If you haven’t heard of MMA, you should fix that. And if you’ve heard of MMA but are UFC-biased, you should fix that too. There are tons of amazing fighters out there that aren’t yet in the UFC.

But most importantly, if you know of MMA and of UFC but don’t know of Fedor Emelianenko, you are missing out.

Fedor is widely considered to be the best MMA fighter ever. He’s a God when striking or grappling, and can take massive punishment and come back to destroy you. Check out this fight with Randleman where he gets dropped on his neck, rolls over, and submits him like it never even happened.

Then at the end he tries to help him up as if to say sorry. The guy is inhuman. Oh, and he never stares people down in the ring. He looks down and is always respectful. Then he comes out and hurts you. When this beast was asked if he had any pets he responded:

Yes, I have a pet turtle.

Fear any man who ignores being dropped on his neck and has a pet turtle. And here’s a highlight reel:

So yeah, I thought Jackson had a great chance to win (I put it at 45% – 55%), and I knew for sure it was going to be a first round knockout one way or the other. All these people at the sports bar were talking about third round decision, second round TKO, etc.. I told them, “First round KO. It’s just a question of who.” And indeed that was the case.

So now a few thoughts:

Pride has more talent than UFC does. They have better fighters and they fight more often. I think we’ll continue to see the Pride fighters dominate the UFC fighters — not always, but in general.

Secondly, Chuck has a sick offense but I agree that he’s never been pitted against a striker near his caliber. Some people call that overrated, which I guess I agree with now that the Pride fighters are part of the mix. I truly believe that people like Henderson, Silva (Wanderlei), and Jackson have offense as good or better than Chuck’s.

Basically, Chuck had so much success because he can knock people out consistently while defending the take-down really well. The issue is that he’s not faced many serious strikers, and now we see what happens when he does. Don’t get me wrong, I think Chuck has a good chance of knocking out Jackson too; it’s a coin-toss really. But it shouldn’t be if one fighter is that much better than another.

What I’m looking for right now is for more Pride fighters to come to UFC, and a more active fight schedule. I don’t want a boxing schedule for these guys; I want them tuned, like in Pride. And for the love of God — bring Fedor to the UFC. I can’t wait to see him destroy the heavyweight division. I know that he can lose, but he’s 100% real-deal. Tested. Certified. Guaranteed.