10 MMA Fights That Were The Beginning Of The End For Legends

6. Fedor Emelianenko Vs. Antonio Silva - Strikeforce: Fedor Vs. Silva

Fedor Emelianenko is one of the greatest heavyweights that the MMA game has ever seen. And even though The Last Emperor is still active – a 43-year-old Fedor getting a TKO win over Rampage Jackson this past 29 December – the Russian’s best days are long, long behind him.

For a decade, Emelianenko had proven himself one of the most dangerous heavyweights around as he amassed win after win over a veritable who’s who of the heavyweight ranks. That was until 2010, when the MMA world was left stunned after Fabricio Werdum submitted Fedor in Strikeforce.

At that point, Emelianenko’s first (and only) loss was during his debut pro year in 2000. So, to see this dominant force easily dispatched in the first round against Werdum, that raised eyebrows.

Any fighter can be caught off-guard and lose in somewhat of a fluke or unexpected fashion, and thus many thought that the Werdum loss may be just such a one-off. When Fedor returned to action and lost so convincingly to Antonio Silva after a second-round doctor stoppage at a February 2011 Strikeforce event, that was the moment that the aura around the powerful, prolific Fedor Emelianenko vanished. Nobody had manhandled Emelianenko in the way that Bigfoot dominated him in that fight.

To follow these two defeats up, Fedor was then on the receiving end of yet another first-round loss – this time to the heavy-hitting Dan Henderson under the Strikeforce banner just five months after his Silva defeat.

Since then, The Last Emperor has taken several spells away from the cage, and his fights have either come against lesser fighters or fighters who are similarly on the wane – à la that recent ‘Rampage’ Jackson fight.

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