It hurt when Afflication heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko scored consecutive victories over Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, especially given the fact that the two fights consumed less than four minutes of his time. Arlovski, and then Sylvia, served as the faces of UFC’s Heavyweight division during the company’s boom in 2005 and 2006. Given that Sylvia had already lost to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, Fedor’s win gave credibility to the notion that the former PRIDE was home to the true heavyweight contenders during mixed martial arts’ American popularity explosion.
Things looked worse when Brett Rogers, an undefeated yet untested heavyweight, put Arlovski away in just twenty two seconds last week. And they hit a new low Saturday night, as 48-year-old boxer Ray Mercer knocked Tim Sylvia out in just ten seconds at the Adrenaline 3 event in Birmingham.
Originally booked as a boxing match, the Sylvia-Mercer bout became a mixed martial arts fight due to sanctioning issues at the eleventh hour. The new format seemed to greatly favor Sylvia; if YouTube brawler Kimbo Slice could dominate Mercer in an ultimate fighting contest, Sylvia was positioned for a slaughter of a victory.
But, after opening with a kick, Sylvia experienced a Mercer right hand and hit the mat. The fight was over, and another one of UFC’s biggest heavyweight stars of all time dropped far down the rankings.