Author: Ben Fowlkes

If you’d told me five or six years ago that the UFC was planning an event where the main card was nothing but heavyweight fights, I’d have told you it was probably a mafia movie-style plan to get all the heavies in one place for a decisive hit that would eradicate the division altogether.

Back then, leaning so heavily on the big men would have been unthinkable. The UFC didn’t have enough of them, and the ones it did have were mostly on the mediocre end of the scale. Remember 2006, when Tim Sylvia was the heavyweight champ? He got to the top by beating Assuerio Silva, Andrei Arlovski (twice), and Jeff Monson. That run was so impressive it prompted Randy Couture to come out of retirement as a 220-pound heavyweight just to fight him.

And yet now, in 2012, the UFC felt so confident in its big men that it asked them to carry the load for the entire UFC 146 main card. More amazingly, it actually worked. It worked better than anyone had any right to hope for, providing all the fireworks we’ve come to expect from heavyweights with none of the plodding wheeze-fests we’ve come to dread. UFC president Dana White thinks “bad s–t” happens to him every day? Outside the cage, maybe. On the police blotters? Definitely, at least recently.

But in the cage, White and the UFC caught a major break on Saturday night. The heavyweights on the UFC 146 card delivered in a big way, making me wonder if maybe White is on to something when he says that we’ve reached a new age for MMA’s biggest competitors.

---

---

“The heavyweight division was lacking in our early days, and it’s not now. It’s flourishing,” White said at the post-fight press conference. “Lot of good talent, lot of up-and-coming talent. I think the bigger the sports gets…you’re going to see bigger, athletic guys that would have played other sports getting into mixed martial arts.”

At first, I admit, that claim sounded dubious to me. It smacked of promoter-speak, like when White insists that MMA will be bigger than soccer soon. With stuff like that, not only is there no reason to believe it, there’s not even many good reasons to believe that White believes it. It’s just stuff that a fight promoter has to say. It’s right there in the job description.

But when I looked around last night and saw guys like Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez — not to mention a golden gloves boxer like Stipe Miocic and a seven-foot submissions wiz like Stefan Struve — I had to admit that White might have a point. It’s not just that the UFC has collected more of the best heavyweights now that Pride is no longer around to monopolize them — though, certainly, that is part of it. But whether it’s the money or the fame or the slow train to mainstream legitimacy, it also seems clear that MMA in general is drawing more and better big men to its ranks.

That’s not to say that I expect too many blue-chip football prospects or future NBA stars to look at the UFC and decide to say the hell with that college scholarship or disgustingly lucrative signing bonus — they’d rather get punched in the face for a living. Sure, being the heavyweight champion is cool, but it’s also a bad gamble for most athletes.

Think about it: if you’re the tenth-best defensive lineman in the NFL, you’re still a millionaire pro athlete, still getting your picture on SportsCenter every now and then, still sipping champagne on yachts in the off-season. If you’re the tenth-best heavyweight in MMA, however, you’re busting your hand on other men’s skulls year-round, bleeding for your cash and trying to sock away as much of it as you can while the ride lasts. As much of an ego boost as it might be to call yourself the heavyweight champ of the world, how many people would really choose to reach for the brass ring instead of taking a full ride to one of those football vocational schools in the SEC where they’ll be treated like royalty just for making the team?

My point is, it takes a certain kind of human being to want to do this. The good news is, now MMA (and, specifically, the UFC) is finally profitable enough to reward those humans accordingly. Guys like Daniel Cormier, who, ten years ago, would have had few viable athletic avenues after his Olympic hopes ran aground, now have a chance and a reason to prove themselves in the cage. The money and the respect still aren’t good enough to attract too many athletes who have other options, but at least it’s heading in the right direction.

Saturday night’s main card showed us a glimpse of what that can look like. It gave us not just big, lumbering bone-breakers, but real athletes — real martial artists. The heavyweight division is still a lot thinner than the lightweight class, where the dudes who were deemed too short for basketball and too small for football are constantly battling it out in a crowded field choking with talent, and maybe that’s the way MMA will always be to some extent. That doesn’t change the fact that the UFC currently has the best heavyweight roster it’s ever had, and there are still more names to add to it in the very near future.

On Saturday, the UFC gambled on the quality of its heavies, and it paid off big time. White might not have had much luck lately with injuries and illnesses and arrests, but at least on pay-per-view — at least on this night — fortune is still smiling on him.

UFC 146 is only a few hours away, and still these questions, concerns, comments and predictions are burning a hole through my keyboard. Here are seven, in no particular order.

