Daily Fights: Fedor Emelianenko v. Blagoi Ivanov

We're two days removed from Fabricio Werdum scoring the upset of the year by defeating Fedor Emelianenko at Strikeforce on Saturday night.  Already, there's a ton of discussion about this result, as there should be.  To add to that discussion, I wanted to take a look back at another major moment in Fedor's career: the other time Fedor lost.  No, I'm not talking about his defeat by Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (anyone interested in that story should check out Jonathan's Snowden's excellent article over at BloodyElbow).   I'm talking about Fedor's loss to Blagoi Ivanov.

Never heard of it?  No surprise, as this is not a fight often discussed.  But it's certainly one worth noting, especially in light of Fedor's first true MMA loss.  This fight comes from 2008, as Fedor fought Ivanov in the semi-final round of the World Sambo Championship.  This is actually the 2nd fight between the men, as Fedor had defeated Ivanov previously at the Russian Sambo Championships.

Fedor is in blue, Ivanov in red.

The entire fight isn't here, but as you can see at the end, Ivanov defeats Fedor via a score of 8-5.  For the first time, Fedor loses.  Ivanov would go on to win the World championship and follow that win up with a fight for Sengoku against Kazuyuki Fujita (which Ivanov won by split decision). Fedor stated that he had severe stomach problems during this tournament which would have impacted his performance. 

In retrospect, this loss may end up being looked at as the first crack in the wall that Werdum would ultimately tumble with a well placed triangle choke. 

Today, as Werdum gets all the credit he so rightly deserves, don't forget to give a tip of the hat to Blagoi Ivanov.  He may not have done it on the same grand stage, but he did what only one other man could do - topple the Last Emperor.