polyh3dron
Banned
Live on Showtime East at 10PM ET / 7PM PT (Showtime West will be tape delayed by 3 hours)
This could very well be Fedor Emilianenko's penultimate (aka second-last) if not final fight before his retirement. If you are an MMA fan or are interested in the sport even a little bit, you have no excuse not to watch this because it could possibly be your last chance so see the greatest fighter of all time fight live. With that said, let's break down the card:
The Main Event: Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emilianenko vs Fabricio "Vai Cavalo" Werdum
Fedor Emilianenko is coming off of brutally TKOing (after having some unexpected trouble with) a formerly undefeated Brett Rogers in his Strikeforce debut on CBS last November. M-1 has issued a press release revealing his interest in pursuing politics and in a recent Strikeforce media conference call, his M-1 Global-employed translator left out a juicy tidbit of what Fedor said.
Now 33 years old, Fedor will face what is arguably his toughest opponent since fighting Mirko Cro Cop back in '05 (If you feel that Sylvia and Arloski were overrated that is, which I believe was the case after seeing Bigfoot beat Arlovski down). The last time we have seen Fedor fight a Jiu-Jitsu ace like Werdum was when he fought Rodrigo Noguiera in '04 (video link here, required viewing if you haven't seen it; it is EPIC). In their first fight he displayed some of the most exciting ground-and-pound work ever seen in MMA. The way he powered through Big Nog's legendary guard like it was nothing was amazing, the speed displayed in his striking and movement is faster than any other heavyweight in MMA history. Since PRIDE's collapse in '07 we've seen Fedor fight mostly unworthy competition such as Matt Lindland(lol), Hong Man Choi(lol), Tim Sylvia, Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers. It will be interesting to see how the Fedor of 2010, whose own trainer says doesn't have the speed in his punches and movement that he used to, will stack up against Werdum.Fedor Emilianenko (Translated) said:
Fabricio Werdum has had an all-star team helping him train for this fight including Strikeforce LHW Champ King Mo Lawal, Rafael Cordeiro of Chute Boxe fame, Jason "Mayhem" Miller, Renato "Babalu" Sobral and a few others I'm probably forgetting. He's a two time ADCC champ and two time Mundials champ. His KO loss to Junior dos Santos doesn't look as bad today as it did when JDS was a newcomer to the UFC since dos Santos has been on a crazy run since then and is considered to be one of the top HWs in the game today. His last 2 fights in Strikeforce, although against lesser competition, have shown Werdum's technique to be much improved from his UFC days as well.
My main question in this fight is this: have Fedor's last five fights against relatively subpar competition, coupled with his advancing age taken off his edge, and could a game opponent like Werdum expose that? If so we may be in for the biggest shock since Serra vs. GSP. If the same Fedor shows up that fought Big Nog and Cro Cop however, Fabricio doesn't stand a chance and it could be over quickly.
Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos vs. Jan Finney for the Strikeforce Women's Featherweight Championship
Cyborg wins via brutality, that is all. Bring on Toughill already.
Cung Le vs. Scott Smith: THE SEQUEL
The only guys that have stopped Smith via strikes are Robbie Lawler and James Irvin. Cung Le is crazy overrated and this fight will be just as much of a crapshoot as the last one. Either Cung by decision or Smith by lucky-as-fuck knockout. Should be entertaining though.
Josh Thomson vs. Pat Healy
This could end up being the most exciting fight of the night even with all the other ones looking to be exciting themselves. I've never seen Healy fight but if you look at his record he has some KO and submission victories over some pretty big names and if you've seen either of Thomson's fights with Gilbert Melendez you know Thomson goes to WAR.
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All in all, if you tune into Showtime on Saturday night you'll probably be in for an amazing night of fights for free that is likely to end up being more exciting than the UFC PPV event taking place a week later now that Wanderlei pulled out.
