Sherdog’s Top 10: Flashes in the Pan

---

3. Brett Rogers

As we saw with Todd Duffee, young and talented heavyweights are a rare commodity. Rogers rang off eight straight first-round knockouts to begin his career, and it took him only seven minutes to finish Ron Humphrey in his Strikeforce debut in 2009. Still, pundits and bettors lacked much faith in the Minnesotan as he was set to face Andrei Arlovski, pegging the Belarusian as a 4-to-1 favorite.

Rogers shocked the world, knocking out the former UFC champion in only 22 seconds. Strikeforce capitalized, booking him against all-time great Fedor Emelianenko in the Russian’s debut with the promotion. For the first five minutes of the fight, it looked like the legendary Emelianenko’s unbeaten run would end, as Rogers landed vicious shot after vicious shot. It all came crashing down in the second, where a thunderous overhand from Emelianenko put down Rogers for good.

Alistair Overeem flat-out embarrassed Rogers in his next outing, and Josh Barnett submitted him with shocking ease in the first round of Strikeforce’s heavyweight grand prix. A series of nasty domestic violence incidents rightfully drove away the major promotions, but Rogers managed to work his way back to a Bellator tournament, where he showed little in a loss to eventual champion Alexander Volkov. He has alternated wins and losses on the regional scene ever since, serving mostly as fodder for up-and-coming Eastern Bloc prospects.

Given how close he came to greatness against Emelianenko, it is somehow fitting that Rogers is closing out the meaningful years of his career in Russia.

Number 2 » On paper and in reality, he seemed like the next big thing: He was a collegiate wrestler and had trained with the Air Force’s team during his time in the service, had a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Lloyd Irvin and had spent time training under legendary kickboxer Rob Kaman.