World Extreme Fighter has an interesting view of why and how Fedor had to tap-out for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Could it have been that the cage prevented Fedor from escaping Werdum’s BJJ?

Fedor threw a wild right hook that either barely clipped Werdum’s chin, or made him lose his balance falling backwards to avoid it. (26 seconds into the fight).  Werdum immediately starts butt-scooting and appears to have all his faculties.

What happens next is incredibly important and I can’t believe people are not noticing it.  Fedor has solid sub defense, when Werdum initially goes for the armbar, he spins out of it, shrugging it off easily and goes back to work with his punches.

In his excitement (37 seconds into the fight) Fedor spins to his right trying to avoid Werdum’s extremely active sub attempts and as Werdum does a forward roll into guard, Fedor gets pressed against the cage, stopping his momentum and giving Werdum the moment he needed to throw his left leg around Fedor’s head. Werdum crosses his feet going for a brief armbar but then locks in the triangle.  From that point on, it was only a matter of time until Fedor tapped or went unconscious.

It was Fedor’s inexperience in a cage, coupled with his over aggression on the ground against the two-time ADCC submission wrestling champion that was his downfall.  I had asked Fedor if he felt he had successfully adapted to the cage in the conference call last week and this was his answer.

“I trained in a cage in Russia and I feel like I’ve adapted.  I don’t really see any major differences whether I’m fighting in the cage or in a ring.  I feel comfortable in there”, Fedor said.

Fedor may have underestimated the differences between the ring and a cage.  I don’t think Werdum latches on that triangle in a ring.  Fedor would have kept spinning around Werdum from top position or the ref would have stepped in and moved them to the center of the ring.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at EthGMT-2 and is filed under Cage Coverage, Local MMA News, MMA News Worldwide, Videos, Writer Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.