Barnett vs. Fedor at Affliction: Trilogy

Written by Jim Murphy   |   Wednesday, June 03 2009

Josh Barnett faces the biggest challenge of his MMA career as he takes on Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction: Trilogy.  How do you prepare a strategy to defeat an opponent that has never been defeated? (Photo: Susumu Nagao)

There’s a great scene near the beginning of Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the Rat Pack heist film ‘Ocean's Eleven’ where the protagonists are pitching their plan in hopes to secure financing.  Danny (George Clooney) and Rusty (Brad Pitt) inform retired casino boss Reuben (Elliot Gould) that such a robbery has ‘never been tried’.  At this point Reuben corrects them, suggesting that ‘he knows more about casino security than any man alive’ and that it cannot be beaten.  He then runs down the three most successful casino robberies in the history of Las Vegas, all recaped via video 'highlights' of the holdup attempts of which end in dismal failure.

That's kind of the way I feel trying to gameplan a strategy by which Josh Barnett can beat Fedor Emelianenko.  Barnett is certainly a formidable opponent, who in theory could give ‘The Last Emperor’ trouble with his size and strength.  But, then again, that was the thinking in Fedor’s most recent fights.  Let’s review them:

--FEDOR EMELIANENKO VS. HONG MAN CHOI: Fedor has a bit of trouble taking down the 7’3” 330 pound Korean kickboxer.  He even eats a couple of punches in the process of trying to get his opponent to the mat.  Fedor gets the submission victory at 1:54 of the first round.

--FEDOR EMELIANENKO VS. TIM SYLVIA: During his UFC championship reign, Sylvia was a notoriously methodical fighter to the point of being boring.  We thought that this methodical approach to fighting and his ability to stick to a gameplan and ‘fight within himself’ would serve him well against ‘The Last Emperor’.  We envisioned that Sylvia actually had a chance of winning by using his 6’8” height and insane reach advantage to methodically jab and move out of trouble.  Of course Sylvia did none of that, and was beaten down and tapped out by a rear naked choke at the :36 second mark of the first round.

--FEDOR EMELIANENKO VS. ANDREI ARLOVSKI: Arlovski entered the Affliction: Day of Reckoning main event with some of the fastest hands in MMA, and a lot of boxing training and tactical guidance from Freddy Roach.  He started off well, using his handspeed and movement to stay out of trouble.  Then he decided to deviate from Roach’s gameplan and leapt at Fedor in the corner attempting to land a flying knee strike.  Fedor lands a perfectly placed counterpunch, Arlovski ends up in a heap on the canvas a TKO loser at 3:14 of the first round.

As we’ve said in preface to our previous fight breakdowns involving Fedor Emelianenko, there’s nothing more difficult than trying to figure out an effective strategy against an opponent that has never been beaten.  In theory, the best chance of beating Fedor may be to stand and trade strikes with him but the reality is that’s what his previous three opponents wanted to do and combined barely lasted a full round with the Russian fighting god. 

In many ways, however, Barnett is the most formidable opponent that Fedor has ever faced.  One important advantage that ‘The Babyfaced Assassin’ enjoys over Fedor’s previous two opponents is a significantly higher class of opposition throughout his MMA career.  While Barnett and Sylvia each have 29 professional fights, Barnett’s level of opposition is off the charts with wins over Dan Severn and Randy Couture in the UFC , Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Mark Hunt, Alexander Emelianenko and Semmy Schilt in PRIDE, and additional victories over Gilbert Yvel, Hidehiko Yoshida and Pedro Rizzo.  His five career losses are to Rizzo (avenged at the first Affliction event), three times to Mirko Cro Cop when he was the most feared striker in the world and once in a rematch against Nogueira.

Barnett not only has a wealth of in-ring experience but he’s learned from his fights eliminating what doesn’t work and building upon what does.  His conditioning is much better than his early career in the UFC, and he’s spent a lot of time and effort working on his standup game to compliment his world class ground fighting ability.  For this reason, he’s not a one-dimensional opponent as was Arlovski and Sylvia.  He can employ a variety of styles and mix it up within a fight depending on how an opponent responds. 

This experience and well rounded skill set is particularly effective for Barnett, as he’s become one of the smartest tactical fighters in the sport.  He’ll definitely enter the fight with a ‘plan a’ and a ‘plan b and c’ should that prove ineffective.  As he’s matured as a competitor, Barnett has shown an ability to balance the need to aggressively try to ‘impose his will’ and end fights with a modicum of caution that prevents making mistakes that leave him vulnerable to knockouts or submissions.  You can be fairly certain that Barnett won’t try to fly into the corner with a flying knee strike as did Arlovski.

