, Fedor loses, Overeem gets hurt and pulls out. And it's late replacement Daniel Cormier that, of course, begins the start of his storied career. But, dude, I thought this was it for Fedor.

You had to think this was it. Maybe not it forever, but you had to think, like, this was the end of that run of thinking that he's not only immortal and a lot of that lost against Verdum, but even if you could talk yourself into the idea of against Verdum, he just got caught. He just got caught, dude. It was a stupid move, but he just got caught.

There was nothing about this that he just got caught. No, but I will say one piece of way in which we were discussing the fight at the time, which was, okay, he couldn't beat those guys. All right, fair enough. But Verdum is a huge guy, and Antonio Silva is a huge guy. Hello, his nickname is Bigfoot. He's too small for them. Strikeforce agreed.

So in the fight subsequent to that, they booked him Dan Henderson. Let's say what we will. Scott Coker's done a lot of great things in this game, and we always talk honestly about decisions being made like we would anybody else, even though we're all under the same flag. This is one of my favorite Scott Coker plays, like this right here. Like, you know what? We do have Hendo, who has experience in multiple

divisions, and we do have Fedor. What if we did put them together at a catchweight? They did, and this is one of my favorite fights of all time, and it doesn't actually last that long. Another one of Henderson's fights that's absolutely insane. What do you, what do you recall? Four minutes and 12 seconds. The return to Chicago here for strike force,

which along with San Jose was, was a big deal and a consistent draw for them. And Hoffman estates, Illinois there. But Luke Fader and the white gloves, which became a thing around this time in strike fortune. Anytime Fader's fighting with white, white gloves,

there's just something about it. You know, you get the blood on them or whatever, but Moro said it best. And the roof is literally coming off the Sears Center. The crowd had lost their shit in this fight in ways that I can only compare to like 1980s regional wrestling. You know what I mean? Like where those crowds are just like, it's so real to us, damn it, that we're willing to chase you down the aisle and throw our purse at you.

Because this fight was insanity of gopher broke punches because they were both stunned early and hendo was always great where if you heard him big time like fedor he was always had an ability to keep his head and still land intelligent hammer shots but they both went into full-on crazy video game caveman mode and it never got off of that no and they were dropped each other they would hurt each other and you didn't even know how it ended right you had to watch the replay like three times well you saw it henderson came up underneath the arm of theodore and he didn't ever see it because he was flat on his base like this so the punch hit here underneath his arm knocked his head back and then he fell forward and then henderson finished him off from there i think it was the right hand it was it wasn't the h-bomb but it was the hand that delivers the H bomb essentially.

And that polished him off there. And then at that four 12, and I got to tell you, BC, when he had lost three in a row at that point, again, two to very big, large heavyweights,

but then to Dan Henderson, who was a middleweight in certain ways, you were like, this might be the end of Fedor. This might be the end. What does that win mean for Dan Henderson's career? He's got so many great wins. Unfortunately, he never got to win the UFC title.

He's one of the best to never have done that. But, like, is that win just a crazy fight that he happened to win? Or do you look at that as one of his biggest accomplishments? One of his biggest accomplishments. Hendo was part of a gunslinger era. And he was one of the quintessential gunslingers for that era. He got better over time. He polished off his weapons and got slicker over time as well.

But he just always had a major punching advantage and a willingness to take on big challenges. And yeah, he would spectacularly lose sometimes. But dude, when he won, my god, it was thunderous every time. Morrow said this was the H-bomb against the F-bomb. I like that. Come on, that's an awful call.

And then Dan Henderson was able to parlay this, by the way, even though he got worked over by Jake Shields, he was able to parlay this to return to the UFC. He would actually go back and then later have great days with the Ultimate Fighting Championship. So now we're at a stage where Fedor is, I think, 31. He's 34. He's a few months away from turning 35.

But I'm saying his record, 31 and 4. So he's now lost four, but three legitimate, the one to Tio Chikosaka not so legitimate. But this is when he goes on a weird journey. Well, dude, this is when you thought it was officially over, right? Yeah, I thought it was over. Even though he was, what would I just say, about to be 35? Yeah, but, you know, he'd been fighting for a long time.

But the way in which he had lost these, especially the silver one, which stands out, but the way in which he had lost all three of them, even though obviously he could have won that Dan Hendo fight if something had just switched and gone his way. Dude, I felt like he had lost a considerable step after this. Yes. Well, remember also Strikeforce got bought out and absorbed into UFC. So the two organizations he had fought for previously, Pride and Strikeforce,

they're now taken up and they're now gone. And he just is lost into the wilderness. He had this relationship with M1. He fights Jeff Monson in November of 2011. He wins. He fights Satoshi Ishii in Dream on On New Year's Eve in 2011, he wins. He fought Pedro Hizzo, who was washed as shit at the time. Yeah, this is his barnstorming tour, correct?

