Fedor Emelianenko's Only "Loss"

fedor emelianenko loss to tsuyoshi kohsaka - illegal elbow

Many people got their first-ever look at Fedor "The Last Emperor" Emelianenko at the recent Affliction PPV. If you are even a casual fan of mixed martial arts, then you have surely heard of Emelianenko - however, many people had not actually seen him in action. After watching Emelianenko completely destroy Tim Sylvia in the main event of Affliction: "Banned", many people looked Emelianenko up and found that he had a near-perfect 28-1-0 record.

Emelianenko, throughout the course of his career, has beaten many of the best heavyweight MMA fighters in the world. He has beaten Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic. He has beaten Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (a couple of times). He has beaten Mark Coleman. He has beaten Heath Herring. The list goes on and on.

Emelianenko is seemingly invincible, and has beaten just about every well-known MMA heavyweight of note during the course of his career.

So who did he lose to?

If you scroll down the list of his opponents, you'll find that Emelianenko's only loss came against Tsuyoshi Kohsaka in December of 2000. Not only that, but the fight only lasted 17 seconds and was scored as a TKO victory (due to a cut) for Kohsaka. Huh? How did that happen?

Here is a Youtube clip of the "fight":

The funny thing is that Kohsaka hit Fedor with the "illegal" elbow, but ended up winning the fight. Elbow strikes were illegal in this promotion until the fighter was wearing elbow pads, which Kohsaka obviously wasn't. The elbow opened up a cut that Fedor had suffered in a previous fight against Ricardo Arona.

The event that Fedor and Kohsaka were fighting in (King of Kings 2000 Block B) was a tournament format, so a winner and a loser had to be determined. Fedor wasn't able to continue due to his injury, so Kohsaka was awarded the victory. If this had been a standard, non-tournament format match, Fedor would have won via disqualification or the match would have been declared a no-contest. But instead, Fedor suffered the loss even though Kohsaka hit him with an illegal elbow that forced the stoppage of the match, and Fedor had a permanent blemish on his record.

Fedor avenged his loss, kicking the crap out of Kohsaka in April of 2005 at PRIDE Bushido 6. Doctors stopped the fight after the first round.

Here is a bonus clip for you - according to Fedor, this is the first and only time that he has ever been knocked down by a punch, kick or knee in a fight. He was perilously close to losing, but stormed back to win. This fight was against Kazuyuki Fujita and took place at PRIDE 26: Bad to the Bone:

A few things strike me while watching this clip:

1) How did Fedor recover after that punch? He was obviously knocked silly and couldn't even stand straight.

2) How great is Emelianenko that he could win the fight so quickly after suffering that near-knockout punch?

In summary - Fedor has never really lost a professional mixed martial arts fight.

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