Winning is a habit. You do it long enough, and there is seemingly no other option. And that’s not just for the athlete. As the victories pile up, family and friends just take it for granted that your hand raised at the end of the night is the natural order of the universe.
The athlete knows better of course, especially if he chooses to compete in mixed martial arts. Unbeaten records are rare and nearly non-existent at the elite level, and with so many variables at play, it takes of mix of not only skill, conditioning, and determination to win consistently, but luck as well.
So for Russia’s Fedor Emelianenko to go unbeaten in 28 fights from 2001 to 2009 (and if you discount his fluke 17 second cut-induced loss to Tsuyoshi Kosaka in 2000 you can add another year and four more wins), it almost defied description. Winning wasn’t a habit for “The Last Emperor,” it was an addiction.
All the time though, Emelianenko, like any fighter, knew that one day, his time could come. In June of 2010, Fabricio Werdum knocked down the wall of invincibility with a first round submission win over Emelianenko. Eight months later, Antonio Silva repeated the feat, forcing a doctor’s stoppage after two rounds in February.
The defeats shocked the world, Emelianenko’s fans, and likely his close circle of family and friends, many of whom had never seen him leave a fight without his hand raised. Yet not surprisingly, the stoic 34-year old quickly put things into perspective.
“This is the nature of the sport, and I never felt there was such a thing as being unbeatable,” said Fedor through translator Igor Golubchik. “And during each fight, I was being real and I understood that there could be a time when it (a loss) happened. And I look at it very simply – it’s just a sport, things happen, and that’s how I present it to my close friends and family.”
And that’s what fighters do. You fight to win, but if you don’t, you take it as part of the game, brush it off, and move forward. Emelianenko’s opponent in the Strikeforce main event on Saturday night, Dan Henderson, has eight defeats. Pound for pound king and UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva has four, his counterpart at welterweight, Georges St-Pierre, has lost just as many times as Emelianenko, and GSP’s opponent later this year, Strikeforce welterweight boss Nick Diaz, has fallen seven times. So you get the picture.
Yet if you see and hear some fans and pundits, it’s as if the sky is falling and crashing directly onto the head of the former PRIDE heavyweight champion from Stary Oskol. But if Emelianenko is worried that he is reaching the end of his storied career, he’s certainly not showing it. Not even close. And while he is known for keeping things close to his vest, when you ask him what makes him still do this when his legacy is already secure as one of the greatest fighters to ever put on the gloves, he does reveal – in his own unique way – that the hunger is still there.
“There’s still a lot to do, there’s still a lot to teach other people, and a lot to learn and to grow personally,” he said.
The first lesson Emelianenko may want to deliver is that he is far from done as a top-level heavyweight. Class begins on Saturday against Henderson, a former UFC standout, two division PRIDE champion, and current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion. It’s a fight that won’t put Emelianenko any closer to a title shot, but it’s one of those dream matchups fans have always speculated about coming to fruition.
It’s also a nice style matchup for the 6-0, 230 pound Emelianenko, who won’t have to worry about getting caught in a submission by “Hendo” like he was by Werdum, or getting physically overwhelmed by the 6-4, 264 pound Silva. Henderson won’t be hard to find, he will likely want to keep the fight standing, and if Fedor can avoid his opponent’s concussive right hand, he should be able to settle into the fight and get back into the win column for the first time since he knocked out Brett Rogers in November of 2009.
That’s a long time to wait for a win, and Emelianenko’s getting impatient.
“Victory is important because I’m not just representing myself, I’m also representing my country and my people,” he said. “So I always think about victory and that I need to achieve that. I’m feeling really good right now, I’m very comfortable, and I feel very strong.”
If you’re a fan of mixed martial arts, it’s almost impossible to not like Emelianenko. Accomplishments aside (and for the record, those accomplishments include his PRIDE title and wins over Andrei Arlovski, Tim Sylvia, Mark Hunt, Mark Coleman, Mirko Cro Cop, “Minotauro” Nogueira, Kevin Randleman, Kazuyuki Fujita, Heath Herring, Semmy Schilt, Babalu Sobral, and Ricardo Arona), he’s a humble competitor who shows up with no frills, no trash talk, and just fights. If you ask him if it’s been difficult to stay true to himself over the years, and there is no hesitation in his response.
“It’s absolutely not difficult to be a good man and a man of faith in this sport,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what you do in life or what kind of job you have; you just have to remember God and keep your faith.”
And his loyal fan base has responded, defending their fighter at every turn against those who feel that his back-to-back losses have spelled the beginning of the end for “The Last Emperor.” That’s something that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Emelianenko.
“I’m very thankful to my fans who have been loyal to me even through the losses, and I appreciate each and every fan very much,” he said. “I don’t know why people feel that way, but maybe they feel that I’m honest to myself, to the sport and to the fans.”
Being honest to yourself is the only way you can truly be successful in a sport that will not allow you to lie once you’re in the cage, whether you like it or not. And if you’re able to whittle everything down to a few simple truths and use them to carry you forward, life gets not only simpler, but more manageable.
So here’s one simple truth about Fedor Emelianenko: he’s a fighter. On Saturday, he plans on reminding the world of that fact.
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