The Full Enchilada

It’s unfortunate to hear that Fedor may need a CAT scan after the brutal beating he sustained at the hands of Antonio Bigfoot Silva. I was afraid of what might happen if Fedor couldn’t keep the fight standing and dominate with boxing. Sure I knew Fedor had great ground and pound history on his side but this was a huge guy which makes grappling and wrestling with him very risky if he ends up ground and pounding on Fedor. As I said in my previous articles on Fedor, I think he is past his prime and should think of his health, he has nothing to prove to anyone and hopefully he has enough money left to retire on ok.

For those who have not seen the fight here’s a video streaming link for you to the Fedor Silva fight (even the commentators stated that Silva was supposedly at 285 lbs in the fight, this would mean 55 pounds more of lean muscle and thick bones!):

(keep in mind the audio lags behind…)

(I look forward to seeing Fabricio Werdum versus Alistair Overeem who has packed on quite a lot of muscle, hopefully he passes drug tests. This could go either way, I think Werdum should win but Overeem has a good chance to do to Fabricioi what Silva did to Fedor.)

Although Silva was seen as the ‘underdog’, this fight was not very fair for Fedor, I say Fedor was the underdog. These days, as I’ve written on numerously, there’s no justice over 205! Meaning smaller fighters that can’t make it down to 205 lbs are forced to fight huge MONSTERS like Antonio Silva and other 265 pound guys who are not just fat Sumos but all hard bones and muscles. Fedor can not continue to dominate against such monsters when he is past his prime. In his prime, his big heart let him win, and to be fair the monsters he may have fought before perhaps were not as ’skilled’ as today’s monsters.

I’m a big advocate of public day of fight weigh-ins, in addition to the usual pre-fight weigh-ins. The truth is that huge fighters work themselves to dehydration sometimes to make the pre-fight weigh-ins and would not have done very well had they fought right then. But they are allowed to come in to the fight nice and healthy and well hydrated with an additional 10 to 20 pounds than their pre-fight weigh-ins and the bigger the fighter the bigger the difference can be. A big fighter who comes in very dehydrated, can be even 30 pounds heavier once he’s back to normal hydration.

Fedor doesn’t really play the dehydration game, and he hasn’t much reason to, he’s naturally at 230 lbs and even a little bit chubby at that! Antonio Silva on the other hand, is likely naturally at around 285 or 300 lbs! He is naturally a much bigger frame, hence his Bigfoot nickname. (Silva does in fact have acromegaly, ie a form of gigantism characterized as caused by a benign tumor in the pituitary gland that produces excess growth hormone. Silva’s tumor supposedly caused him to produce as much as 20 times the normal amount of growth hormone in the body. Fyi, some athletes take dope themselves with ‘growth hormone’ in addition to anabolic steroids for increased skeletal strength and muscle.)

It is rumored that the day of the fight, Antonio Silva stood not only about 5 inches taller (not sure how much longer a reach Silva enjoys over Fedor, looking it up..) than Fedor, but Silva was up to 50 pounds heavier than Fedor. And Silva does not have a Sumo’s flabby physique, he is quite lean for his size, Silva looks leaner and more muscular than Fedor. Even if 50 pounds is a bit high, in my opinion even 34 pounds is very considerable weight advantage if going by pre-fight weigh-ins. I had wished that Fedor would be able to take down the monster with punches but had I been his trainer I would have told him he needed several months to train muay thai leg kicks and just dance around trying to soften up the big monster by taking out his legs and then try some punching, and only when the monster was very tired would I have advocated a close quarters ground and pound game. I had always thought Fedor was lacking in the kicking and kneeing department and should have learned some Muay Thai kicks a long time ago. (ie it takes time to toughen up those shins!)

To be fair, why doesn’t the UFC make 155 pound fighters go up against 185 lb division fighters? Or even how about pitting 155 pound fighters against 205 lb fighters? Poor Mirko CroCop was even worse off in the heavy-weight scale, his frame is even smaller than Fedor and he consistently had to fight opponents who were considerably bigger and heavier than him.

There is no doubt, MMA needs more heavy weight classes to bring justice over 205. Something like a 230 lb class in honor Fedor! (The we would put all the 250+ pound guys together so the 250 and 265 pound guys can get some bad karma back from their 350 pound Bob Sapp and Eric Pele style opponents.)

So what do you think, anyone want to sign a 230 lb division request to the UFC in Honor of the Last Emperor?