The Blueprint 07.19.09: Overthrowing the Emperor

Posted by Patrick Mullin on 07.19.2009

The Blueprint takes on its most difficult assignment. Seriously how the hell can you spot a weakness in freakin' FEDOR?! Take a look and see if I'm opening eyes or grasping at straws.

The Blueprint: Overthrowing the Emperor

Welcome back boys and girls! This is edition number three of The Blueprint! We've shown you how to slay the dragon. We've even showed you how to squash the spider. However this time out we're getting really ambitious. We're going to launch a full on guerrilla rebellion designed to overthrow MMA's last emperor, Fedor Emelianenko!



1) Cuts: Let's start with the most obvious weakness in Fedor's seemingly impenetrable armor. In his lone loss, Fedor was cut and lost due to it against Tsuyoshi Kosaka. Now I know what you're going to say. Fedor hasn't come close to losing a fight via cut since then, and yes that's true. However guys tend to become more prone to cuts over the course of their careers, and if Fedor can lose via a cut in his career as early as his fifth fight, its not at all out of the question he can be cut open and lose again.



The Muay Thai style is probably most conducive to opening up cuts on an opponent due to elbow strikes. A fighter with a good Muay Thai game can work very well inside and do damage to the eyebrow range with elbows and open up a cut that will bleed into Fedor's eyes and potentially cause the fight to be stopped. Frank Mir's Muay Thai is pretty slick, and he even managed to stun Brock Lesnar with a good knee that was partially blocked. Fedor would like to get inside of his opponent and grapple them and getting inside is where you'd have openings to land some quick and potentially devastating elbows.

Getting dirty inside of the clinch could also be a great way to open up a cut. A physically bigger and imposing fighter could potentially back Fedor into a corner or against a fence, and lean in on him close using thier head as a weapon. Granted its illegal and unsportsmanlike, but it is effective. Imagine the referee had not seen Noguiera cut Fedor with a headbutt and mistakenly believed it was from a strike. Fedor would have lost the fight, and at the end of the day thats the desired result for his opponent, by hook or by crook.

2) Technical Stand-Up: The lasting image of Andrei Arlovski being cracked with a beautiful orthodox-stance right hook is no doubt what people do, and always will remember most about the clash between Fedor and Arlovski from Affliction's Day of Reckoning pay per view.

However, through three minutes of the first and only round of that fight, Andrei Arlovski was giving Fedor Emelianenko quite the boxing lesson throughout. Andrei used slick footwork, an excellent jab, and managed to land a few good right hands while maintaining the distance and getting Fedor to bite on his feints. It was a poorly timed flying knee that allowed the ever cerebral WAMMA Heavyweight champion to find the only opening he needed and turn the chinny challenger's lights out.




But what happens if Arlovski doesn't throw that knee and just keeps on boxing Fedor? Perhaps he even begins mixing in some leg kicks to keep the champion even more off balance. While its entirely possible and more than likely to be honest that Fedor would have caught Andrei with a KO shot at some point, Fedor did have one of his few vulnerabilities exposed in that fight as he simply could not cope with Arlovski's boxing and had to wait for Arlovski to make a mistake and capitalize.



The heavyweight division does have some fairly good, technical strikers. Among them you have kickboxing specialist Alistair Overeem who is known for his precision striking. Brett Rogers has been making a splash as of late. He's been called sloppy for his tendency to constantly throw combinations as opposed to one shot at a time, but he's extremely accurate. Just watch his win over Andrei Arlovski. The guy didn't miss a punch and used his feints extremely well to set up an opening against a guy who's a very good technical striker in his own right.

3) Strength: One thing Fedor is not used to in a fight is giving away a strength advantage to his opposition. Fedor has fought strong wrestlers like teammates Kevin Randleman and Mark Coleman, but each of those men were undersized heavyweights by today's standards and are now fighting at 205 pounds. What would happen were Fedor to face someone he cannot overpower and who could control him like Brock Lesnar?



