Aleksander Emelianenko Retires From MMA

Fedor’s brother, Aleksander Emelianenko, has announced his retirement from MMA:

Dear fans,
I want to thank you for your support, for having supported me in spite of all that they say about me. Unfortunately, I will not be able to perform in the ring because of health problems caused by old injuries. Of course, as an athlete it’s a hard time. I am grateful to my fans and partners for their support, for believing in me, and I am grateful to my detractors. Your attitude always made me move forward and achieve new things. I realise now I was hit by a barrage of accusations and criticisms, not directly related to my job. Unfortunately, there will always be people who want you in bad situations to score points. I don’t want to comment on anything, explain or justify. Each of us in life does good and does bad – that is our nature. I think I did a lot for the sport and I hope my example has drawn a lot of young people to the gym. Otherwise, God will judge us all, in time. Now I want to give the publicity away. I want to take care of my health, my family, which I lost, and my daughter, who I love very much. Perhaps I will see you again. Thank you! Be well and believe in God!
Your AE

Fedor: Undisputed King of MMA Review (Part 2)

If you have not read Part 1 of my book review, you may do so here: Fedor: Undisputed King of MMA Review (Part 1)

Picking up where we left off from the clinch, we now move to takedowns and throws.  These are different than wrestling based takedowns most wrestlers are used too.  Fedor is a master of Judo and Sambo.  He shows lots of throws in his book but he also mentions how to set them up with other throws or strikes.  When you combo some of these together it makes them that much harder to stop.  Another good thing about most of these takedowns is that you are left in an advantageous position.  You don’t have to follow someone down to the ground where you can be submitted.  These takedowns usually leave you standing over you opponent, free to reign down strikes.

Next we come to the ground game.  Fedor covers most of the main positions and how to escape them.  Like with the throws, he strings moves together, so if one fails you can immediately move to the next.  This method greatly increases your chance of success.  This is not a grappling only section, he will show you how to pass a guard using strikes to set up a guard pass.

I’ve read a lot of material on MMA, Jiu-jitsu and so on, and these moves are pretty simple yet very effective.  If someone would take the time to drill and perfect all of these techniques and never learned anything else, they would still be a very dangerous and well rounded fighter.  Something else interesting about many of these techniques are that they come from Sambo/Judo instead of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu or wrestling, so many people may not be used to these particular variations.  You might be able to take people at your martial art gym by surprise with some of these.

I highly recommend this book.  You will learn all sorts of interesting variations of moves you have probably never seen, get some philosophy behind why he does things a certain way, and will learn how to string techniques together.  The only real thing missing from this book is some coverage of how Fedor actually trains.  There is no mention of how much he runs, lifts weights, spars, etc.  A conditioning section would have been nice but perhaps we will see some of that in the future.

Fedor: Undisputed King of MMA Review (Part 1)

Today I am going to review the book from the great Fedor Emelianenko.  I have to say, this book is fantastic.  For starters, it’s very well rounded.  From it you will learn a series of striking combinations, clinch techniques and ground fighting techniques.  Not only did Fedor dominate the hardest weight class in all of combat sports for a decade, but he remained humble while doing it.  That is why he is my favorite fighter of all time.

The techniques in this book aren’t overly complicated or fancy, but they work.  The book is broken down into three basic sections: Striking, Clinch, Ground Fighting.  Also, unlike with a lot of other fighter’s books, these are techniques Fedor actually uses.  Learning these techniques will actually allow you to fight with a style similar to how Fedor actually fights.

Striking:  The striking section has some very interesting and unorthodox techniques.  For instance, since most people are trained to lead with a Jab/Cross combo (and everyone is used to defending against it) Fedor uses a Cross/Left Hook intro many times to take his opponents off guard. He also uses hand traps (which are hardly ever used in MMA) to set up his opponents.  You can see this in action in several of his fights, including his extremely dominate performance against Tim Sylvia.  By clearing your opponents lead hand out of the way, it not only takes him off guard and misdirects his attention, but it opens him up for a strike.

The book starts out by showing single punches/kicks and all of their variations (there are multiple variations of even the jab for instance).  After learning the basic mechanics of each punch/kick, Fedor shows how to string them together into combinations.  Each punch sets up your opponent for another strike.  There is a lot of great material here.

After learning to strike from a distance we see how to strike from the clinch.  By being in close and controlling your opponents head and body, you can lead him into your punches, elbows and knees.  Fedor has been very successful in the clinch position during his fights, so learning a few of these combos would be beneficial for any martial artist.

