Fedor vs. Silva: Bad Ideas
By Josh Stein on Dec 08, 2008
I was reading Josh Gross’s latest column, and I’m usually a big fan of Gross (more than any other major MMA journalist) because of his ability to explain MMA to people who have trouble understanding it, or are just getting into the sport, but I don’t always agree with him, especially when he’s speaking for the voice of mainstream MMA (though that probably says more about me than it does about Gross).
When asked what he thinks about great matchups, and what matchups he would like to see, Gross has an interesting list, and I agree with it, for the most part. Everything except that #1 fight, and if you’ve read the title, you know what that is.
Fedor Emelianenko vs. Anderson Silva does not establish the pound-for-pound champion, and in that respect, Anderson fighting the winner of St. Pierre and Penn would do more to codify his title. The reason is that fighting Anderson does nothing for Fedor. If does not establish his heavyweight dominance, which is the focus of his career (he might like the pound-for-pound title, but he knows he’s not going to get that from beating middleweights).
Fedor has no reason to fight little guys, as long as Barnett, Mir, Lesnar, Couture, Werdum and Gonzaga are still out there to offer potential matchups (Nogueira, of course, has been left off deliberately). Anderson is an interesting challenge for Fedor, given that he’s toppled the whole division, because he is so technical and seems to do just fine translating his power at 205, but, as a perpetual skeptic, it’s hard to imagine that Anderson would be able to translate his power against Fedor, a fighter capable of toppling a giant fighter like Sylvia with one punch.
Anderson’s power is incredible, his clinch is fantastic, his jiu-jitsu is very good. If Anderson walked around at 240, there would be a huge movement for him to fight Fedor, and I might even pick him to win that fight, but that’s not realistic.
As much as lightweight fighters would like to believe that size doesn’t matter, but it does.
I have no reason to look forward to a fight between Silva and Fedor not simply because I think it would be an easy pick, but because I think that it is one sided in terms of benefit. Certainly, beating Anderson Silva, now a mainstream MMA figure, would elevate Fedor’s position in the world of American MMA, but what does Fedor prove by beating a fighter he outweighs by 35 pounds?
The question is really if Fedor feels there is a sizable contingent of people who aren’t going to see him as the massive favorite. If Fedor is a major favorite, then he has nothing to gain and everything to lose.
There are so many matches that offer a great deal to the fans, internationally (especially matches with Fedor and Anderson), the opportunity to see something they’ve never seen before. People can talk about how this is a dream matchup between two fighters who are number one in their division, but I’d rather hear people advocate for Fedor vs. Barnett and Anderson vs. Maia. These fights, in my opinion, have so much more to offer.
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Josh, I definitely agree.
I just still think the whole pound for pound title is seriously being misconstrued and thrown around without regard to its origin. MMA doesn’t have many fighters that are going up in more than 1 weight class and dominating most contenders. I’m specifically referring to fighters like Pernell Whitaker, who went up in weight and bested natually bigger opponents.
Penn, Henderson, and Couture acutally won championships in different weight classes. Henderson and Couture is not even considered “P4P” and Penn’s inability to dominate in the welterweight category automatically rules him out.
GSP is welterweight, yes he’s dominating the class but ‘P4P’. He hasn’t faced Alves yet and only successfully defended his title once.
Anderson Silva is currently dominating the MW division but there are plenty of contenders that would provide interesting match-ups. At 205lbs, he’s been successful but he hasn’t faced the top tier of the Light Heavyweight category.
My question to all the MMA pundits, what does P4P means to you? I think its really bullsh*t right now, especially in MMA because its really being used from a boxing framework. The fact that Dana White said Lyoto Machida may be the next P4P king when Anderson Silva retires goes to show you that it really has no meaning. Or I’ll offer that the original meaning has long since lost its meaning now that everybody is redefining the phrase to suit their own purposes or marketing agendas.
I guess if Brock Lesnar continues to be victorious throughout mid 2010, he will be considered the P4P king? Yes, no or does a super-heavyweight fighter really qualifies?
I stick to your definition of pound-for-pound, but I tend to grant that crown to KID Yamamoto, because he’s fought a lot of tougher, bigger guys and kicked the crap out of them.
It really depends on who Brock Lesnar beats. If he beats the winner of Nogueira/Mir and then fights the loser of that fight and Gonzaga, no, I won’t consider him a top p4p fighter. He needs to fight Fedor, at least, but you already knew I was going to say that.
It seems UFC glorifies its fighters. They think they have the best fighters in the world. The fact is that they don’t have the best fighters, only some of them. Silva only fights a narrow weight range and limited amount of good fighters in the UFC. I think when Silva’s contract is up he needs to fight somewhere else outside of UFC and be more selective about the fighters he is going up against. It seems to me that the UFC is wearing him out on okay fighters instead of searching for better fighters for him outside of UFC or moving him up to HW. Fedor is P4P king because people leave UFC and other organizations to fight him. Fedor fights a wide weight range of HW’s and always ends up winning the fights in dominating fashion by submitting them or G4Pn’ the other fighter. Since Fedor has never technically lost, I do believe in my opinion he is the undisputed P4P champion.