Is Fedor Emelianenko’s Legacy On The Line Against Dan Henderson?

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One of the interesting things this week has been the storyline of Fedor Emelianenko fighting for his legacy against Dan Henderson at this weekend’s Strikeforce event. With two decisive losses in his last two fights, the first two legitimate losses in his career, the meme has been that Dan Henderson represents a watershed moment in his career and for his legacy. It makes for a good story, and for a loud discussion amongst diehard fans who want to weight the merits of his Pride days against his refusal to fight in the UFC, but here’s the thing. His legacy is secure regardless of how the fight turns out against Henderson.

Why? Because nothing he does Saturday night will change the legacy of his career. Just the short term perception of his abilities at the end, that’s all. And even those will eventually be washed over by the positive memories, like the way we forget about Joe Namath trying to remain a top flight quarterback after his prime years with the Jets were over and his knees finally betrayed him one last time. Like every past his prime athlete, we’ll forgive a poor end to a career because of the sheer volume of brilliance that proceeded it. And in Fedor’s case, it’ll also come with a slight asterisk.

If his nickname is “The Last Emperor,” then the way we view his career has to be as the Ultimate Outlier. He’s the one fighter that never made it to the UFC in any real capacity. As such a significant portion of his career will be viewed in two very different ways.

Fedor has a unique legacy in the short history of MMA in that his greatest years were outside of the view of most fans. For all the talk of certain fighters being amongst the most controversial, Fedor is easily the leader in this category; simultaneously discredited and overhyped. That’ll be his legacy more than anything related to wins or losses. Just look at the way his career has been viewed since the implosion of Pride FC.

To say it’s been polarizing is an understatement; there are just as many people willing to discredit Fedor’s post-Pride days as not credible due to not facing high levels of competition as there are those who argued that he was the best fighter in the world up until his losses. And even then his opponents were either highly praised in victory i.e. Fabricio Werdum became the #3 ranked fighter in the world almost immediately after the Fedor and Antonio Silva’s career having nearly as massive upswing after his win over Fedor or dismissed for a variety of reasons i.e. Werdum being brutally stopped by Junior Dos Santos right before becoming a UFC castoff or Silva for an unconvincing record until that point and having a positive steroid test in 2008.

The resurgence of the sport is directly tied to the UFC, for better or worse, and it’d be hard to argue that the sheer number of new fans that came aboard during The Ultimate Fighter dwarf the amount of fans from the old days. The fact that Fedor never stepped into the UFC’s Octagon during what were these initial years of growth to face the likes of Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir will leave him nothing more than a series of YouTube clips and off-hand mentions to a vast majority of fans. His inability to come to an agreement with Dana White and Zuffa, no matter the reasons, has left his legacy post-Pride a bit muddied.

On the one hand he was the greatest fighter during one of the early period of MMA. That much we can’t dispute in any aspect. Fedor beat the best of the best in Pride and was the best heavyweight in the world by far in the world’s best organization for fighting at the time. During his time in Pride only a fool would argue he wasn’t the best in his division. If he only had fought in Pride, and walked away afterwards from the sport, he’d be the one the great fighter who never came over to the UFC. He’d have been MMA’s Rocky Marciano, the undefeated king who walked away on top.

But he didn’t …. And that’s where the controversy comes in.

Afterwards, though, it became a much riskier proposition by the year to call him the best fighter in the world. One can make the argument that he was protected from fighters who could beat him for years and his lack of activity didn’t do much to refute it in some people’s eyes. Many fans first introduction to Fedor came against Brett Rogers, a tough fight that left Rogers looking better than expected and Fedor not looking like the best fighter in the world he’d been proclaimed to be by the MMA media and hardcore fans.

He was considered the best heavyweight in the world by most but that could be argued that it was almost by default. A large portion of the audience could legitimately see him as someone who had been hyped significantly but didn’t deliver the sort of skillfully dominant performance you’d expect from the best fighter in the world. And that was the enigma of Fedor for the years between the fall of Pride and the Werdum fight: No one could be considered the best heavyweight in the world because they hadn’t fought Fedor. His shadow made the best look smaller by comparison because of the myth of Fedor.

It is the one thing that haunted the UFC’s heavyweight division for years and ultimately will define Fedor’s legacy. He’s the best fighter who never stepped into the UFC, the king of one era that never transitioned to the next.