Brett "The Grim" Rogers

View full size photo »

From dictionary.com:

naive-having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information

Brett Rogers spoke on this once before when he communicated that he hadn't seen a lot of fight footage of Fedor and that he wasn't really familiar with him.  He continues to sing that same tune with mmafanhouse:

How many of Fedor's fights have you seen?
I had never sat down to watch one of his fights until his last fight against Andrei Arlovski. Before that I had just seen clips here and there. I think it's good that I haven't been a big Fedor fan: A lot of the guys he's fought fall too deep into the hype.

But now that you're preparing to fight him, don't you need to study his fights to learn his tendencies?
Oh, yeah, definitely. He's almost too relaxed a fighter sometimes and I think I can do some damage when I pick my shots.

I think I spoke on this once before, as a cocky freshman playing college baseball coming from a very small high school in southeast North Carolina.  I was the big fish in a small pond so to speak.  I was cautioned to temper my expectations as a feared hitter once the season started, because I would face the best pitching I had ever faced up until that point.  I didn't know any better, because I was a naive freshman that didn't know what to expect.  I just knew I was good...very good by my own calculations and experiences up till that point.  I had days where I would have my upper class teammates in awe, like going 6-7 with a triple, 3 doubles, and 2 singles while driving in four runs against the #2 team in the nation(division 2) while playing in a doubleheader on Saturday.  Then the following day go 0-4 with two strikeouts against the same team(albeit different pitcher) as we finished up our three game series.

I said all that to say this.  Brett Rogers seems to have the same mentality I had as a college freshman.  Obviously he has some ability, is full of confidence, and has been the big fish in a small pond up until this point.  He admittedly does not know a lot about Fedor, and hasn't watched much footage on the guy.  In fact, the footage that he did see presented him with a Fedor that was getting beat by the guy that he just knocked out in less than a minute before Fedor landed that Bolo punch.  I think being naive can be a blessing and a curse at the same time.  It can either work for Brett Rogers, or reality will set in once he gets in the cage with the best heavyweight of all time in Fedor Emelianenko.  The only thing is, if he goes 0-4 in the first game, there will not be a second game to make the necessary adjustments.  Can a naive Brett Rogers defeat Fedor Emelianenko?


Strikeforce: Emelianenko vs. Rogers coverage