Fabricio Werdum | UFC Betting Sites - The Best MMA Online Bookies

Strikforce: Fedor vs. Werdum — Live Results + Commentary

(Damn, what an unflattering picture of Werdum. It’s just one of those things where the camera catches you at the exact wrong moment, and you wind up making a strange expression that you’d never make again in a million–OH SHIT. / Photo courtesy of M-1G…

Look, we’re all still a little emotional from USA’s World Cup exit this afternoon, and the only cure is bloodshed. Luckily, Fedor Emeliananko returns to the Strikeforce cage tonight at the HP Pavilion in San Jose against Fabricio "Grappler’s Chance" Werdum, while Cris Cyborg will be tearing apart some random blonde woman. Plus, Scott Smith and Cung Le re-do their last fight for the hell of it, former lightweight champ Josh Thomson tries to rebound against Pat Healy, and an MMA legend might announce his retirement.

Round-by-round results from the "Fedor vs. Werdum" Showtime broadcast will be piling up after the jump beginning at 10 p.m. ET; refresh your browser every few minutes for all the latest. (The show is delayed on the West Coast, so beware of spoilers.) And yes, "Tucson" is misspelled on Fedor’s t-shirt in the above photo, but that’s what happens when you do all your shopping at consignment shops in Stary Oskol. Humble guy, this Last Emperor.

10 Defining Fights in the Unknowable Life of Fedor Emelianenko

(“Mr. Fedor thinks you are a very amusing little man. He would enjoy it very much to see you dance for him … Dance! Dance, I say!” PicProps: Fedor’s Website)
Even by his own lofty standards for peculiarity, Fedor Emelianenko …

(“Mr. Fedor thinks you are a very amusing little man. He would enjoy it very much to see you dance for him … Dance! Dance, I say!” PicProps: Fedor’s Website)

Even by his own lofty standards for peculiarity, Fedor Emelianenko had a pretty enigmatic week in America leading up to his second appearance inside the Strikeforce cage. When he wasn’t no-showing scheduled appointments or turning interviews into literal games of telephone by funneling his quotes through a comically long series of interpreters and middlemen, Fedor plodded through his obligations to hype tonight’s fight against Fabricio Werdum with the same kind of indecipherable stoicism he usually shows his doomed opponents.

Amid rumors that his retirement was imminent and that he was planning a life in politics at home in mother Russia (both of which he’s denied), the whole circus served only to remind us how little we really know about Fedor. Aside from a few half-hour Showtime specials, a handful of feature stories — the best known of which was actually written by M-1 executive Evgeni Kogan, so it has to be considered no more substantive than an M-1 press release – and his own stilted and translated post-fight interviews, there is shockingly little primary source material on Emelianenko.

What we’re told, over and over again, is this: Because of his old-school Soviet sensibilities and deeply religious nature, Fedor has no need for fame or for money and apparently has no desire to be known or understood by the fans who’ve elevated him to near God-like status in hardcore MMA circles. He’s a simple, conservative-minded man who chooses to live in relative seclusion, train with a select group of close friends and views nearly everything else as bothersome, needless distraction. Yeah, that last part made him sound a little bit more like Brock Lesnar than any of you are comfortable with admitting, huh?

But as much as he remains a mystery outside the cage, he’s given us ample evidence of what’s capable of inside it. In preparation for tonight’s bout with Werdum, we give you our choices for the 10 fights that have, in different ways, defined his career thus far …

Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum Preview and Predictions

Filed under: Strikeforce, M-1 Global
Fedor is back.

Filed under: Strikeforce, M-1 Global

Fedor is back.

There’s a lot to like about Saturday night’s Strikeforce/M-1 Global card in San Jose, but the fundamental fact that makes the show compelling is that the best fighter in the history of MMA, Fedor Emelianenko, is returning to the cage. We’ve got the full preview and predictions for Fedor’s fight and the other three Showtime bouts below.

