Last week, I examined the state of the UFC’s heavyweight division. Now, lets take a look at the state of the heavyweights in the rest of the world.
Once upon a time, Pride FC was home to the deepest heavyweight division in the sport. When Zuffa bought out Pride, they failed to pick up many of the pieces, resulting in a very scattered division. To date, no organization has been able to gather the majority of the heavyweights under one banner. Affliction’s first event featured the top four fighters on this list (three of them former UFC champions), but the subsequent cancellation of their upcoming event put the future of Affliction in question . And so the heavyweights remain spread out among several organizations, with Dream being the biggest player in the division outside of UFC and Affliction.
[#1] Fedor Emelianenko
MMA Record: 28-1, 1 NC (14-0 Pride FC, 1 NC)
Last bout: Defeated Tim Sylvia by submission (rear naked choke) at Affliction: Banned
Current affiliation: Affliction/M-1 Global
Sambo and Judo master Fedor Emelianenko has been indisputably the top heavyweight in the world for most of this decade, and considered by many to be the best fighter in the world in any weight class. The last Pride HW champion holds an almost perfect professional record, his only loss a controversial cut stoppage to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka that was later avenged with a brutal beating. After Pride’s demise, Fedor was not able to come to a deal with the UFC, and fought very infrequently and against questionable competition – until a first round stoppage of former UFC champion Tim Sylvia in his most recent bout. Rumors of a Emelianenko – Couture dream bout have been circulating for over a year, but with Couture back in the UFC this fight doesn’t look likely to happen any time soon, leaving Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett as the best possible opposition for Emelianenko.
[#9 W125] 
[#1 W105] 
[#27 W105] 
[#8 FW] 
[#26 FW] 
