Preliminary Thoughts on Emelianenko vs. Rogers

There has been a lot of discussion (though that is hardly different from any other time) concerning the top ranking of Fedor Emelianenko (30-1-0-1 MMA, #1 IWMMAR). There are those who think that since his last two opponent have suffered brutal losses in the wake of losing to Fedor, they were less than legitimate. This, in my opinion, is an absurd way to attempt to judge fighters, as plenty of fighters have a tendency to go on skids after a vicious loss, which is certainly most true of Andrei Arlovski (15-7 MMA, 10-4 UFC, #9 IWMMAR) than it is of Tim Sylvia (24-6 MMA, 9-4 UFC), and Arlovski’s emotional issues in the wake of his fight with Fedor have been well documented (and I will say that, leaving the arena with Arlovski after the post fight press-conference that night, he looked different than I’d ever seen him, but the anecdotal is hardly as strong evidence as the admission of Russian Roulette).

And the reality is, Fedor is still a unanimously accepted champion by those who are at the top of the sport. He will be a heavy favorite in the fight with Brett Rogers (10-0 MMA, #8 IWMMAR), and there will only be a few who pick against Fedor. His striking is crisp, his head movement is good and his ability to get this fight to the ground if he needs to should be enough to carry him to a win over the big puncher from Minnesota.

The real question that should be asked is: Does Rogers provide a new challenge for Emelianenko? Something he hasn’t deal with in the ring before?

The answer is: Yes, sort of.

Rogers presents a larger, stronger opponent, but that’s hardly uncommon for Fedor. Given that he’s fought opponents far larger than the heavyweight limit, Rogers will not be the biggest opponent he’s fought. But, in terms of being the biggest opponent he’s fought with a substantial amount of technical ability, Rogers is a new kind of opponent.

It seems that Rogers is the best indication of how Fedor would perform against two major UFC heavyweights in Brock Lesnar (4-1 MMA, 3-1 UFC, #2 IWMMAR) and Shane Carwin (11-0 MMA, 3-0 UFC, #7 IWMMAR). Both Carwin and Brock are powerful fighters with heavy hands. Both, like Rogers, are true heavyweights. Both, like Rogers, have a ground game that cannot really be judged yet (though Lesnar’s has been the most visible of all three and, in my opinion, has been pretty disappointing, but others disagree).

That said, Rogers is like Shane Carwin-light, or a watered down version of Brock Lesnar. He’s not as big as either of the two, realistically. He’s not as muscular, as defined, as either of the two. He hits hard, and certainly (at some point) the difference between landing a right hand with 800 pounds of force and 1000 pounds of force stops mattering (that some point, really, is when it cracks the skull of whoever’s standing on the other side of the cage), but the wrestling of Lesnar and Carwin is much, much better than that of Rogers, so in that sense, one of the potential gameplans available to Fedor is more easily executed on Brett.

How Fedor chooses to fight The Grim, how he goes about attacking (whether utilizing that brutal groundnpound, which I expect to be even more effective in the cage than it was in the ring, or choosing to strike it out, as he has been lately) will definitely give him an opportunity to showcase the gameplan he’s going to put into effect against Brock or Carwin, should he negotiate a contract with the UFC at the end of his term with Strikeforce (though I don’t mean to sound naive; that is only going to happen if the circumstances with M-1 Global change drastically).