Still not pumped about Fedor vs. Rogers

This extended promo for November 7’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers is not bad. It does a decent job of laying out who Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers are without resorting to reciting a resumé of defeated opponents who would mean nothing to the casual MMA fans that CBS wants to attract with this card.

That said, I do have a few problems with it. While the clip of Kimbo Slice is smart from a marketing perspective – he’s one of the most-recognized fighters in the sport no matter how horrible he is – the less I se of him the better.

Worst yet, the video doesn’t convey how absolutely bad-ass Fedor is. If you didn’t know who he was, his record, who he’s fought, the punishment he’s dished out and taken, the talking heads aren’t going to convince you and you wouldn’t think twice about either of these two shmos. The final face-to-face meeting between Fedor and Rogers is unconvincing. I don’t sense any tension between them at all. Okay, so Fedor’s expression never changes, and Rogers has admitted to never having watched a Fedor fight, which strikes me as the height of stupidity, so his utter blankness is no surprise. But they both look like a couple of cows chewing their cuds. Doesn’t help that neither fighter looks in shape – I know Fedor never looks in shape and that this was shot weeks ago so he is probably in better shape now, but still.