Last night, Fabricio Werdum and Alistair Overeem collided in a rematch of their PRIDE Shockwave 2006 bout, and to say the least, the main event came in with explosive potential but left many fans unsatisfied.
Truthfully, those who have heard that Werdum actually outstruck Overeem but did not believe it. You guys heard right, Werdum did land more punches on Overeem than what the crowd saw.
Overeem landed the shots that mattered, and that’s what the two judges saw—him landing the important shots that hurt Werdum, as well as the takedowns and him neutralizing the Jiu-Jitsu of Werdum. And yet, some were quick to wonder if Werdum got the raw end of the unanimous decision.
If someone’s translation of “getting the raw end of the decision” means “Overeem lost the fight,” then I’ll have some of whatever they’ve got loaded into their pipe.
Was Fabricio Werdum robbed?
Absolutely.
Was Fabricio Werdum robbed of a fight that he should have won?
Absolutely not. And when you analyze the atrocity that was his performance fully, you should land on why the judges should not have been so kind to Werdum, as nice as he is as a man.
He may have outstruck Overeem by one margin or the next, but other than at the midway point of round two when Werdum looked to actually hurt Overeem—which fans of PRIDE know is not that surprising—how willing was Werdum to stand with Overeem?
If my memory serves me right for once, Werdum shot for takedowns. Overeem stuffed all of them—which, in today’s MMA circles, is heart-attack-shocking when talking about a guy that’s taken K-1 fights—and Werdum tried to pull guard every time.
By no means did the plan to take Overeem down qualify as unintelligent, and I actually did think he needed to in order to beat him, but Werdum should have gotten the message after the second attempt failed.
If Overeem sprawls to stuff a takedown, and he’s fighting a good Jiu-Jitsoka like Werdum while connecting with said sprawl, that’s Werdum’s cue to let his hands go.
And the most disappointing thing about all this?
Werdum’s performance is not a reflection of his actual ability by any means; the fight was a stylistic disaster for fans of fun fights from the get-go but was heavily hyped because Overeem had a loss to Werdum that he needed to avenge.
Plus, Werdum had beaten Fedor Emelianenko almost a year earlier, and no fight against “The Reem” is a fight that his challengers these days are supposed to win outside of a terrible decision, unless they’re UFC Heavyweights or they have a first name of Fedor.
However, Werdum did beat Fedor, who went on to lose to Antonio Silva in the second quarterfinal of this Grand Prix, and Werdum was argued as the best heavyweight in the world besides Cain “The Terminator” Velasquez. Overeem, however, wasn’t even a consensus top-5 pick, so of course there was excitement coming into this fight, and none of us should regret getting excited about it.
Fabricio Werdum is a great Jiu-Jitsoka, and he may go down as perhaps one of the best to ever grapple in MMA when he reaches the tail-end of his career, and he was ranked as the consensus second-to-third best heavyweight in the world before this fight.
Unfortunately, Alistair Overeem, despite an apparently low gas tank that I still find to be a myth and an excuse used by detractors to discredit this obvious heavyweight force, came to fight last night.
Fabricio Werdum did not, or at least his performance made him look as though he did not.
The winner of the Strikeforce Grand Prix, whether it’s Overeem or not, will arguably be considered one of the two best, if not the best heavyweight in Mixed Martial Arts when all is “Good Night, Irene!”, to quote the great Michael Schiavello.
Some think Overeem can do it. Others now say Silva can do it. While even others are sold on Josh Barnett or Sergei Kharitonov being the man that could take it all. But one unfortunate definite still exists:
With Werdum’s effort last night, I’m not so sure if we can keep “Vai Cavalo” in that debate any longer.
As far as last night alone goes, he got robbed, but if you watch the fight again, the only thing he got robbed of was a score that was a true reflection of his performance.
Generally, if Werdum loses a decision, he should lose it by either of the two scores the judges gave out last night.
From the eyes of many in the MMA world, the scores he got were too generous.
Now something along the lines of 30-26 or even 30-24, with Overeem winning at least one round 10-8 due to Werdum stalling the fight and not showing willingness to engage?
That sounds like a more honest and accurate score to me.
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