Yes, and then he feeds a guy named Jaideep Singh, who you've never heard from since, in Rizin. He fought, now this is the one that also was really bad, BC. In 2016, because he didn't fight in 2013 or 14 at all, he had, I guess, retired following the Pedro Hizzo fight, came back in 2015 and fought Singh, and then in 2016 fought Fabio Maldonado at Fight Night's Global 50.

I hate that fight. Fabio Maldonado should have won that fight. They should have stopped it. He beat the living shit out of Fedor in this contest. That was, this is, I don't know, is it corrupt or inept? I was, so true story, BC. Fedor won a three-round majority decision.

I was live on the air when this fight was going on. In the afternoon, I remember that. And I was calling it on SiriusXM at the time and i remember being like this is a crime they haven't stopped this fight fedor lost badly in this one and they robbed maldonado and turn it into a decision win for him make no mistake fedor lost that one and lost it badly so he sits out a full year yet he's on a five fight win streak even though he got the crap beat out of him by Maldonado and didn't deserve the decision. And now he signs with Bellator.

And it's like, hmm, the coca relationship? Fedor feels like he's got a little bit left in the tank. I distinctly remember heading into Matt Mitrione fight, which was the co-main event of Bellator NYC at Madison Square Garden, and a pay-per-view with Chael Sonnen versus Vondrele Silva in the main event, which did have a certain level of, like, carny interest at that point, even though they were both past it themselves. Yes, it did.

And you had Pico's debut, and this was a big card, and you even had a title fight of Phil Davis versus Ryan Bader, which was an awful fight in the end, but... Big names. Big names. Lorenz Larkin was on the card. I remember entering the Bellator portion of the career thinking, okay, this is, you know, he had just barnstormed around the globe.

Dude, this is it. This is it. And it's probably not going to be pretty, and, you know, he had just barnstormed around the globe. Dude, this is it. This is it. And it's probably not going to be pretty and, you know, make a little money off of it. That's fine. Dude, do you look back on this Bellator run? And I want to talk about some of the specifics, but this what?

Six fight run entering into this title fight he's going to have for a second time. He's four and two in that six fight. Would you have imagined? So he comes back. He fights Mitrione. I was there that night. Mitrione stops him in what?

Minute and 14. But that doesn't even tell the full story of that minute 14. Well, he gets dropped. He fights Mitrione. I was there that night. Mitrione stops him in what? A minute and 14? But that doesn't even tell the full story of that minute and 14. Well, he gets dropped. The double knockdown. The double knockdown. But Mitrione was the one who recovered and then polishes him off. And you're like, okay, Fedor is done, done. He can't take any damage.

And then he fought Frank Mir in 2018. Dress it up. Bellator goes the route of Coker's old playbook of the heavyweight world grand prix. And even though it wasn't the same setting of when Strikeforce did it to legitimately compete against UFC, from an interest standpoint, you had Chael Sonnen in it. You had King Moe. You had Rampage Jackson.

Ryan Bader. Ryan Bader moving up, and you had some other legitimate heavyweight names in there. And, dude, this was like a revival tour in the end for Fedor, correct? Sort of. So he beats Frank Mir in round one with a nice shot that Frank Mir doesn't see coming, a left hand as he gets him to overcommit positionally, and he greets him here. That was really nice.

Then Chael Saunders, and he, you know, not a great fight for Chael. Let's just be honest about that. He was kind of floundering all over the place before Fedor basically shut the lights out with ground and pound, and then he fights Ryan Bader. Now, Ryan Bader polishes him off in 35 seconds. You're like, okay, Fedor's still got a little bit of punching power. He's still got a little bit of speed. He can beat some of these older guys.

He shouldn't be fighting any of the younger guys. Right. Again, it felt like another moment where it's like, okay, I've seen enough. Fedor's great, but that's probably it. 35 seconds, it was the best version of a refurbished Ryan Bader who figured out, really, I think, maybe his best weight class, right? Yeah, heavyweight at that time.

He goes back to light heavyweight, and Vadim Nemkov sends him packing. And that left hook he was using to win each step of the tournament, and, you know, he got King Mo out of there with it. Oh, he beat the shit out of Matt Mitrione. Out-wrestled him the whole way. Then King Mo, and then polished off Fedor. But I don't remember feeling like, okay, like, this is definitely an indictment against Fedor. It was more about Bader having his moment. And this was a big moment, their first fight for him. It was a million dollars, the tournament, vacant heavyweight championship. And of course you beat Fedor. Luke, I never would

have guessed that fight was January, 2019. If you would have told me, hey, three years later, these two are going to rematch on CBS for the title. And you're not going to be upset about it as a fan or journalist. You might say, okay, it's, it's kind of a gimmick. It's Fedor's last fight. But, dude, he can win this. And if anything, his two other fights, now the Rampage-Jackson fight in Japan. The Rampage fight is meaningless. I mean, Rampage was crazy fat. Let's just say it.

