Fedor KOs Arlovski at Day of Reckoning

Fedor Emelianenko KO1 (punch) Andre Arlovski
Fedor Emelianenko won again over another top ranked opponent, knocking Andrei Arlovski out in the first round of their fight for Fedor’s WAMMA Heavyweight title. Arlovski was getting the better of the fight, using a solid one-two combination as well as hard leg kicks and front kicks which kept the former PRIDE Heavyweight Champion off balance throughout the contest. Fedor looked to be strung on a couple of occasions by Arlovski’s power but recovered quickly and fought back. Arlovski was also showing good takedown defence, avoiding going to the mat when the Sambo expert got a hold of him.
However as many other fighters have found, Fedor’s well rounded skills and patience proved Arlovski’s undoing and the one time Arlovski made a mistake Fedor ended the fight suddenly. Arlovski backed Fedor into a corner with a front kick and a right hand and then jumped in with a flying knee only to be caught in mid-air by a short overhand right and knocked unconscious. In a fight that lasted 3 minutes 14 seconds, Arlovski controlled probably 3:10 of that time and yet those few seconds is all that Fedor needed to end matters.
While Fedor did look human in this fight, Arlovski is one of the top fighters in the World and would likely destroy every Heavyweight in the UFC. The way to beating Fedor seems to be standing up but the thing is, no one has the sharp skills Arlovski has on his feet plus the wrestling skills and ground skills to keep Fedor from taking him down. It’s pick your poison with Fedor as he has more then enough stand-up skills to hang with 99% of the World’s Heavyweights and the ground skills to handle probably any of them, plus the takedowns and takedown defence to control where the fight goes. Lesnar is way too green and makes too many mistakes that a true Heavyweight with Fedor’s skills will capitilise on. Mir could catch Fedor on the ground but would likely be knocked out before he got the fight there. Fedor’s next opponent looks to be Josh Barnett and I don’t give Barnett much of a chance at all. His ground game is good, but it’s not at the level where he can catch someone like Fedor. Anyone not giving this guy his props right now is a fucking moron!

Josh Barnett Sub3 (strikes) Gilbert Yvel
Sure he got the job done, but this was a seriously bad performance from Barnett. His ground game just looked sloppy, period. His punches didn’t look to be as devastating as some of the other fighters we see who get to the same positions and his submissions were slow enough for ever Gilbert Yvel to get out of. Barnett has to get back on form or improve if that’s all he’s capable of if he’s going to be fighting Fedor next.

Vitor Belfort KO1 (punches) Matt Lindland
Wow! Vitor of old comes back (for now anyway). He blitzed Lindland in the same fashion he blitzed Wanderlei Silva and Martin Eastman and Tank Abbott and the likes those years ago. Lindland was out for a while and it was good to see him leave on his feet under his own control. A knockout like that is a potential career ender especially for a fighter in his late 30’s like Lindland. Vitor though, what a way to crack into the Middleweight elite. Lindland had a lot of hype at Middleweight as one of the top dogs even though he’s been relatively inactive so this is a huge win for Vitor. Rumour has it his Affliction contract has expired and the UFC is in need of top Middleweights. I’d definately be hyped for Belfort-Anderson Silva. Vitor’s never been knocked out before, so it’ll be interesting to see how that fight would go. Unlike Patrick Cote’ who just had a punchers chance, Vitor has that plus a BJJ black belt. Even though his heart can be questioned at times, Vitor’s as dangerous a challenger as anyone out there for Anderson Silva at 185lbs.

Renato Babalu Sub2 (Anaconda Choke) Sokoudjou
Sokoudjou looked good early, but gassed out bad and Babalu is not someone you want on top of you know matter who you are. I would really like to see Babalu vs Little Nogueira now as they seem to be the top two 205lbers outside of the UFC. Babalu took some good shots but didn’t get discouraged and finished the fight with a slick choke as we’ve seen him do before. It was also good to see him let the choke go after Sokoudjou tapped.

Antonio Rogerio ‘Little’ Nogueira KO2 (knee) Vladimir Matyushenko
Matyushenko surprised everyone including Nogueira by trying to box and he didn’t look too bad. Nogueira seemed tentative when it came to answering back thinking Matyushenko was just trying to get him to open up so he could take him down. The worst thing Matyushenko did was hurt and cut Nogueira because once he did that, Nogueira opened up and things got bad for Matyushenko. He got hurt with a solid knee to the midsection and then one to the head finished him off. The fight was strange as it was a mixture of really bad and really good.

Other Results
Dan Lauzon Sub1 (Rear Naked Choke) Bobby Green
Jay Hieron TKO1 (strikes) Jason High
Paul Buentello TKO3 Kirill Sidelnikov
LC Davis UD3 Bao Quach
Alberto Rios UD3 Antonio Duarte
Brett Cooper KO2 (punch) Patrick Speight

Thoughts
I’d love for Affliction to be able to stay around because, even though its not the UFC, it’s good to get something different with quality fights on it from time to time. Even if they just put a show on 2-3 times a year when Fedor fights I don’t care. Affliction is about the only way we’ll see Fedor in legitimate fights and they’ve delivered Sylvia and Arlovski, the two best UFC Heavyweights for a period of time already. Those two fights are among the biggest Heavyweight fights in MMA history. I hope there’s a third show, but if they do close down I hope Fedor and the UFC can come to terms so he can prove to everyone (well not everyone because there’s some morons out there) that he is the best MMA Heavyweight of all-time.

