Main event:
265 lbs: Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko vs. Brett “The Grim” Rogers
Odds: (-575 Fedor / +375 Rogers)
The main event of the evening pits consensus world #1 Heavyweight, “The Last Emperor”Fedor Emelianenko, against up and coming knockout artist Brett “The Grim” Rogers. Rogers has been on a tear, destroying all 10 of his professional opponents so far including former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski. To say that Emelianenko is a step up in competition, though, would be understating it hugely. If Rogers can knock out Emelianenko, it would be the biggest upset in the history of the sport, bar none.
Rogers, a huge heavyweight with huge punching power, is a physically imposing monster. Put simply, if Rogers hits you with a power punch, you are going to sleep. Technically, his handspeed is good and his punching is accurate. The two big question marks for Rogers are his cardio and his ground game. Only once in his professional career has he made it outside the first frame, and his takedown defense and submission defense have never been tested at all. No doubt he does train in jiu jitsu and wrestling, but training is an entirely different scenario than being in the ring with the most accomplished Heavyweight MMA grappler of all time.
Emelianenko, widely regarded as the great Mixed Martial Artist of all time, is well deserving of his exalted reputation. His only career “loss” came at the hands of a cut from an illegal elbow at the hands of Tsuyoshi Kohsaka, and to say that he avenged that loss would be like saying that the United States avenged the attacks on Pearl Harbor. Emelianenko is ridiculously well rounded, having outgrappled the best grapplers in the world and outstruck the best strikers. Clearly, he will enter this fight as an unprecedented favorite, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this is a clear win for him.
Against Kazuyuki Fujita, Fedor was visibly rocked by a right hand. Granted, he recovered very quickly and finished Fujita with a choke shortly afterward, but Rogers also hits infinitely harder than Fujita does. If “The Grim” can land a single clean power shot, the odds are fairly good that Fedor is going to get knocked out. Of course, the same may well also be true in reverse. The other consideration, although less important, is Fedor’s tendency to get cut. If Rogers can open Fedor up, he might well earn a win. I think that is less likely, though, because if Rogers lands clean enough to cut Fedor the cut will probably not be the reason the fight ends.
Ultimately, it is impossible to pick against Fedor in this fight. His record of standup wins is at least as impressive as Rogers’ and he has a proven, world class ground game to go with it. It’s entirely possible that Fedor could come out and knock Rogers out in the same spectacular fashion Rogers himself has finished all of his opponent. It is almost entirely certain that Fedor can take Rogers down, and submit him, at will.
Fight Prediction: Fedor by TKO from ground and pound, round 1.
That said, from a betting perspective, clearly Fedor is not very attractive considering that he is a huge favorite. Rogers may well be worth a small bet, just because of his explosive knockout power. If he predictably loses, you won’t lose much, but if he wins it could be well worth the investment. Consider parlaying him in a small bet with sure-thing Gegard Mousasi to get even more mileage if he pulls off the upset.