I. You can call Frank Mir a lot of things, but a quitter isn’t one of them. Junior dos Santos seems to think he folds up easily, and that this makes him “not a man” (sidenote: if you say this about someone, you don’t get to act surprised when he takes it personally, regardless of how they do things back home in Brazil). But while Mir’s chin has looked shaky in the past, he has too many comeback wins to be dubbed a quitter. Look at his first fight with Brock Lesnar. Look at his last fight with Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (don’t worry, Mir will be more than happy to give you a gleeful account of it). He’s been in plenty of situations that looked like they were heading south, but his submissions game enables him to snatch a win from the jaws of defeat. Can he do it again against dos Santos? I have to admit I don’t like his chances, although if dos Santos thinks he’s facing someone who’s going to break easily, or who isn’t still incredibly dangerous even when (especially when?) he’s hurt, that might be the best break Mir could catch.

---

---

II. Believe it or not, there are times when being the UFC heavyweight champ isn’t exactly a dream job. Earlier this week we looked at a couple varying explanations for why the heavyweight strap has been so tough to hold on to, but all you need to do is look at how much more relaxed Cain Velasquez has been this week to know that there is at least some upside to being knocked out of that spotlight. It’s not just the pressure, Velasquez said, but also the constant interview requests, the media attention, plus all the travel that keeps you from establishing a consistent training camp. “Until you’re there, then you understand it, what kind of stuff you have to do,” he said. Dos Santos seems to be holding up well under the strain so far. Then again, every fighter will tell you what a perfect training camp he had before the fight. Mishaps and distractions only seem to pop up in retrospect.

III. How much of a difference will Antonio Silva’s level of interest really make? “Bigfoot” told us this week that he was just going through the motions in his last fight, which is why, according to him, he got knocked out by Daniel Cormier. But now that he’s in the UFC, he insisted, he’s got plenty of motivation. At the same time, this is Cain Velasquez we’re talking about. He’s beaten up plenty of guys whose heads were all the way in the fight. Silva might have fists that are half the size of Velasquez’s skull, but he’s also going to have his work cut out for him against a former champ who’s looking to prove that he still belongs at the top.

IV. It’s make-or-break time for both Dan Hardy and Jason “Mayhem” Miller. Everything we know about the way the UFC makes hiring and firing decisions tells us that these two need to win if they want to stick around. Coming close probably won’t cut it, and neither will exciting losses. A lot of fighters might be encouraged to play it safe in the hopes of edging out a win and clinging to employment, but not those two. I predict that will both Hardy and Miller will show up willing to risk total destruction in the pursuit of glorious victory. How will that go for them, however, I’m still not sure.

V. Lavar Johnson does not want to end up on the mat with Stefan Struve. He knows it, Struve knows it, and he knows that Struve knows it. You factor in Struve’s reputation as a bit of a slow starter in his fights, and Johnson’s abbreviated training camp for this one, and it starts to seem like Johnson’s best hope is an early blitzkrieg. It wouldn’t be the first time Struve’s succumbed to an early bombardment. And let’s face it, the longer the fight goes, the more likely the short-notice aspect of it is bound to show in Johnson’s performance. I’m not saying his only chance is to go all James Thompson, gong-and-rush here. I’m also not saying it’s such a bad idea.

VI. What does Jacob Volkmann have to do to get off the Facebook prelims and into a fight with a top lightweight? Just kidding. We all know what he has to do. He has to win a fight that people actually want to watch. Putting fans to sleep for fifteen minutes, then making awkward political jokes in the post-fight interview isn’t going to do it.

VII. Is Dana White becoming a grumpy old man? He grumbles about that hippie Roy Nelson, with his beard and his mullet. And when “Mayhem” Miller strolled up to the weigh-ins with his boombox and pink boa, White eyed him like he was the punk kid who’d showed up to take his teenage daughter out. Even some of Dave Herman’s fashion statements seem to rub White the wrong way, and he didn’t look thrilled about Kyle Kingsbury weighing-in wearing a mankini. On some level, I get it. I can see why White would be wary about the UFC turning into one big physical comedy act. On the other hand, lighten up. The fans dig it, and at least it makes the weigh-ins halfway interesting without any failed weight cuts or on-stage brawls. So what’s the problem? Between the too-tight t-shirts and the f-bomb Twitter tirades, it’s not as if White fits the mold of the typical sports league president himself. You’d think a guy like that might have more patience for those who march to the beat of their own drummer.

