Source: thebloodyelbow
Jake Rossen talks about the tragi-comedy that has been M-1 Global's management of Fedor Emelianenko since the fall of Pride:
In ring years, Fedor is getting old.
MMA is not a sport for drifters. Herschel Walker will have gone a year between fights; Royce Gracie might fight in the summer after a four-year absence; Brandon Vera sat out for over a year while his contract was fought over and never looked the same. It's a casual attitude for something that reduces you to a primal state, and the results are usually less than impressive. Layoffs kill results and relaxation shouldn't be part of the curriculum. Either you're on the circuit or you're not. By becoming an inaction figure, Emelianenko is altering what he'll be able to accomplish for the duration of his career.
The slide in skill can be progressive, or it can be sudden. One minute Matt Hughes looks like the most dominant fighter in the welterweight division, and in the next he's being throttled by St. Pierre and Thiago Alves. Chuck Liddell looked ferocious until Quinton Jackson pulled his plug. These are abrupt changes.
We don't know if Emelianenko experienced that shift during the Fabricio Werdum fight, or if he's got more in him. Maybe 2010 was his body's last competitive year; maybe he could've taken care of business against Werdum or Alistair Overeem. But because of posturing, there is now a 10-month gap (minimum) for a celebrated fighter than he can never earn back.
I would argue that promoters and management never take a relaxed-state attitude toward contract negotiations. Layoffs cheat the fighter out of opportunities to perform with a capable body and cheat fans the chance to see them hash it out among their contemporaries.
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Kevin Iole (video with Steve Cofield) talked about some of the opportunities Fedor has missed in the past few years. In particular he waxes rhapsodic about what an early 2010 UFC title bout with Brock Lesnar -- possibly held in Dallas Cowboys Stadium -- would have meant for Fedor, Brock, the UFC and the sport of MMA.
It's easy to dismiss what might have been, but think on that bout for a moment. Brock would have been coming back from his illness after headlining UFC 100. His reputation was at an all-time high. Fedor would have been coming off of back-to-back KO wins over former UFC champs while in Affliction. With the UFC's hype machine behind it Fedor vs Brock would have galvanized fan and media imaginations like no other fight in MMA history. And now it's too late.
The mystiques of both fighters have been irreparably damaged. Almost as bad was M-1 Global's still inexplicable decision to sit out Strikeforce's April show on CBS. That decision pretty much doomed Strikeforce: Nashville to do terrible ratings and not get invited back for more network primetime television.
Fedor's incomparable legacy as the most accomplished fighter in MMA's young history cannot be taken away, but there is no indication that his current management team is even trying to productively build on that legacy.