Why Fear Fedor

(please note, I wrote this back in September 07. It appeared on a few fighting and sports websites. I'm just moving it here because I love this piece.)

Why Fear Fedor? That question is on the minds of many UFC fans, particularly those who new to the sport of mixed martial arts, the ones who call all of it “ultimate fighting.” After all, lets be honest, he doesn’t look like much.

His body is nothing special. He’s big, and strong, but so are dozens of other fighters and millions of other men. He doesn’t have the hard, cut muscles of the allegedly steroid enhanced Sean Sherk. He lacks the streamlined athleticism of “Spider” Silva. His form pales in comparison to the Greco-Roman god physique that belongs to Cheick Kongo.

But the little things give him away, as he is built to be a fighter. Freakishly broad shoulders and a massive ribcage make him tough to hold down and impossible to wrap up, limiting the abilities of the few superior grapplers. Long arms allow him to ground and pound with jaw dropping effectiveness, even from his feet, making obsolete the guards of even the tallest adversaries. His bulging muscles may not inspire fear with vein-popping tightness, but they do so with their effectiveness. Forged with the unbalanced weights Fedor built himself when he lacked access to others, their physical power leaves blood on the mat and devastation in their wake.

In a perfect match with his body, his face doesn’t scare either. Starting at the top, his hair is perfectly normal. No Iceman inspired faux-hawk, no HeadBlade smooth standard fighters scalp; just short brown hair. Above his protruding brow, a big forehead announces a receding hairline, adding to the façade of mortality. A lack of high cheekbones brings roundness to his face, an effect further emphasized by a strong, but rounded jaw line, all built around a large, bulbous nose.

With a couple small changes his face could belong to Santa Claus. The soft, even friendly features meet around the true key to understanding Fedor Emelianenko: his eyes. They are not like the eyes of other fighters. They aren’t the angry, burning coals of Chuck Liddell or Ken Shamrock, declaring excess anger expelled in the ring. They aren’t the hard, unforgiving obsidian blades of Rampage or Wanderlei, spilling secrets about dangerous childhoods. They certainly aren’t the intelligent, cunning eyes of Dan Henderson or Tito Ortiz, warning against brains mixed with brawn. They’re not even the hollow, insane sockets of Monson or Kongo, declaring the darkness within. They are worse.

The eyes of Fedor are dead, amoral, and soulless. Under heavy lids they gaze at the world, lacking wonder, emotion, or life. It is as though he sees everything around him through a screen, leaving the universe blurry, detached, and unimportant. Kill a man or a fly, crush a skull or a can, it matters not. It is said the eyes are windows to a man’s soul, so what lies within Fedor Emelianenko?

If the apocalypse is real, I bring you your Death. Whether he is shattering a body with bone-jarring punches, or crushing the air from lungs with the ease of an anaconda, he seems to feel nothing. When Fedor was born, God took his hammer and his chisel and made a man to end other men. If indeed it was God at all.