LAS VEGAS — Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva is the first to admit it: he didn’t want to fight Daniel Cormier in the semifinal round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. What he wanted was a fight with Alistair Overeem, which is exactly what he was supposed to get, based on the original tournament bracket. When Overeem was dropped by Strikeforce and picked up by the UFC, Silva’s motivation went with him, the Brazilian heavyweight said.

“When Strikeforce moved Alistair Overeem to the UFC, I [was] so sad,” Silva told reporters on Wednesday. “[I said], I don’t want to fight now. I fought only because of the money. I [didn’t] want to fight my last fight, and I lost very fast.”

The fight lasted just a shade under four minutes, as Cormier dropped Silva with a right hand and finished him off with punches moments later. It was a loss that Silva had coming, and even his wife knew it, he said.

“When I go forward to the cage, my wife watched [on TV]. She said, ‘When I see you come to the cage, your spirit [was still] backstage. You didn’t have the spirit to fight.’ I fought only because of the money.”

The strange part is, losing that fight might have actually been a pretty savvy career move. Cormier went on to win the Grand Prix, but he’s still stuck in Strikeforce. Silva, meanwhile, is making his UFC debut against top heavyweight and former UFC champ Cain Velasquez at UFC 146 here on Saturday night.

Asked if he thought that it worked out better for him in the end, Silva simply grinned and replied, “Yeah.” But now he has to take on the teammate and sparring partner of the last man who stopped him in the cage.

According to Velasquez, there was only so much he was able to learn from Cormier’s win over Silva.

“He was so dominant in his fight and it was so quick, I mean, there was some stuff that he was able to tell me, but that fight was so quick,” the former champ said. “You can’t really judge it off that. I’m expecting a different kind of fighter this Saturday.”

The way Velasquez sees it, Silva’s size alone isn’t so threatening, since he’s used to being the smaller man in his fights.

“I’ve fought big guys. I’ve fought big guys with good stand-up and I’ve fought big guys with good wrestling,” he said. “I think a combination like he has, I haven’t fought anybody like that yet.”

Silva, meanwhile, has fought someone a lot like Velasquez, and someone from the same exact gym. It didn’t go so well for him last time, but this time will be different, he said, if only because this time he truly wants to fight.

“Now I’m so happy, my energy’s good, my camp was so good,” Silva said. “My family pushed me all the time. Now I’m very, very different.”

If it took a knockout loss to get him here, and to prompt those changes? That’s okay with Silva, he said.

“This is my dream, fight[ing] in the UFC,” he said. “…I will win this fight.”

It took the Nevada State Athletic Commission roughly 40 minutes to decide that Chael Sonnen should be given permission to inject himself with testosterone in the weeks before a title fight with UFC champ Anderson Silva this summer. It took the same regulatory body about three hours to decide that Nick Diaz should pay for his marijuana use with a year-long suspension and 30 percent of his last fight purse.

If you think those decisions made the sport of mixed martial arts cleaner and/or safer, then I want to know where you got that prescription for whatever it is you’re smoking.

The NSAC told us — as well as the fighters it regulates — a lot about how it plans to handle the issues of both recreational drugs and performance-enhancing ones in the future. The big takeaway from Monday’s marathon session? Ask first. And if someone brings up all those times in the past when you didn’t ask? No biggie. Just go ahead and blame someone else.

That’s the playbook Sonnen followed when requesting a therapeutic-use exemption for testosterone, and it worked. Although he’s fought in the state of Nevada several times since 2008, when he said he began regular testosterone treatments, he never mentioned that testosterone use on his pre-fight medical questionnaires. He also never got caught for it, which tells us something about the effectiveness of the commission’s drug tests, but let’s not get distracted with that just yet.

What commissioner Pat Lundvall wanted to know on Monday was why Sonnen signed his name to those medical questionnaires when he knew very well that he’d left out some important info. His answer? Matt Lindland, his former manager, told him to. Sonnen said Lindland claimed to have spoken to executive director Keith Kizer, been given the green light, and was then told “don’t bring it up again.”

“If I understand what your testimony has been it’s that, you claim that your manager told you that Keith Kizer said, ‘You got an exemption, don’t tell anybody about it, don’t bring it up, lie on your form as to whether you’re taking this prescription.’ Is that your contention?” Lundvall asked.

“No, I wouldn’t use those words,” Sonnen replied. “I certainly wouldn’t use the word ‘lie.’”

