Fedor Emelianenko Is The MMA Fighter Of The Decade

Surprised? Didn't think so. After all, when I began to think about the topic of the MMA Fighter of the Decade only two names really came to mind- Fedor Emelianenko and Anderson Silva. Right now, if you were to ask me who the best fighter was pound for pound, I would give it to Silva. After all, he's taken on eight top level fighters since the year 2007 began and defeated every one of them convincingly. On the flip side, Emelianenko has only fought five times since 2007, and only three of those fights were against contending heavyweights.

But this isn't an article about who deserves the moniker of best fighter right now; it's about who's been the best over the course of a decade. Emelianenko is 28-1 during the 2000's. He started off the decade with a win over Ricardo Arona by way of decision at a Rings event and then promptly lost by way of TKO (cut) to Tsuyoshi Kosaka on the same night. It was the only loss of his career, one that he would avenge in 2005 by first round TKO at a PRIDE event. Since that loss, however, Emelianenko has defeated all comers. We're talking about big names in the sport like Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (twice), Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic (during his prime), Mark Coleman (twice), Heath Herring, Tim Sylvia, and Andrei Arlovski. He was the heavyweight champion in PRIDE when they were the only organization capable of competing with the UFC. And in the end, all of the aforementioned fights ended in decisive wins for the fighter from Russia.

Sure, Silva has fought better competition in recent days. But the man has four losses on his record during the decade (okay, three- one of them was due to disqualification). In the end, it's hard to ignore the fact that Fedor's only loss during a 10 year span was due to a cut. And it was one he avenged.

Besides, when all else fails, go with the heavyweight. There's nothing quite like a heavyweight championship fight, now is there?

In the end, it just had to be Fedor Emelianenko.