It's a pretty divisive topic, and I think Dana even dedicated a press conference to bashing it. What are your thoughts on Fedor's resume? What do you think are his best wins, and why?
His best wins: Semmy Schilt - a giant not easy to fight not only because of his size, but because there were some good skills behind Big Nog Mirko Cro Cop - K-1 and MMA legend, not that he needs any presentation, but deserves mentioning his achievements however Mark Hunt - one can argue about his MMA record, but he has very good wins and was a very good kickboxer Tim Sylvia Andrei Arlovski - I know some might argue about this man, but he was a top fighter nonetheless, a vicious striker with enough good victories on his record Frank Mir - true, past his prime, but Fedor was even older and past his prime as well Chael Sonnen - same situation as Mir Quinton Jackson - again the same situation as the last two His very good wins: Pedro Rizzo, Jeff Monson, Renato Sobral and Ricardo Arona. I hesitate to include tree-four more names, but let’s say they are average B-level (which is decent enough). Adding the fact Werdum ran **itless when he was offered a rematch. As for Fedor's losses against Henderson and Big Foot - both were on TRT (and turned into what they are without PEDs - proper sausages) and the stoppage against Dan was premature. Fedor is a legend and one of the names at the top of this sport. Why even argue about? He shouldn't have retired when he did, then come back older, but he paid the price. Dana has always been jealous of Fedor and was never a man of objective talking and any kind of criteria. Actually, Dana is a criterion of what should not be one.
Theres some padding and several missed opportunity fights, and theres definitely guys who fought a better average level of opponent, but considering he went 30+ fights and a decade unbeaten as a small HW its an ATG resume. Very few HWs in history could have pulled it off. Best wins- Nog - probably the most accomplished all time HW after Fedor. Was in his prime at the time and was the most well rounded guy Fedor beat. When Fedor first beat him he was viewed pretty much how Fedor would come to be viewed. Very advanced skillset for a HW MMA fighter of that era. Cro Cop - at the time (Randleman slip up aside) he was viewed as an unprecedented level of striker for HW MMA. Very good athlete, good power, striking pedigree and enough grappling to not be easily exploited. After those two it gets tough. I kind of wanna put Arlovski as he was on a decent run and was probably the second most well rounded guy Fedor beat, but then he did get absolutely splatted by Brett Rogers right after that and Big Tim got the better of him years before too. But Big Tim fared even worse than AA after the Fedor fight and wasnt doing great going into it. Rogers was kind of an unknown quantity whos stock went up in his loss against Fedor, but then went down even lower in his ensuing fights. He was a big guy with solid athleticism for his size and heavy hands but his skillset was pretty basic. Hunt and Schilt were decent wins too. Maybe somewhat one dimensional strikers (and Hunt was inexperienced) but their size and power made them dangerous still. I'd probably rank them higher than his wins over Coleman and Randleman. Also Herring gets overlooked, he was one of the most well rounded guys at the time. I wish Fedor had fought Barnett, Kharitanov and his brother in Pride. They all would have been top 5 wins.
Resume by resume you can find others as good as him, maybe.... but the dominance and the aura of invencible that Fedor had was like no other, maybe only Anderson Silva had the same aura.
