With three years of inferior opposition, the status of the sport's finest heavyweight had started to drop and many questioned whether "The Last Emperor" still had it. Although he seemed as unaffected as ever, Emelianenko brought the MMA world to a hush with the most impressive performance of his career on July 19, destroying two-time UFC champion
Tim Sylvia (Pictures) in 36 brutal seconds. What's more, Emelianenko's management claims that the heavyweight ruler will see action twice more in 2008. Welcome back, Mr. Emelianenko.
Some have questioned whether any UFC heavyweight, especially the battle-tested Brazilian, can cross over into stardom. We’ll see: Nogueira will get the TUF treatment in the coming months. He’ll go head to head with
Frank Mir (Pictures) as a coach on the eighth season of the UFC's reality series, which will build toward Nogueira’s first title defense against the former champ.
Couture's legal battle continues to roll on, and it seems hard to imagine "The Natural" getting back into action anytime soon. That proposition is made all the more unfortunate following
Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures)'s destruction of
Tim Sylvia (Pictures), especially considering that the draw of a Couture-Emelianenko fight would usurp the Russian's meeting with
Mirko Filipovic (Pictures) in August 2005 as the sport's biggest heavyweight fight ever.
In the biggest fight of his career,
Tim Sylvia (Pictures) was summarily smashed by
Fedor Emelianenko (Pictures) in a humbling 36 seconds. Although his missteps have come against the three top heavyweights in the world, Sylvia has lost three of his last four. That’s a difficult stat for the "Maine-iac," particularly given how sensational some of his heavyweight contemporaries have looked lately.
Arlovski was supposed to be the next generation heavyweight that MMA craved when he captured the UFC title. However, two dismal losses to
Tim Sylvia (Pictures) and a suddenly safe style of fighting cast severe aspersions on the Belarusian. Against
Ben Rothwell (Pictures) on July 19 in Affliction, though, Arlovski turned in his best performance in more than three years to take a much-needed KO victory. Next, Arlovski could soon be making his pro boxing debut.
Few have ever doubted
Josh Barnett (Pictures)'s talent, but his desire to be an elite heavyweight prizefighter has been questioned. However, the former UFC champion showed that he has far more than promo skills, as he erased his 7-year-old loss to
Pedro Rizzo (Pictures), the first of his pro career, with a nasty second-round knockout on July 19. The victory sees the self-proclaimed "world's strongest pro-wrestler" move from seventh to sixth in these rankings and bodes well for interesting heavyweight fights for as long as Affliction can fund them.
What is next for "Vai Cavalo" is uncertain. The UFC has put its heavyweight division on standby to build toward an
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (Pictures)-
Frank Mir (Pictures) bout. While Werdum waits,
Josh Barnett (Pictures)'s clobbering of
Pedro Rizzo (Pictures) sees the heavyweight BJJ king slip one spot to No. 7.
Gonzaga polished off
Justin McCully (Pictures) in less than two minutes on July 5, easily snatching the submission victory. To regain his hype and stature in the division, however, more will be required of the talented Brazilian in the future.
Slated to meet
Jerome LeBanner (Pictures) on July 21, "Cro Cop" opted to recover from lingering elbow and knee injuries. The Croatian KO artist may be back for September's Dream card, hopefully against the likes of
Alistair Overeem (Pictures) in one of the few interesting heavyweight fights that the promotion can make.
By withstanding some serious artillery from
Andrei Arlovski (Pictures) and getting in some licks of his own even in defeat, Rothwell earned the respect of many critics who questioned whether he belonged in the ring with elite-level heavies. With that measure of respect earned, "Big Ben" will now need to score some victories over top heavyweights in order to keep his place in these rankings.
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