Strikeforce Main Event Breakdown: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum

Filed under: StrikeforceAll month long, the narrative about Saturday’s Strikeforce/M1: Fedor vs. Werdum show has had little to do with the main event. Instead, it’s been about whether Fedor Emelianenko is soon to retire, his thoughts on the UFC, why he…

Filed under: Strikeforce

All month long, the narrative about Saturday’s Strikeforce/M1: Fedor vs. Werdum show has had little to do with the main event. Instead, it’s been about whether Fedor Emelianenko is soon to retire, his thoughts on the UFC, why he’s not fighting Alistair Overeem. Anything, it seems, but Fabricio Werdum.

You could probably chalk up the phenomenon to the fact that most people simply don’t believe that Werdum is going to be the one to end Emelianenko’s nine-and-a-half-year unbeaten stretch. Most people will simply watch to find out how Fedor wins. Will it be a KO? A submission? Will Werdum be able to last the distance?

To make it clear, I’m not going to be the one to pick against Emelianenko. You don’t pick against men in the midst of historic win streaks. But I do see a path to victory for Werdum, as remote as it may seem.

Sneak Peak: Final ‘Fedor vs. Werdum’ Prefight Hype

(VidProps: ShoSports/YouTube) The above video gives you a look at the final product of that promo shoot we showed you a couple days back and the results seem, well, just as generic as we feared. As it turns out, the road to the probable destruc…

(VidProps: ShoSports/YouTube)

The above video gives you a look at the final product of that promo shoot we showed you a couple days back and the results seem, well, just as generic as we feared. As it turns out, the road to the probable destruction of Jan Finney and Fabricio Werdum will be paved in fireballs and misting sleet and Fedor Emelianenko will try to get as much mileage as possible out of that pair of nondescript black athletic shorts. Meanwhile the bass baritone voice of former Crash Test Dummies lead singer and current Strikeforce play-by-play man Gus Johnson – the voice certain CP editors hear in their dreams before they wake up screaming “My name’s Al Harris and I get buckets!” – will prattle on about legends and destiny and history or some such similar bullshit.

It appears that Strikeforce is going the extra mile to make Finney look both attractive and credible, though at least one of those concepts seems like a major stretch. Likewise, the only people giving Werdum much of a shot are Fedor himself, Renato “Babalu” Sobral and one of my co-workers at The Rumble. An extremely scientific internet poll of fans conducted by The Junkie shows just 13 percent of y’all think the 6-foot-4 jiu jitsu ace can pull the upset. Frankly, I’d hate to see the numbers on Finney.

After the jump, some final thoughts from Fedor about why fighting him seems to be career suicide for his opponents and a few snapshots of the official weigh-in featuring the ubiquitous Rockstar Girls, just to get your Saturday started right …

Writer vs. Fighter: Strikeforce — Fedor vs. Werdum Predictions

Filed under: MMA Videos, Strikeforce, VideosSAN JOSE — This recurring feature sounded like such a good idea in my head. What’s not to like about an MMA fighter and an MMA writer matching wits over an upcoming fight card? That was before I went 0-2 in …

Filed under: MMA Videos, Strikeforce, Videos

SAN JOSE — This recurring feature sounded like such a good idea in my head. What’s not to like about an MMA fighter and an MMA writer matching wits over an upcoming fight card? That was before I went 0-2 in the first two installments, dropping very close match-ups with Cain Velasquez and then Tim Kennedy.

But this time I’m trying something different in the hopes of changing my luck. For Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum, I square off against Renato “Babalu” Sobral in a special video edition of Writer vs. Fighter, and I have to say I feel good about this one. Maybe it’s the fact that Sobral is essentially obligated to pick his Brazilian brother-in-arms Fabricio Werdum to pull off the upset over Fedor Emelianenko, or maybe it’s just that I don’t have to do as much actual writing for this one.

Whatever it is, I feel almost certain that I’m going to win this one. Or, you know, at least save some dignity with a tie. Check out the full video below to find out how “Babalu” and I see Saturday night’s action going down.