Fighting Cans

One of the most frequent criticisms of Fedor Emelianenko is that since 2005 he has only fought 'cans'. Is this just criticism? How does he stack up against other heavyweight fighters?

The current top 10 are as follows:

HEAVYWEIGHT DIVISION (over 205 pounds)

#1 Heavyweight Fighter in the World: Fedor Emelianenko

2. Brock Lesnar

3. Shane Carwin

4. Cain Velasquez

5. Junior Dos Santos

6. Alistair Overeem

7. Frank Mir

8. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira

9. Fabricio Werdum

10. Brett Rogers

MMAWeekly World MMA Rankings last updated on June 2, 2010

On this list Fedor has defeated 2 of the top 10 and is scheduled to fight a 3rd.

Overeem, Lesnar and Mir both have wins over 1 person on this list. Lesnar is scheduled to fight another one on the list.

So, based on the current top 10 Fedor has fought and defeated the most at this point and time. If you want to discount his win over Nogueira (x2) then you have to argue that Nogueira is better now than he was back in Pride.

The 2 fights prior to Rodgers for Fedor were against Sylvia and Arvloski. Arvloski was ranked 3rd at the time of the fight and Sylvia 5. They have since dropped out due to defeats by Fedor and others. The fight against Couture was not made, but now that he is out of the top 10 wouldn't he also be considered a can? Fedor was also scheduled to fight Barnett who was ranked 2nd in the world at the time. The fight fell through due to steroids. So... the way Fedors last couple of fights shaped up.

vs # 5, vs #3, scheduled against #2, vs #8, vs #9 + prior victories over the current # 8.

Can't win... if you beat them they are cans. If you don't fight someone then you are a can...

You can look at some historical rankings.

Jan - 2008

1 Fedor Emelianenko
2 Randy Couture
3 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
4 Fabricio Werdum
5 Cheick Kongo
6 Tim Sylvia
7 Gabriel Gonzaga
8 Mirko Filipovic
9 Andrei Arlovski
10 Sergei Kharitonov

Fought most of those.

Dec - 08

1 Fedor Emelianenko
2 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
3 Brock Lesnar
4 Andrei Arlovski
5 - Randy Couture
6 - Josh Barnett
7 - Junior dos Santos
8 - Gabriel Gonzaga
9 - Tim Sylvia
10 Fabricio Werdum

Mostly the same group.

June - 09

1 Fedor Emelianenko
2 Frank Mir
3 Brock Lesnar
4 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
5 Josh Barnett
6 Randy Couture
7 Gegard Mousasi
8 Brett Rogers
9 Junior dos Santos
10 Cheick Kongo

Dec - 09

1 Fedor Emelianenko
2 Brock Lesnar
3 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira
4 Frank Mir
5 Junior dos Santos
6 Josh Barnett
7 Brett Rogers
8 Cain Velasquez
9 Fabricio Werdum
10 Shane Carwin

So... who was he supposed to fight before just these past few months where you have the UFC heavyweights making an appearance? They made names beating people he had defeated.

Can the current crop of heavyweights generate a fight that defeats him? Sure. But he has fought 'competition' since 2005. He does not fight frequently and he has not fought unknown prospects... unless you consider Rodgers in that manner.