Affliction: Day of Reckoning Predictions

For the second time in what will be a little over a week, MMA fans are treated to a matchup that was talked about for years. After the UFC put on the fight between their former Middleweight Champion Rich Franklin and PRIDES former Champion at the same weight limit Dan Henderson at their event on the weekend, Affliction returns with their long awaited ‘Day of Reckoning’ show and pits the PRIDE Heavyweight Champion against a former UFC Heavyweight Champion. WAMMA Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko will put his title on the line against Andre ‘The Pitbull’ Arlovski in yet another quality main event from Affliction. The undercard also stacks up nicely with Josh Barnett taking on MMA’s bad boy Gilbert Yvel, a very interesting middleweight fight between Matt Lindland and Vitor Belfort as well as a battle between former UFC Light Heavyweight title challenger Renato Babalu and Sokoudjou in a fight that’s sure to produce fireworks.

Fedor Emelianenko vs Andrei Arlovski
The Arlovski-Fedor fight is definately one to look out for. Back in 2005 Arlovski was the UFC’s top Heavyweight having knocked down and then submitted Tim Sylvia in under a minute (much the same way Fedor did last year) with an ankle lock at UFC 51. Fedor as well was coming off arguably the biggest win over his career, a hard fought unanimous decision win over Mirko Cro Cop back when Cro Cop was the dangerous mother fucker that he used to be. It was only natural that talk about which organisations Heavyweight champion was truly the best and even though Arlovski since suffered back-to-back losses against Sylvia at UFC 59 and 61, he’s coming into this fight with five victories over quality opposition. A decision win over Fabricio Werdum as well as knockout wins over Ben Rothwell, Jake O’Brien and Roy Nelson have Arlovski right back up the top of the Heavyweight rankings.
I really think that out of anyone, Arlovski has the best chance at beating Fedor. I personally think Arlovski would crush both Lesnar and Mir and that with his skill set he poses the biggest threat to Emelianenko. With his crisp combination punching and brutal leg kicks as well as dangerous knees from the clinch, the thing that makes me think Arlovski could hang with Fedor is the fact that he himself was a World Champion in Sambo. Now this is MMA and not Sambo, but hear me out. Fedor catches a lot of guys with submissions they haven’t seen before because where someone like Demian Maia is a world class BJJ guy which is something that just about every MMA fighter knows, Fedor’s entire ground game is based off his Sambo and his set-ups are all different. With Arlovski’s background in Sambo he might have a better chance then most at surviving on the ground as he will have seen some of these moves before.
That being said, I really think Fedor will win this fight and win it inside two rounds. Arlovski’s ground game is suspect and it showed in his recent fights with Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson. Add to the fact that Fedor’s ground and pound is on a completely different level then anyone in MMA and I think any advantage Arlovski would have that other opponents don’t have will be taken away by the fact that his ground defence is very poor and as soon as Fedor opens his guard he’s going to punch Arlovski’s head through the mat. Arlovki’s boxing could very well pose Fedor some problems, but he’ll have to capitilise early while he is fresh and be careful because Fedor has more then enough power to drop him. I think Arlovski will do well standing up early in the fight but will get hurt at some stage and end up on his back. From there Fedor will soften him up with not very soft punches and end the fight with a kimura from side mount. Arlovski definately has a chance in this fight but I feel the longer the fight goes the better Fedor’s chances get as Arlovski has always had suspect durability. Fedor on the other hand is always in great physical condition despite him ‘looking like your Uncle on the way to the beach’- Frank Trigg. Fedor Emelianenko by 2nd round submission (kimura).

Josh Barnett vs Gilbert Yvel
Prediction- Barnett by 1st round submission
Basically Yvel has zero takedown defence and Barnett’s top game is brilliant. Yvel won’t land his knockout strike and will be on his back quickly and finished off not long after that. I don’t expect this fight to go past the two minute mark.

Renato Babalu vs Sokoudjou
Prediction- Sokoudjou by 1st round knockout
Sokoudjou has made a career out of knocking out Jiu Jitsu guys. He has seriously heavy hands and lets them go with bad intentions when his opponent has limited stand-up himself. This is another fight that I think will be over quickly. I think Sokoudjou will explode and land some big right hands early and finish Babalu off.

Vitor Belfort vs Matt Lindland
Prediction- Lindland on points
I can’t pick Belfort against anyone with any sort of determination. Vitor could explode and catch ‘The Law’ early in vintage Vitor form, but I think he’ll get taken down and roughed up a bit and resort to playing guard and holding on and riding out the decision win. Lindland’s wrestling will be too big of a factor in the same way that previous Team Quest fighters Randy Couture and Dan Henderson were able to defeat Vitor. Even with Couture in his corner I don’t think he’ll have improved his mental game to the point where he won’t resort back to his survival tactics when he can’t bully his opponent the way Vitor likes to.

Vladimir Matyushenko vs Antonio Rogerio Nogueira
Prediction- Nogueira on points
Matyushenko will have some success with takedowns but I think Little Nog will control the stand-up and keep Matyushenko busy with his dangerous guard. The stand-up will be the key and while he doesn’t have a great deal of power, Little Nog has excellent technique and will pick Matyushenko apart and do enough damage to take a close but unanimous decision.

Chris Horodecki vs Dan Lauzon
Prediction- Lauzon by 2nd round knockout

Paul Buentello vs Kiril Sidelnikov
Prediction- Sidelnikov by 2nd round knockout

Jay Hieron vs Jason High
Prediction- Hieron by 1st round submission

LC Davis vs Bao Quach
Prediction- Davis by 2nd round submission