Thursday, July 12, 2007

Fear the Reaper!


At the risk of sounding ungrateful or unsatisfied with the vastly-improved UFC heavyweight division, I’m still left wanting for more.

Dana White and the brothers Fertitta have delivered top talent in Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, Antonio Rodrigo “Minotauro” Nogueira, Heath Herring, and Fabricio Werdum, but there’s one guy I’m still yearning to see fight under the UFC spotlight: Aleksander Emelianenko.

Let's take a quick look at the man known as The Grim Reaper:

Strengths:
- size: 6’6”, 250 lbs.
- two-time Russian national Sambo champion
- quick, heavy hands
- loves to strike; 6 of his 10 wins have come by KO/TKO

Notable Wins:
- Aussuerio Silva - before losing to Aleks, Silva was riding a seven-fight win streak.
- James Thompson (KO)
- Ricardo Morais (KO)
- Pawel Nastula (Submission). This is particluarly impressive, as Nastula is an Olympic silver medal winner in judo.
- Sergei Kharitonov (TKO)
- Erik Pele (KO)

Losses:
- Mirko Filipovic
- Josh Barnett
- Fabricio Werdum

Miscellaneous Bad-Assery:
- Fedor's brother
- Tattoo of the Grim Reaper holding a baby covers his back
- Pirate tattoo refers to Russian Criminal Code article 167 (armed robbery).

Not that I condone that type of thing...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'Dana Whitte needs to make Aleks vs. Arlovski, Sylvia, or Vera happen.