Fight Preview: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rodgers

With the contracts and paperwork now out of the way, Strikeforce is looking to put their number one attraction to good use by putting him up against one of their number one contenders in the heavyweight division, Brett Rogers. This match is no surprise to anyone, as the selection of opponents wasn’t a great number for Fedor Emelianenko. It was either between Fabricio Werdum, Brett Rodgers or current champion Alistair Overeem. To say that the Strikeforce heavyweight division is lacking serious talent would be an understatement. Nonetheless Fedor is set to take on the man who is coming off of a huge win over Andrei Arlovski.

Rogers was able to do what even Fedor couldn’t, which was destroy Arlovski in a matter of seconds. In Fedors fight against Arlovski, he was being fairly dominated by the superior boxing ability of Andrei. For three minutes Andrei danced around Fedor, landing punches as he wished but only moments later Arlovski would be out cold on the canvas after jumping face first into a huge overhand right. There is no doubt that both men have dynamite in either hand but you have to look at the level of opposition both men have fought at. Fedor has fought the best from all around the world, from Mirko Cro Cop to Antônio Nogueira, all of loss to Fedor. Whereas Brett’s opposition has been less than impressive, his wins include names such as James Thompson AKA the human punching bag and Andrei Arlovski who was arguably in no state to be fighting in MMA ever again since his KO loss to Fedor.

There is no doubt in my mind who will win this fight. While Brett has awesome punching power, he is incredibly one dimensional. He doesn’t have a submission game that anyone has seen and his wrestling has yet to be seen, when you step into the cage with Rogers you know that he is looking to knock you out and that’s it. But Fedor is much more well rounded. Unlike other well rounded fighters who are good at everything but not great at one thing, Fedor is the opposite, he is great at everything, which makes him a anomaly in the sport. Fedor has explosive striking power, his wrestling/sambo is second to none and on top of that he can submit his opponents with ease. This is not one part of this fight that I see Rogers winning. Fedor will out strike, he will out wrestle him and he will submit him.

Fedor wins via Submission or KO, or TKO. No matter how you put it, Rogers is losing this fight.