In similar fashion to boxing, MMA is entering its era of the super-heavyweight, heavyweights who dwarf the prior generations of them in size. Lesnar, Rogers, and Carwin among others all have to work to make it below the imposed 265 pound limit for heavyweights in mixed martial arts, whereas Fedor commonly weighs in the neighborhood of 230 pounds. Lesnar was the NCAA Division I heavyweight champion and in his most recent outing with Frank Mir showed just how dominant his ground control is, and Carwin won the division II NCAA heavyweight championship in 1999 also finishing as runner-up in 1996 and 1997.

Who Can Beat Him?


Shane Carwin 3:1 - Its pretty impressive when you've had 11 professional fights, won all of them, and you've still never been out of the first round. Its even more impressive when you consider the knockout to submission ratio is almost dead even. Carwin is a top flight wrestler, has ever improving jiu jitsu skills working out of Greg Jackson's camp, and has arguably the heaviest hands in MMA as evidence by his 3 fights in the UFC that have lasted a combined 3:24 against Christian Wellisch, Neil Wain, and most impressively knocking out Gabriel Gonzaga with a straight right hand in 69 seconds. Carwin has the tools to beat anyone, including Fedor. Its just a matter of putting it all together.

Brock Lesnar 5:1 - Lesnar will outmuscle just about anyone he steps in to fight with, but muscle isn't all it comes down to. Brock still needs to show me that his submission defense is about more than just being the agressor. Its likely he wouldn't be able to control Fedor the way he did Frank Mir at UFC 100, and Fedor has a great submission game. Brock would have to simply work ground and pound, as I believe if Mir can hurt him Fedor can KO him, but I still need to see if Brock is able to defend a submission while its being applied.


Brett Rogers 6:1 - The Grim is like a real life Clubber Lang. His KO power cannot be questioned, but his overall game is really unknown. His team is a wrestling based one, so he may have good skills on the ground, but there are too many question marks as of now for me to give Rogers odds better than 6:1, no matter how hard he hits. Sometimes though, all you need is to land just one, and Brett is a guy you just don't want to give that opportunity to.

Alistair Overeem 7:1 - Overeem, like Arlovski would enter the bout with a huge technical advantage on the feet. However Fedor, while not the most technical of strikers, does pack a very heavy punch especially with the right hand. Overeem has been KO'ed by smaller men like Chuck Liddell, so even if it is kept standing I don't think he can stay away from one of Fedor's bombs and wind up hurt and finished.

Randy Couture 10:1 - Simply put, I'm including Randy here just because the guy has made his entire career by doing things he shouldn't be able to do. He's overcome incredible odds in his career, but at this stage of the game and at 44 I can only question how much he has left in the tank. He's not a large heavyweight either, and while you can say that didn't play a role in his wins against Sylvia and Gonzaga, neither one of those guys is in the league of a Fedor Emelianenko. I don't believe Randy would be able to beat Fedor on the ground as I feel their wrestling backgrounds level out and Fedor's submission game is worlds better than Randy's. Standing up Randy's dirty boxing may be his only hope as I don't think his chin would hold up against Fedor and I don't think he's a hard enough striker to put Fedor out. His only hope would be to smother Fedor in a collar tie and score points by punching him and I don't think he can do it.

Scary isn't it? I can't give anyone better than a 3:1 chance against this guy. Fedor's era of dominance over the heavyweight division has been historic and in my opinion mixed martial arts has never seen a better fighter. His overall game may not be as well rounded as other fighters like an Anderson Silva or George St. Pierre, but he's got a better record than both of them doesn't he? Fedor hasn't lost a fight in almost a decade and has fought every top heavyweight PRIDE had to offer and his last two victories have been over former UFC heavyweight champions.

Fedor is 32, a time when fighters tend to be toward the end of their prime, but he hasn't shown any signs of slowing down. Of our candidates Carwin is the only one I can really see ever having a chance to beat Fedor unless the Emperor doesn't look good in his upcoming bout with Josh Barnett. Josh is a guy I don't see matching up well against Emelianenko anyway because while he's a catch wrestling ace, his wrestling isn't as good as Fedor's and his submission game is rudimentary when compared to Fedor's. Neither is a blow you away striker, but I feel Fedor's power and technique are superior to Josh and I'm counting Josh out already for Affliction: Trilogy on August 9th.

Thanks for reading. Tune in next week same Pat time, same Pat channel.