Perhaps the most fascinating element of this matchup is in the ground game.  Fedor obviously is a master at controlling and ending a fight on the ground with his base in Combat Sambo.  Barnett, meanwhile, has all of the ‘upsides’ of an amateur wrestling background—takedowns, control on the ground, etc.—but with the added component of fight ending submission skills from his training in ‘catch wrestling’.  Unlike many fighters with an amateur wrestling background who rely on simply controlling the fight on the ground, Barnett has the skills to end it.   Barnett is what would have been called in an earlier era of pro wrestling a ‘hooker’ a la Lou Thesz or Karl Gotch.   These skills combined with Barnett’s size and leverage advantage make the ground battle particularly compelling. 

It would be in Barnett’s best interest to mix up his tactics early and by all means take a conservative approach to the first round.  Barnett has been using leg kicks as an effective weapon in recent years, and this would be a good way to start his attack against Fedor.  He should try to stay busy and keep moving, which was working fairly well for Andrei Arlovski before his ill advised flying knee attempt.  Though Fedor has shown a penchant for early aggression in his most recent fights, this is more likely a result of the opportunity for a quick stoppage being available to him.  Fedor will likely display a more cautious approach against Barnett, and Barnett should do the same.  Getting past the first round with Fedor is clearly a huge symbolic accomplishment as only three of his last 17 opponents were able to make it to this point.  Of course during his PRIDE tenure, the first round was ten minutes long—but only two of the fighters who lost to Fedor in the first round made it past the five minute mark.

This is where planning a strategy gets tricky—Barnett has the power to knock his opponent out and the skills to gain a submission, but Fedor Emelianenko is not just any opponent.  Barnett clearly has the skill set to hang with Fedor, but it’s a little harder outlining his best opportunity to win.  He could always try for a five round decision, picking his spots to strike and avoiding trouble.  Fedor has never been past fifteen minutes in his fighting career, so Barnett could focus on his conditioning and try to outlast his opponent.  His best strategy, however, could be part game plan and part ‘improvisation’.

Jazz trumpet great Dizzy Gillespie was fond of advising aspiring musicians to ‘practice your scales, practice your scales, practice your scales.  Then you can forget your scales’.  What he meant is that once you achieve a certain level of technical virtuosity you should not worry so much about the ‘form’ of music and concern yourself more with its ‘feel’.  This ethos is the foundation of jazz improvisation and, oddly, a similar strategy could work for Barnett.  Mike Tyson was fond of saying that his opponents ‘all have a plan until they get hit’, and that’s clearly the case for fighters who find themselves across the ring from Fedor Emelianenko as well.  The danger of approaching the fight with an overly regimented game plan is that should a specific strategy prove ineffective it can cause a competitor to quickly lose confidence in his abilities and minimize his prospects for winning.

Instead of putting all of his tactical eggs in one basket, Barnett should hone his striking skills to compliment his mastery of ground fighting and submissions.  He should commit to a methodical and cautious approach to the start of the fight, looking to get a feel for his opponent and landing strikes if the opportunity presents itself while not putting himself too much at risk.

Beyond that, he’ll just have to ‘forget his scales’ and take what Fedor gives him.  There’s really no other way to approach an opponent that has shown so little weakness and is equally as adept on the ground as he is standing.  Step one is survival beyond the first five minutes of the fight.  Step two is to continue surviving, while looking for opportunities.  Step three is to take them if they materialize.   If Barnett catches a break, he might get a shot to look for a submission or a knockout.  If not, he’ll take it to the scorecards.

Basically, the idea is to focus on honing your skills while not ‘overthinking’ the fight before it happens.  Both Arlovski and Sylvia spoke after the fight of ‘forgetting’ everything they had strategized beforehand, and to become overly dependent on a specific tactical strategy against the most dominant MMA fighter in history is unwise.  Instead, Barnett should go into the fight knowing it’s the challenge of a lifetime but with confidence in his abilities and committed to fighting defensively while looking to take what comes to him.

Worst case scenario, he’ll almost *have* to do better against Fedor than Sylvia or Arlovski did.  Maybe taking an ‘improvisational’ approach to the fight will be effective, maybe it won’t.  Since Andrei Arlovski had one of the most brilliant fight tacticians in the world in Freddy Roach working with him, it could be a case where Barnett would do well to ‘think out of the box’ against the most dangerous man on the planet.  

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