There are few certainties in life but one was that Fedor Emilianenko would take his opponent, whoever he was, and beat the heck out of him, twist the heck out of him or bend the heck out of him until the referee waved the fight off and raised Fedor’s hand in victory. It had happened every time (save the one blemish on his record which doesn’t count as it was a blood stoppage from an illegal blow and every other promotion in the world would’ve ruled it a no contest rather than a loss). Fedor always had an aura about him which gave you confidence it would continue to happen every time. Even when he was in trouble – as he was against Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers in his last two fights – he was never really in that much trouble. It was the sort of trouble he was in when Mirko Crocop kicked him in the head – you think he’s in trouble up to and including the moment the kick landed but once he shrugged it off you knew he was fine. Not necessarily human but fine. So it came as a bit of a surprise when a basic error lead to a single tap on the thigh and the impossible happened.

The fight started as you would expect. Fedor charged in, rocked his Brazilian opponent, Fabricio Werdum, with a punch. Werdum stumbled backwards and onto his rear end. Fedor pounced and began raining down hammer fists onto the increasingly overwhelmed jujitsu black belt. Werdum put his legs up to try and create space between him and Fedor’s fists but it didn’t work. Fedor brushed them aside. Werdum tried again and this time Fedor ignored them. And why not – they weren’t stopping him from hitting Werdum in the head so why bother about a couple of legs? Even when they’re round his neck – they’re just legs. When did legs ever achieve anything? Crossed legs especially. Tightly crossed legs. Legs crossed so tightly that technically they were now a triangle choke. A tight triangle choke. And Werdum took this moment of reflection on Fedor’s part as his chance to grab Fedor’s arm and lock it. Fedor writhed, Fedor tried to power out, Fedor struggled manfully for a few seconds. And then Fedor tapped.

What does this mean for the man himself? In the short term it means he won’t be fighting Alistair Overeem for the Strikeforce heavyweight title. Most likely he’ll instead have a rematch with Werdum and the winner of that will fight Overeem. This sounds like a stumbling block but in truth the rematch with Werdum will do bigger business than a title fight with Overeen right now. Not that Fedor seems that bothered – emotion is alien to him and his response to a loss was to mention god and say that you have to fall down to learn how to get up again. There is much in that – many great fighters became great precisely because they lost, learned from their mistakes and became better as a result. Georges St Pierre is the most obvious example – the Matt Serra fight changed him for the better. Too many people had told him how good he was and it took an unexpected right hand from Serra and a humiliating loss to a guy several notches below him for him to realise that it doesn’t matter who says he’s great or how great they say he is – every fight is a new opportunity to prove how good he actually is. Talk – as they say – is cheap. Fights are proof. Fedor’s reputation was forged a few years ago in Pride and if he wants to genuinely prove himself to American audiences he needs to do more than coast to victories on second tier shows.

Fedor’s management are the big losers from this and I can’t say I care. There has always been something slightly shady about the Russian businessmen who comprise M-1 Global. Their demands to UFC scuppered the biggest money offer in MMA history. They didn’t just want an unheard of amount of money, they wanted power and Dana White wasn’t about to give them power. The only asset they've got is Fedor. They have other fighters under contract but they don’t mean anything, they've run their own shows but they don’t make money and they have contracts all around the world for stuff and nonsense but they’re mostly just bits of paper trading things that don’t really exist. M-1 Global "co-promoted" this Strikeforce show. By that they mean Strikeforce promoted, produced and paid for the show while M-1 Global had their name stuck on it because otherwise Fedor wouldn’t be allowed to come out and play. Fedor is still worth a lot of money but they’re unlikely to get the sort of money UFC was offering last year. His mystique has been damaged. It probably hasn’t changed him as a fighter but it was his mystique they were buying not him.

Strikeforce is in an interesting position after this. Fedor vs Overeem was going to be their first pay per view main event (or possibly a CBS special if they insisted) and that’s out of the window. But as mentioned above, Fedor vs Werdum in a rematch would be a bigger fight. American fans still don’t really know Overeem. He’s looked good in Strikeforce so far but he’s not faced top competition. He looks like a fighter in a Rocky movie but he’s less well known than a Junior Dos Santos or even Antonio Silva so it would be a tough sell. Fedor-Werdum is just what fight fans want – can lightning strike twice or will Fedor get brutal revenge? Now that’s a pay per view. And whoever wins can fight Overeem – it’s two big fights instead of one. The only snag is that Fedor only has one fight left on his contract and would need to sign a new deal before they could invest so much time and money into a chain of matches like this.

As for UFC, they’ve seen Fedor’s price drop without there being any indication that he’s washed up. He made a mistake – just like Brock Lesnar did against Frank Mir in fact. Fedor is the same world class fighter he was the day before the fight but he no longer comes with such an expensive reputation. Dana may have enjoyed seeing Fedor humbled (he posted a single smilie face on Twitter and left it at that) but he’ll enjoy it even more if he finds M-1 Global are suddenly willing to take the money on the table and leave the co-promotion nonsense to one side. Fedor-Brock, Fedor-Carwin, Fedor-Cain, Fedor-Mir, Fedor-Dos Santos and even Fedor-Couture are all there for the taking. None is damaged by Fedor having lost to Werdum. Indeed, they may be more attractive fights now Fedor has a loss to his name. Where would the drama have been if the Death Star hadn’t had that one opening down which Luke could fire laser torpedoes?

I was amazed when Fedor lost – I saw it the same day England lost 4-1 to Germany in the World Cup and I know which one I cared more about – but having had a week to think about it, the more exciting it becomes. He isn’t a sad, washed up Chuck Liddell style legend who needs to retire. He’s given the first indication that he’s a human being and not a machine. This is the start of a whole new chapter in the career of Fedor Emilianenko and I have a feeling it could be the best chapter yet.