And why would you? It’s such a nasty word. It has all kinds of negative connotations. Lying on a pre-fight medical form is serious business. Just ask former Strikeforce champ Mo Lawal. He failed to mention his knee injury and the use of a supplement to aid that injury on the exact same questionnaire, and it didn’t go well for him when he got his day in court with the commission to address a positive steroid test. If only he’d known enough to blame Lindland.

Amazingly, this was all it took for the commission to skip over Sonnen’s prior history of non-disclosure. Lundvall asked whether he had “any qualms” about signing his name to a form that didn’t mention the testosterone he was using. Sonnen said he didn’t. Really? Lundvall wanted know. No qualms at all? Not even a hint of qualms? Nope. Sonnen was qualms-free. He had come before the commission completely qualms-less.

And that was that. On to other business.

Okay, so it wasn’t that simple. There was also a doctor (not an endocrinologist, but who’s keeping track?) who called in to say that he believed Sonnen was indeed suffering from low testosterone as a result of secondary hypogonadism. Sonnen answered some questions about how and when he ingested the testosterone, agreed to submit to increased testing — including a test the morning after the fight — and then the commission decided that everything was in order. It even praised his honesty and asked if he would be willing to serve “in an advisory capacity to Mr. Kizer.” Sonnen, ever the magnanimous gentleman, said that he would. Exemption granted.

Funny thing about the morning-after testing, which seemed to ease so many concerns for the commission. According to BALCO founder and doping expert Victor Conte, such testing is pretty close to useless. As Conte wrote in an email statement on Tuesday:

“Anyone who understands how anabolic steroids work knows that an athlete does not perform at their peak while using steroids. For example, sprinters actually run much slower while on steroids because they cause muscle tightness. Steroids work by a process known as cell volumization and this makes an athlete’s muscles tight or ‘pumped,’ which actually reduces functional muscle performance. The peak performance gains come 10-14 days after tapering off of testosterone. This is when an athlete becomes much more explosive and significantly faster. So testing an athlete at a time when he has tapered off a substance on purpose to maximize the performance benefits makes little sense. The period from 10 weeks out from a fight until 2 weeks out should be the targeted drug testing period. The NSAC seems to lack a basic understanding of the way testosterone is used by athletes.”

Fortunately, however, it’s not going to let anyone get away with puffing weed, which might give them an unfair advantage by relaxing them during training. That was just one of the many stances the commission took when it was Diaz’s turn to make his case. While Diaz’s lawyer argued the distinctions between in-competition and out-of-competition use, as well as the differences between marijuana and marijuana metabolites, the commission remained unmoved. It had made up its mind on Diaz, and wasn’t about to change it.

While UFC heavyweight Alistair Overeem got a nine-month suspension for elevated levels of testosterone — a substance whose performance-enhancing capabilities are so well known they don’t even need to be argued over — Diaz got a full year for a substance that seems to be performance-enhancing only in the sense that he enjoys using it. Maybe he should have claimed that his doctor slipped it to him by accident. Maybe he should have insisted that Lindland came up to his hotel room before the fight and blew the smoke in his face, against his will.

It’s possible Diaz and his legal team could have made things easier on themselves if their strategy hadn’t involved challenging that commission’s entire mode of thinking when it comes to marijuana usage. Trying to get an athletic commission to not only admit that it’s wrong, but also to admit that it has been on this issue wrong for many years? That’s a tough sell. If the commissioners can find a reason to maintain the status quo, they will. Apparently they’ll also lay the smack down on whoever tries to challenge them on it.

Whether you believe Diaz legitimately has a marijuana-shaped loophole here — or, for that matter, whether you believe that Sonnen legitimately has low testosterone — it’s hard to look at these two rulings and call them helpful, let alone fair. If the sport isn’t harmed by allowing one athlete to artificially increase his levels of a powerful hormone, how is it harmed by allowing another to use one of the least harmful recreational drugs around? If one man’s history of deception can be easily explained by putting the blame entirely on someone else, then how severely can another man be punished for smoking first and asking permission second?

The justice handed down by state athletic commissions has often seemed arbitrary and capricious. The Nevada commission is particularly hard to figure at times, especially when it praises the honesty of those who it accused of lying just minutes before.

On Monday the commission gave us still more mysteries of judgement and justice to think about. It also gave a useful tip to all the fighters out there who are looking for an edge, or even just a buzz: ask first. Who knows? You might even get yourself a gig advising the commission as to how it should regulate that substance you want to use. And wouldn’t that be nice.

Not only will Chael Sonnen get his long-awaited rematch with UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva in Las Vegas at UFC 148 this July, he’ll also get to do it with the aid of synthetic testosterone, thanks to a ruling from the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Monday.

