As promised here is my second piece breaking down the recently announced Strikeforce World Grand Prix eight-man heavyweight tournament. I had promised to breakdown each of the two tournament brackets but there is a lot to discuss even before getting to that point.
So here is part two.
The tournament opener will kick-off on Feb. 12 in New Jersey with an all heavyweight main card which will feature with two quarterfinal matches and two alternate bouts. Headlining the card will be a quarterfinal match between Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Another quarterfinal bout has Andrei Arlovski taking on Sergei Kharitonov. The alternate bouts pitting Shane del Rosario vs. Lavar Johnson and Valentijn OVereem vs. Ray Sefo.
The remaining quarterfinal bouts, featuring matches between Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum, and Josh Barnett vs. Brett Rogers, will take place at an unannounced event in April instead of the promotions upcoming March 5th event.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’ll give our thoughts on why we think Strikeforce matched all the heavyweights like they did.
The left sided bracket is undoubtedly the toughest by matching Fedor, Overeem, and Werdum together on one side, while leaving a weaker bracket on the other side for highly ranked Barnett to succeed in.
Fans have been critical of this move but personally I think Strikeforce has the right idea here.
The more difficult bracket ensures that fans will get to see the matchups they’ve been waiting for since Fedor lost to Werdum last summer. It makes sense to match Werdum vs. Overeem as the ADCC champ earned, in my eyes, the right to fight for the Strikeforce title after his shocking win over Emelianenko.
All tournament bouts which feature the current Strikeforce champion, whoever that is at the time, will be for the Strikeforce title and subject to five-five minute round matches, while the rest of the tournament bouts will be fought under the three-five minute rules.
Another reason to match Overeem vs. Werdum is that the K-1 champ asked for the fight in the opening round, he knows who he should be fighting next logically and isn’t shying away by asking for an easier opponent. It’s likely the Dutch fighter is thinking a win will get him Fedor next anyway, this way he gets the fight he’s been looking for since the promotion signed “The Last Emporer.”
Ideally to match Fedor and Overeem up, both fighters have to win their respective bouts.
I’ll breakdown the bout between Fedor and Silva in another post as well as the other matches, but regardless Fedor is the heavy favorite and will likely walk away the winner. I also feel that Strikeforce has a contingency plan in the works should he lose. I believe we’ll see Fedor matched up against Overeem or Werdum either way.
A win for Fedor puts him up against the winner of Overeem vs. Werdum, which also gives him a shot at the Strikeforce title ensuring the promotions officials a ton of hype leading into that bout. While, I’m betting, a loss to Silva will get him matched up against the loser of the Overeem vs. Werdum too. It won’t be for the title but it’s still something that the fans can really get excited about and it’s a fight Strikeforce can sell on a pay-per-view.
If he faces Werdum, he gets the chance at redemption for his loss, and if it’s Overeem, then it’s the match everyone thought should have happened when he signed with Strikeforce.
The other bracket seems more like a roll of the dice in the matchmaking department, as any of the three fighters who could have been paired up with Barnett would be considered the heavy underdog. Obviously there was more to it than that, maybe they used a spinning board and a dart…
Matching Arlovski and Rogers has already been done, with Rogers walking away with the knockout victory, so Strikeforce officials were likely trying to avoid the rematch in the first round. While pitting Arlovski vs. Barnett would certainly create some excitement it leaves a matchup between Rogers vs. Kharitonov in the “ho hum” category for fans.
Thus leaving the promotion with it’s only likely pairings of pitting Barnett vs. Rogers and Arlovski vs. Kharitonov to bring some excitement and legitimacy to it’s matchmaking.
That entire bracket still remains a wild card despite the fact that Barnett is the heavy favorite. Any one of those four could find themselves in the finale fighting for the Strikeforce heavyweight title. When that happens we’ll look back and then lay some heavy criticism on the matchmaking, but until then we’ve got to wait.
In the next post, I’ll start to cover each fight individually, so stay tuned!