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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Fedor Emelianenko picked up his third straight win on Thursday, knocking out Pedro Rizzo in the main event of M-1 Global's fight card in Moscow, Russia. The win kept him undefeated since his three fight losing streak in Strikeforce, which led to his release last year.
The fight didn't take long on Thursday at all. In front of an excited pro-Fedor crowd in his home country, "The Last Emperor" was determined to send people home happy. After a fairly tentative opening minute, Emelianenko landed an overhand right that stunned Rizzo, then dropped him with two more punches in combination.
He followed Rizzo to the ground, landed a few more strikes, and the referee was forced to step in to stop the assault. Emelianenko notched his 34th career win with the stoppage, which also marked his tenth win by (T)KO.
Rizzo, who was competing for the first time since July of 2010, suffered his first loss since 2009, where he was knocked out by Gilbert Yvel. The loss snapped a three fight winning streak, and was also the seventh time in his career that he's succumbed to strikes.
Though there was one report earlier this year that Emelianenko would make this his last career fight, he said in the weeks leading up to the bout that it wouldn't necessarily be his last.
Penick's Analysis: The result wasn't the least bit surprising. Rizzo's always been a solid veteran fighter, but he's wholly prone to getting knocked out in violent fashion and there was no reason to believe that Fedor would do anything other than what he did in this one. The win doesn't really mean much for Emelianenko; he's won three straight against lesser competition than he was facing in Strikeforce. The best fighters in the world are all now under the Zuffa banner at heavyweight, and Emelianenko's going to continue to have a very small group of potential fights available to him so long as he's outside of Zuffa. If he continues to fight on, he'll continue to be fighting against less than elite competition. It's great for him and his wallet - provided he's getting paid well - but it does nothing for his place in the sport in 2012.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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