In Part 2 we will cover Throws from the Clinch and Ground Work.

Jeff Monson: Thank the Russians for their attitude towards me

Jeff Monson, who is fighting Alexander Emelianenko on Nov 15th, has been giving seminars in Russia.  I am excited to see this fight.  Monson fought Alexander’s brother Fedor a little less than a year ago.

“I arrived in St. Petersburg to see my friends. I like to spend time in this beautiful city. Here I have any friends. I want to thank the company M-1. Thanks to her, I became popular among Russian fans. Every time they have a warm welcome for me, so I decided to give back to them to reciprocate. I want to help those who have decided to learn grappling. I’m in great condition. Now I am preparing hard for the next fight, which I have scheduled for November 15. I intend to have a good training to during the battle to be ready one hundred percent. Thank the Russians for their attitude towards me. There is a feeling that everyone here treats me as if I was his cousin, “- Jeff Monson

Junior Dos Santos: ‘Fedor Is the Greatest of All Time’

“Fedor is the greatest, no doubt,” said Dos Santos. “For me, in a matter of admiration, he is the greatest of all time. He is a heavyweight who beat everybody. He certainly was ‘The Baddest Man on the Planet.’ If he came back to fight, it would be incredible for the sport. I’m a big fan of his.” – Junior Dos Santos

Recently Fedor won a poll in Brazil, with 73 percent of the voters declaring him as the greatest of all time.  Surprisingly, Anderson Silva came in second with only 12 percent of the votes.  It’s good to see Junior Dos Santos speaks his mind and isn’t afraid to say what he believes.  I have a lot of respect for him.  Unlike a lot of MMA fighters these days, he acts respectfully and with class.

Fedor Emelianenko Voted The Greatest Fighter Of All Time By Brazilian Fans

Porto de Vale Tudo, a big Brazilian website, conducted a month-long poll in August asking one question – who is the greatest fighter of all time?  Considering that this was done in Brazil it’s pretty shocking that a Russian ended up being the overwhelming favorite.  It’s good to see Brazilian fans are fair and truthful in their evaluation of fighters.

Fedor Emelianenko: 73%
Anderson Silva: 12%
Rodrigo Minotauro (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira): 7%
Dan Henderson: 7%
Randy Couture: 1%

ELO MMA Rankings

It’s hard to find good rankings in MMA these days.  Most Rankings come from websites catering to the UFC out of fear they will lose their press credentials…which is hardly a bias free system.  Some rankings, like those on sherdog, are so bad, it’s just a random collection of whatever the sherdog staff wants with almost no basis in reality or what a fighter has actually done to earn a rank.

These types of popularity contests are how you end up with Brock Lesnar (who was 3-1 at the time) becoming the #1 Heavyweight or Matt Serra going from being a Lightweight to passing everyone at Welterweight and becoming #1 there for beating Georges St. Pierre.  While beating GSP should count for a lot, it doesn’t make all of the years of hard work for all other Welterweights just disappear.  These types of systems are completely worthless and should be ignored.

One very good system (and it is actually a system, not just people’s random baseless opinions being thrown out there) are the ELO Rankings.  The ELO Ranking system was created by Arpad Elo and is used by virtually every major sport or game, including:  Chess, association football, American college football, basketball, and Major League Baseball.  It’s a mathematical system that takes human bias out of the equation altogether.  All that matter is what you have actually accomplished, not hype.

You can read more about the ELO System here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELO_ranking

Luckily for MMA fans, there is a website that keeps up with ELO MMA Rankings.  The only real problem with this site is it’s one guy running it so sometimes it isn’t updated often enough.  Fighters also tend to change weight classes a lot, and if the site isn’t up to date in certain areas, a fighter might be listed in the wrong weight class.  None of these problems come from the ELO Ranking system, it’s simply a lack of time from the site manager.  He does a great job, it’s just a lot to keep up with.

If you follow MMA, these are the rankings you should use.  I haven’t found any other ones that actually matter.  http://www.mma-elo.com/

I will be posting ELO MMA Rankings from now on (but I will correct them when a fighter is in the wrong weight class).

Fedor Emelianenko’s M-1 Contract Revealed. UFC Payment Clause Included

Hey guys, it looks like Fedor's M-1 Global Contract has been posted online.  I assume it's legit.  It's long but worth a look by Fedor fans.

http://vendettafighter.com/news/fedor-emelianenkos-m-1-contract-revealed-ufc-payment-clause-included/