NSAC officials voted unanimously to grant Sonnen a therapeutic-use exemption (TUE) for the use of testosterone after Sonnen and his manager, Jeff Meyer, made their case in front of the commission. According to Dr. Timothy Trainor, who phoned into the meeting as medical consultant for the commission, Sonnen was “inaccurately” diagnosed with primary hypogonadism in 2008, but more likely suffers from secondary hypogonadism.

“The bottom line is, he still probably does have hypogonadism, but primary is not the correct diagnosis,” said Trainor, who added that Sonnen’s current paperwork appeared to be in order, and that the fault for the original misdiagnosis lay with the fighter’s doctor, and not Sonnen himself.

Sonnen, who told commissioners that he’d “never heard of low testosterone” before a doctor informed him that he might be suffering from the condition after a physical exam prior to a WEC fight against Brian Baker in Las Vegas in March of 2008, said he has been using injections of the hormone ever since.

“I got sick probably about three times a month for my whole life, but I didn’t know that was weird,” Sonnen said, adding that he had always attributed his repeated illnesses to the stresses of training, travel, and cutting weight.

Sonnen began undergoing testosterone treatments in 2008, he said, but as NSAC commissioner Pat Lundvall pointed out, he failed to disclose that fact in pre-fight medical questionaries on file with the state of Nevada. Sonnen could explain that, he said, and then proceeded to lay much of the blame on former manager and ex-UFC fighter Matt Lindland.

“What had happened was the manager that I had at the time alleged we were given approval from [NSAC Executive] Director [Keith] Kizer, with one condition: don’t bring it up again,” Sonnen said. “He said that director Kizer had told him, ‘You’re cleared, you don’t need to mention this again.’ So we relied on that information, and roughly two years ago Director Kizer said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not the conversation we had.’”

Lundvall countered by asking Sonnen if he was claiming that he’d been told to “lie on your form as to whether you’re taking this prescription,” to which Sonnen responded that he “wouldn’t use those words.”

“I certainly wouldn’t use the word ‘lie,’” he said. “My manager did say it was cleared through Director Kizer, and Director Kizer’s statement to him was, ‘Don’t bring it up again.’ I do not contend that that conversation happened. I contend that I was told that it happened.”

Kizer has repeatedly denied ever having any such conversation with Lindland, and did so again in his comments following Sonnen’s testimony on Monday.

When asked by Lundvall whether he had “any qualms” about signing his name to a form that he knew to be omitting information on his testosterone treatments, Sonnen replied simply: “No.”

Still, when it came to rule on his TUE application the NSAC commissioners praised Sonnen’s honesty and forthrightness, and even asked if he would be willing to “assist the commission from time to time in an advisory capacity to Mr. Kizer,” which Sonnen said he would. According to Meyer, Sonnen also applied for exemptions in Illinois and Texas before recent fights, and though he received no written approval, “he was given a license, which we took as an implicit grant of the TUE,” Meyer said.

Sonnen will now be allowed to continue taking what he described as bi-weekly injections of testosterone before his scheduled bout with Silva on July 7, though he will be subject to increased testing, including testing on the day following the fight. He must still test within the pre-set range of allowable testosterone levels in Nevada.

It took more than a year, but the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finally came to an end on Saturday night. If you’d told me at the start of this thing that an alternate would be the one to win it all, I’d have said that it was just Strikeforce’s luck. But actually, it worked out well, all things considered.

Cormier is not only a major up-and-comer in the MMA world, he’s also something of a homegrown talent for Strikeforce. He began his career there, working his way up from Challengers undercards to a Saturday night main event, and now he’s the last big man standing in the most ambitious tournament since the demise of Pride. Not bad at all, if you ask me.

With Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier now in the books, we turn our attention to the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between.

Biggest Winner: Daniel Cormier
I’ll just come right out with it: if the former Olympic wrestling team captain is going to turn out to be that good of a kickboxer, then no one is safe. Lock your doors, barricade your windows, and don’t let Cormier get within kicking or shooting distance of you. With the striking skills we saw on display on Saturday night, he’d have little problem picking apart many top heavyweights. Those who could land more strikes than they absorb would no doubt find themselves on their back from a takedown soon enough, maybe after they’ve gone for a fun little ride like the one that upended a 250-pound expert grappler in the Grand Prix finals. It almost doesn’t seem fair for Cormier to have come so far, so fast as a mixed martial artist. It also doesn’t seem fair that he should have to stick around in Strikeforce for one more fight, when the victory over Barnett clearly showed that he’s ready for the best big men the UFC has to offer. At the moment, the only significant weakness in Cormier’s game is his hand. That is to say, the bones in his hand, which keep breaking as a result of him flinging it against the skulls of his opponents. If he can fix that while also continuing to improve along the same trajectory, he’ll be a nightmare of a matchup for anyone in the UFC.