I mean, Rampage looked like one of us. I mean, that was just terrible. But did we expect when Fedor on October 23rd, 2021 went to Moscow for what we thought was his last fight, a Bellator fight. Timothy Johnson, I did not expect what we saw. A minute 46 into it, they're trading big punches and Fedor knocks him the hell out.

So here we are back three years after he lost to Bader and he in some ways still has the same puncher's chance because even though Ryan Bader is still the heavyweight champion, he's come down a peg from where he was as a two-division champion just due to age, right? I mean, he still got it at heavyweight, but he sort of hit his limit at the heavyweight champion. He's come down a peg from where he was as a two-division champion just due to age, right? I mean, he's still got it at heavyweight,

but he sort of hit his limit at light heavyweight. Bader's still going to be a big favorite, yet old Fedor still has quick hands, the willingness to get in there and trade, and that last thing that goes, that ridiculous power. I will say this. I'm glad his career's coming to a close. It's time.

It's probably been time, but it's time. And he's not the athletic dynamo that he once was. But he is still fast, relatively speaking, for heavyweight. And he is extremely powerful. And maybe Bader is the favorite and probably deserves to be the favorite. But Ole Fedor, for his last run, it would be foolish to write him off. It would be foolish. The only loss outside of the Silva one

that really still stings with me is the loss of the interview I was supposed to have on that media tour. What fight was that ahead of, Luke? Was that Bellator NYC? That was ahead of Bellator NYC when I was a newcomer at CBS Sports and I pitched to my people,

hey, I just got the phone with Danny Brenner. I could go, if I can expense a train ticket and go down and use the CBS radio studios, which by the way are the same studios that Mike Francesa uses, so I would like see him walk into the bathroom. The Pope. Yep.

And, you know, I was all excited and I interviewed King Moe and Bader and then Danny was like, oh, Luke Thomas, you know him, right? Yeah, yeah, I know him. He's going to interview Fedor first, but then we got a car bringing him over to the studios and you're going to get him BC.

And I'm not doing a bit, Luke. I had always wanted Fedor and had never been at any of his fights or had the chance to catch up with him. This has bothered you for a long time. And that was during an era where I was feeling myself at letting out the inner BC for the first time, not just in, like, fun situations,

but, like, in legitimate situations. And I wanted to take chances, and I'm like, Luke, I'm going to get the best interview anyone's ever gotten with Fedor. Yes, you need a translator. It's not going to be easy. But I'm going to ask him fun questions, and I'm going to bring out his personality.

You brought this up. And I watched it on my phone as you asked him about his favorite Russian books. No, fuck that. They brought him in studio. And movies. And quickly, and it was awkward. And you tried hard, and I'm not here to talk bad about you.

If you're in my seat, I'm on live. This is the MMA hour for the one year I hosted it. They brought this fucker in studio. God bless him. He wouldn't give me anything and I'm live and I'm like,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're going to be here with a full 20. I'm going to get my full 20 out of you. You're not going to leave me hanging. So you pressured him on things like Russian literature and movie and I get your angle. You were trying in a different way

what I was going to try to do, which is bring out the personality. He has no personality. He's got the same face at all times. And then I got the call. Fader will be doing no more interviews the rest of the day. The rest of his media tour is canceled.

And having watched that interview, I knew exactly why. So thanks, Luke. Here we are today. I guess my bonus prize is you and Morning Combat, and I guess I'll take it. Yeah, you ended up going into business with me. I just want to point that out.

That's how much it bothered you. You ended up being my business partner. I was like, that bitch. I bet he'll vape one day, that piece of shit, right? He was right. Yeah. Well, listen, we could spend a whole other hour, two, three, four, talking about Fedor's career,

but we hope this gives you, if you missed out on some of the glory days and some of the not-so-glory days, we we hope this gives you, if you missed out on some of the glory days and some of the not-so-glory days, we still hope this gives you something of an appreciation for a remarkable career for one of the very best athletes and one of the very best fighters who's ever graced the professional mixed martial arts. Final question as we head into February 4th.

Win or a loss for Fedor in his final fight. Is there an argument still that he's the greatest fighter of all time? Is that a viable argument in 2020? No, no. Not best independent of weight class, but certainly with top five pound for pound all time. Is he the best heavyweight ever?

Yeah, probably. Wow. There you go. He's just, he was a special guy, a really special guy. And if you didn't catch all of them, a lot of his fights are on UFC Fight Pass, YouTube, plenty of other places.

Strongly encourage you to go watch. February 4th, watch the last run of The Last Emperor on CBS when he takes on Ryan Bader for the second time. This is it, folks. The end of a very, very special career. That's Brian Campbell. I'm Luke Thomas. This has been Morning Combat's resume review.

We've gotten you ready. We'll be having all kinds of coverage around February 4th. We hope you enjoy the fights at that time. And until next time, enjoy them all.