Fedor vs Rogers

From Cage Potato...

At today's Fedor Emelianenko meet-n-greet in New York City, Strikeforce announced that the top heavyweight's next opponent will be everybody's favorite work-doer, Brett "The Grim" Rogers. There's no solid date just yet, but Strikeforce is shooting for late October or early November, though we all know that if you announce the date of your big show too far in advance it just gives the UFC more time to work up a solid counter-programming effort.

Moose thats numbelieable news!!! No matter what the UFC hype machine tells you its a bigger fight than Carwin... UFC want to claim Fedor fights no-bodys well Carwin is no better than Rogers is he? Two Huge guys who pose a massive Risk of KO'ing you... It wasnt too long ago Sherdog posted an artice called top 3 (maby top 5 off the top of my head) thats Mr Rogers neighbourhood.. clearly some people are on the band waggon of Rogers being a real solid top 10er and not just scraping in at the botton of the heap. Good matchmaking Strikeforce becasue I didnt want Fedor vs come can to make him look good!

Only difference is Rogers is 10-0 Carwin is 11-0 but when you think Rogers Blew Arlovski away much more impressivley than Carwin blew Gonzaga away (and ive never seen Rogers Rocker) means for me he is the more dangerous opponent... than and he is like 5" taller than Carwin!!

Fedor is in for a tough fight, I know people will write Rogers off as a bum who only has 1 good win but still he is a top 10 undefeated guy who just sparked out Arlovski. Fedor is at a Huge size advantage, the fight really being a Superheavy on a Light heavy! That and its not just a Zulu but guy. Its a much more dangerous big guy.. those are some heavy hands on Rogers.

IMO its a dangerous 1st fight in Strikeforce so fair play to him for taking it. Fedor inst invincible as we all know Ol Ironhead rocked him... So its not unthinkable Rogers can do the same or worse... If Rogers did pull the upset out of thebag somehow I think we would see a 205lbs Fedor in the next fight

Anyway Ive gotta go for a 1st round sub by Fedor!! Those long arms of Rogers and lack of gorund game are justan inviting taerget! What a 1st fight though at Strikeforce though.. This has me wondering what opponent Overeem will face at Dream because they will want him to fight Werdum at Strikeforce.. I think it will be Overeem vs Sergi again... Overeem needs to avenge that loss.. he showed a real lack of balls when under fire, I think Like Gonzaga Overeem needs to get the game right in his head and have more confidence and he could be top 3.. Either man has the tools to be top 3 I think

These are the types of fights I enjoy seeing Fedor in the most, up against brick shithouses and proving that composure and skill can bring even the biggest guys down.

Rogers will look for a quick ending because he'll be wary of Fedor taking him down, but if he leaves even the smallest door open I reckon the champ will walk straight through it and end it quickly. I see it going like the Choi fight, a bit of scrappy standup until Fedor scrambles into a sub.

By the way Ben, Rogers has TWO good wins, never forget he sparked out the fearsome James Thompson as well!!!

Thank Christ its not Ricco Rodriguez

good news be a good challenge for fedor and show us where rogers really is

Great stuff, looking forward to seeing Fedor fight again, too long between fights for the lad - I refuse to count Timmeh as a fight as he had given up before he stepped into the ring ffs. Obviously Fedor is a massive favourite but is there any chance of an upset? I only mean that if Rogers lands anything the lad could KO a focking rhino and we've seen Fedor get rocked before...if that happened it would be the biggest fock up ever, Fedors main(only?) marketing tool is his status as the unbeaten best ever etc, it's not like the lad is a great character that can sell fights, Hendo has more charisma than him which says a lot(nothing to do with eithers fighting ability)...My opinion is not based on fact or much knowlede but I smell an upset - the whole turning down UFC to fight in Strikeforce to market their own fight brand M1 - going by Murphy's law he's gonna lose and fock up all his plans..it would be funny

Rogers interview with MMAFanHouse.com:

“Oh yeah. I've been watching a handful of his fights, but the ones I'm really going to concentrate on are his last five, because those are the ones that really matter, you know? Going way back in time, those are the ones that he improves his skills. I want to see where he's at right now. So he has some loopholes. When he gets excited that's when can get caught. That's the way I see it, especially if he wants to stand and bang with me. Otherwise, I can see a ground-and-pound game, too. I'm definitely not going to allow him to lead the fight. That's just not happening.”

“Yeah, I'm definitely preparing for it. He loves jiu-jitsu, and I mean, jiu-jitsu is good but you have to catch somebody for that. I've definitely been working on getting out of submissions, and most importantly, standing up. It's tough taking somebody down, and [if] you don't succeed in that, it tires you out. So I'm going to shoot for that and keep my weight on him.”

“I’m going to knock him out. He's going to give me his chin, somehow, someway. He's going to get sloppy with that overhand right that he loves to do or he'll try to shoot in for a takedown, and I'll catch him with either a knee or an uppercut ... something. I'm going to drop him. I want the crowd to go (gasp). I want to get that reaction out of people. So I can't wait.”
“I'm God then. I'm the God of MMA. I'll become the God of MMA, right? Isn't that how it goes? I'm the soul snatcher; I'm the grim. I'll take all his wins and put them under my belt, and then everybody can just hush up.”

Rogers also took aim at fellow Minnesota native and UFC heavyweight champion, Brock Lesnar. Asked if he agrees that Fedor is ducking the best competition in the world by not joining the UFC:

“No. Fedor can fight whoever he wants, the way I see it. I'm pretty sure it was a different situation with the UFC versus Strikeforce. Coming to Strikeforce, you know, was definitely a little different swing, I guess you can say. But as far as the heavyweights over there, I mean, what heavyweight over there is so special besides -- who? -- Brock [Lesnar]. Everybody compares Brock as if he is the second-best heavyweight in the world, and I see different, and Brock is from my hometown. So competition-wise it's no different.”

When asked if he felt Brock Lesnar was maybe over rated, Rogers said:

“Yeah. Yeah, actually, I do. Brock is overrated. I mean, look at how many fights he's had; he's had a handful fights. He's only showcased that he's just a wrestler and a ground-and-pounder. I mean, he hasn't fought anybody the same size as him. So it's going to get to that point when that happens it really is going to showcase Brock's talent.”

If Fedor can shake off that slam from Kevin Randleman then I don't see him getting knocked out by Rogers, or anybody else, any time soon. The guy has a chin of absolute granite.

There's always a lot of love for Fedor on our boards, and I've posted my share, and some of it is disputed... but the one thing surely we can all agree on is that a knockout loss is highly unlikely for the champ?

<Cue Fedor getting knocked out and me looking quite the fool>

Hank Scorpio wrote:Great stuff, looking forward to seeing Fedor fight again, too long between fights for the lad - I refuse to count Timmeh as a fight as he had given up before he stepped into the ring ffs. Obviously Fedor is a massive favourite but is there any chance of an upset? I only mean that if Rogers lands anything the lad could KO a focking rhino and we've seen Fedor get rocked before...if that happened it would be the biggest fock up ever, Fedors main(only?) marketing tool is his status as the unbeaten best ever etc, it's not like the lad is a great character that can sell fights, Hendo has more charisma than him which says a lot(nothing to do with eithers fighting ability)...My opinion is not based on fact or much knowlede but I smell an upset - the whole turning down UFC to fight in Strikeforce to market their own fight brand M1 - going by Murphy's law he's gonna lose and fock up all his plans..it would be funny

Well I lost my job 10 mins after posting this, Karma did not like me suggesting Fedor might lose....Doh!!!