No one wants to sambo with Fedor

November 23, 2007 – 3:45 pm by fightlinker

Last week, Fedor stunned the universe by defending his Open-Weight Combat Sambo title in Prague in front of a rousing crowd of dozens. In other words, no one bothered to come check it out, even with Fedor’s involvement. Hell, even two of Fedor’s opponents didn’t make it to their matches, meaning Fedor won by default after one fight. Fedor’s thoughts on the tournament:

“This fourth gold medal ended up being the strangest. For the first time in my career all my opponents refused to step on the mat. I admit similar situations have happened, they’ve asked me to hit more softly on the head to avoid injuries. Not to mention in the 2002 Worlds, when I signed up for the competition, 7 fighters immediately quit the tournament, but what happened this time in Prague had never happened to me before,” declared the former Pride champion.

For all the bluster of Fedor being the ‘face of Combat Sambo’, it seems pretty clear at this point that no one but Fedor wants Fedor competing. All he’s doing is keeping other Sambo guys from winning some medals and fame for themselves. It’s like Barry Bonds showing up at a t-ball tournament and crushing everyone year after year. Give it up, man. You’re #1, we fucking get it.

Other sites might be trying to make this out as proof that the UFC really shouldn’t have been anti-Combat Sambo, but I don’t buy it. The Combat Sambo thing was probably a footnote at the bottom of the crazy demands Fedor’s management was asking for.

My take on this is similar to my take on Mark Hunt’s new pro wrestling career or Josh Barnett fighting a cross dresser … I find it sad that these guys are reduced to doing this lame shit instead of fighting the biggest matches of their lives in front of tens of thousands.

For God’s sake, this is like the beginning of a bad movie sequel where the main character re-assembles the team and finds his comrades doing all sorts of embarrassing shit to make ends meet.