Biggest Loser: Mike Kyle
Question: when does it make absolutely no difference whether your fight is for number one contender status? Answer: when you lose in the first minute. When that happens, you might wish you had played it a little cooler before the fight. Kyle’s a talented fighter. When he gets his game working (and when he doesn’t blatantly violate the rules), he’s a problem for a lot of light heavyweights. He also seems like a bit of a head case at times, and going off about Scott Coker’s refusal to promise him a shot at the vacant, essentially non-existent Strikeforce light heavyweight strap is one more example of it. If he felt like MMA almost wasn’t worth the effort before this bout, you have to wonder how he feels now.

Most Impressive in Defeat: Josh Thomson
He came on strong late in his rubber match with Melendez and made things interesting on the judges’ scorecards. Maybe if he’d had a greater sense of urgency earlier in the fight we might be talking about his shocking upset this morning, and it would be Melendez sitting around and complaining about the state of judging in MMA. Instead, Thomson will have to settle for the ‘attaboy’ that comes with putting up more of a fight than many expected out of him. Melendez, meanwhile, gets to go home with the belt.

Least Impressive in Victory: Gilbert Melendez
It’s not his fault. Not really. This is what happens when you have to keep defending your title against challengers who are supposed to have no chance. If you don’t absolutely crush them, it looks bad. If you come in as a 5-1 favorite and let it go to the judges, in a way you’ve already lost. That’s the situation Melendez is in, and there’s no easy way out. He’s going to keep on fighting these mostly meaningless battles, and every one that he doesn’t thoroughly dominate will take a little more of the shine off that Strikeforce gold. His only solution is to treat these fights like it’s not enough to simply win. He has to give people the destruction they crave, even if he risks self-destruction in the process. At least it would be better than this slow decline via decision. And at least then his fiance wouldn’t have to face mush her way out of the arena when it’s all over.

Making the Most of Unexpected Opportunity: Chris Spang
How a little-known, 4-1 fighter ended up on the televised portion of this card is anybody’s guess, but Spang made it count with his first-round TKO of Nah-Shon Burrell, who was out on his feet for roughly half the fight. It got the Strikeforce broadcast off to an exciting start, and gave fight fans a reason to remember Spang’s name. His nickname, however? “The Kiss”? Yeah, that could use some work.

Least Secure Future: Josh Barnett
I still think the UFC would be wise to try and make a deal with Barnett when it comes time to talk contracts, but his negotiating position was significantly weakened by the one-sided loss on Saturday night. Yes, he broke his hand in the first round. And yes, he still went the full five with a guy who is probably only a fight or two away from a shot at the UFC heavyweight title. At the same time, Barnett comes with baggage. His history of failed drug tests makes him the wrong kind of risk at the exact worst time for the UFC, and he also has a tendency to overestimate his value. That’s not to say Barnett wouldn’t be a great pickup for the UFC. Even with the heavyweight division now more flush than it’s ever been, the big show could still use a seasoned self-promoter like “The Warmaster” who can take and deliver beatings with the best of them. Then again, even though the UFC could use him, it doesn’t need him right now. Not as much as he needs it. Hopefully he keeps that in mind when sitting down at the bargaining table.

Most Surprising: Guto Inocente and Virgil Zwicker
If you didn’t tune in to the prelims on ShoExtreme, buddy, you messed up. While the “Rezdog” may have been outmatched against a dynamic fighter like Inocente, he hung tough and made a battle out of it, delivering some of the best action of the card in this three-round slugfest. I’m still not sure how Zwicker survived some of those shots, and I’d wager that Inocente was just as mystified at certain points. Mostly, I’m just grateful that the new Strikeforce has a way of airing great prelim bouts like this one. In the old days, this one wouldn’t have made its way onto any TV broadcast. Then again, in the old days, this bout wouldn’t have happened here at all. It would have been saved for a Friday night Challengers event that no one watched, and its spot on the prelims would have gone to local boys who could guarantee a couple hundred bucks worth of ticket sales to their friends, family, and teammates. Sort of makes you glad it’s no longer “business as usual” in Strikeforce.