Even in victory, I couldn’t make heads or tails of Fedor Emelianenko’s performance against Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson. Like watching Charles Bronson discard the movie’s first henchman — maybe it tells us something about how he’ll fare against the criminal mastermind, but probably not.
On the other side was Jackson’s husk. He looked like the kind of prizefighter that satires write about. As soon as Fedor landed the first good punch, Jackson hit the eject button. That’s not to criticize Jackson or say he surrendered at the first sign of trouble. Maybe that punch puts Jackson away at any point in his career.