Before Saturday night’s UFC 188 headliner between Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum, most fans sat in one of two camps. Those who thought Velasquez’ level of performance and overall talent made him the greatest heavyweight of all time, and those who believed Fedor Emelianenko’s greater body of work put him at the top of the pile.
Now, having submitted Velasquez to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Fabricio Werdum might be the greatest heavyweight of all time.
The new champion’s claim is impossible to ignore. Not only has he dethroned Velasquez at the top of today’s heavyweight division, he was also the first man to legitimately beat Fedor. In addition Werdum also holds a win over most people’s previous pick as the number three on the all time list, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira.
There are circumstances surrounding each victory that must be remembered. Perhaps by 2010 Fedor was not the same fighter he had been in previous years. By 2013 Nogueira certainly wasn’t.
Then there is the victory over Velasquez, where the Mexican had not fought in almost 20 months before he set foot inside the cage to face Werdum.
Similarly, there is a certain amount of sympathy applied to the losses of both Fedor and Velasquez during their respective careers.
In the case of Fedor, his defeats came towards the end of a grueling run that had moved him past his best. The same is said of Velasquez whose losses to dos Santos, and now Werdum, both came after long lay offs due to injury.
But then, shouldn’t we be applying that same logic to the defeats on Werdum’s record? If we can give Fedor a pass for losses suffered when he was a lesser version of himself, if we can do the same for Velasquez when he was beaten following long periods away from the cage, why can’t we forget those suffered by Werdum against Nogueira, Andrei Arlovski and Junior dos Santos early in his?
At that time Werdum was simply an outstanding Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioner with no real striking skill to speak of. He was nothing like the fighter that stepped into the cage to face Cain Velasquez at the weekend. That the sub-par period of his career came at the start, rather than the end, should not harm his chances of being deemed the greatest of all time.
Perhaps he will get the chance to reverse some of the losses on his record. Maybe he will get to face dos Santos and Arlovski, possibly even Overeem too. He might even find himself in a rematch with Velasquez in defense of the world title. Werdum could have all those fights yet to come and could win, or lose, them all.
The truth is at this point, I don’t know whether Fabricio Werdum deserves that moniker or not. I can’t compare a resume that remains a work in progress, to the closed and compete body of work owned by Fedor. Not when Werdum continues to improve with each passing performance. The Fabricio Werdum we saw fight at the weekend was the best Fabricio Werdum we have seen to date.
Once time is called and the door closes behind Fabricio Werdum’s career, that is when the debate should really begin. When it does, I hope his early career performances are viewed with the same disregard as those we saw from Fedor at the end of his.
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