Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson Parting Shots

Okay, it’s been 6 days since Strikeforce’s latest card, which nowadays equals about 2 years in MMA time. I get it, everyone has moved on to this weekend’s UFC event already. But allow me the indulgence of discussing just a few things that stood out to me about Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson, and then I promise we’ll get on with the business of predicting who will win at UFC 133 (and quickly sweeping those predictions under the proverbial rug if they turn out to be off the mark).

Fedor done in Strikeforce, but not “done”

Now, it’s gotten a little old that the same predictable talk happens every time a fighter north of say, 34 years old loses a couple of fights. “Should he retire?” “He’s done!” “He should just hang it up”, and so forth. It makes enough sense with someone like Chuck Liddell, who was suffering devastating knockouts with scary frequency, but with Fedor? What are his sins? Getting caught in a triangle choke because he was overexcited (seems funny, considering Fedor’s demeanor) and made a mistake? Getting beat up on by a fellow high-level fighter with a big weight advantage?

Now, I’ll grant that losing to a guy who should be a true middleweight is troublesome, but I’m not discussing whether Fedor will ever be the top heavyweight in the world again. That seems to be a pretty clear “no”, doesn’t it? I’m talking about whether the guy is “done”. “Done” to me means he lacks relevance. Hell, “done” to me means he is a medical liability in the cage and is risking serious injury. I suppose it could also mean he’s a shadow of his former self.

At any rate, I don’t think any of those three examples apply here. Even if you don’t have Fedor in the heavyweight top ten, he’s got to be just outside of there, and only in MMA would fans dare to say that fighters in the top 15 or 20 in the world in their weight class are irrelevant (see: Ortiz, Tito). If only the top five in each weight class are relevant in your view, that speaks more to your ignorance as an MMA and overall sports fan than anything else. Furthermore, Fedor still hasn’t been knocked out cold in a fight. He may be a shadow of his former self, but only in that his former self had the most legendary winning streak in MMA’s short history.

So no, Fedor’s not done being a skilled, relevant threat in the division. Whether he’s literally done as in calling it quits is up to him. However, we do know now that he’s done in Strikeforce, which means we’ll get to enjoy watching him spend the twilight of his career either in retirement or beating up on the likes of Todd Duffee in Japan. By the way, how does Dana White “cut” someone whose contract expired, anyway? He just wanted to be able to say he cut Fedor Emelianenko, even though we don’t know whether Fedor even would have kept fighting, regardless.

One last thing: there are a lot of you on each side of the “is Fedor the greatest HW (or even overall fighter) ever” debate. You know what doesn’t strengthen your argument? Being an idiot. If you simply bash anyone who disagrees with you as either being a Zuffa loyalist sheep that just started watching the sport or as a Fedor-nuthugging Pride fan who lives in the past, you are not really proving your point.

Fighting to win?

Now, I hate to do this, because one of these two guys is a fighter I’ve always rooted for, but if I can’t give my two cents I’m not really doing my job. I have to say that Paul Daley and Robbie Lawler, for different reasons, exhibited awful game plans and strategy in the third rounds of their losing efforts to Tyron Woodley and Tim Kennedy, respectively. (Guess which one I was describing in the first sentence? Hint: not the dude who sucker-punches opponents after fights)

Lawler in particularly disappointed me with his striking output in the third round. Kennedy appeared to be getting tired and definitely wasn’t as persistent or effective with his takedown attempts, and Lawler had to know he was down two rounds to none, but what did he do? Move around and not strike. One of my biggest pet peeves in any sport is a lack of urgency when the contest is on the line, and in MMA I hate it even more than in other sports. You know you’re down two rounds to none, throw a fucking strike! You have to knock this guy out, right?

Now, Daley did throw strikes and try to put Woodley away, but how he did it made no sense. You have concussive punching power and can knock out true middleweights with your shots, and what do you do in the third round against a better wrestler? I know! Throw knees without setting them up with punches! I didn’t even want Daley to win and I was still shouting at my screen, “Stop throwing fucking knees already!” Every time Daley threw a knee in that third round, Woodley was latching on to him and even though Daley would sprawl, 20-30 seconds would tick off the clock before Daley could get some separation and get back to standing. I saw this pattern, how did Daley not see it? When Daley actually threw punches and left the Ong Bak shit out, he was hurting Woodley and putting him under pressure. Why he kept being okay with grappling with the guy or wasting time punching him from the sprawl top position (because you’re going to knock the guy out that way) is beyond me.

Fight for the fans? Ask Scott Smith!

One of the debates that is always raging on in mixed martial arts is how exciting fighters should be. Fighters are entertainers too, right? Being a crowd-pleasing slugger is better, right? Well, let’s take a look.

As Exhibit A, you have Georges St. Pierre. Amazingly talented fighter, could go down as the greatest pound-for-pound fighter of all-time, but fans have been riding him lately for not taking enough chances. Going to too many decisions.

As Exhibit B, you have Scott Smith. He owns three of the top twenty most amazing in-fight comebacks of all-time. He’s got plenty of memorable knockouts in his highlight reel and fans respect him for swinging for the fences and taking punishment without flinching.

Which guy would you rather be right now? Whose bank account would you rather have? Now, I’m not saying that Smith had the skill set to be GSP, but do you think he’d be happier right now to have a few more fans, or to be in the UFC still? How many fans who encourage fighters to “take more risks” are going to be contributing to send Smith’s kids to college if the accumulated toll of a career’s worth of fighting like Rocky Balboa forces him out the door? For that matter, if GSP had decided to “be more exciting” and had lost a couple of fights in a row now, how many of you naysayers that bitch about his fights would have paid the win bonuses he missed out on for fighting like an idiot?

To me, Smith is a sad reminder that your first responsibility as a fighter is not to be exciting. Your first goal should not be to entertain the fans or to get Dana White to tweet to his legion of followers that you had a “sick” fight. Your job is to win, and no matter how exciting you are or how many great knockouts you’ve had, if you stop winning, those fans that once celebrated you for being such an exciting fighter will have moved on to cheering for someone else while you try to scrape together a living fighting in Shark Fights.

E-Mail Jon Hartley

Tags: Dan Henderson, Dana White, Fedor Emelianenko, Paul Daley, Robbie Lawler, Scott Smith, Strikeforce, Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson