Filed under: StrikeforceCINCINNATI — When Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker first announced plans for a heavyweight Grand Prix, it seemed almost recklessly ambitious. Eight well known — and, in some cases, mercurial — heavyweights all vying against one an…
CINCINNATI — When Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker first announced plans for a heavyweight Grand Prix, it seemed almost recklessly ambitious. Eight well known — and, in some cases, mercurial — heavyweights all vying against one another in a single-elimination tournament to crown one king.
Only now the Strikeforce heavyweight champion has left the building. Alistair Overeem got dropped from the tournament and signed to the UFC, so the four fighters who are left behind have to figure out for themselves exactly what’s at stake when the Grand Prix lurches onward this Saturday night.
As Josh Barnett pointed out, the winner now gets “a nice, shiny belt,” so there’s that. But aside from the hardware, what else is at stake? The answer to that depends on who you ask.
For Antonio Silva, who was slated to get a crack at the Strikeforce heavyweight champ in the semifinal round before Overeem declared himself unfit for the September 10 date, the change of opponent was a letdown. Or at least, that’s how he felt until he considered it from Overeem’s perspective, he said.
“I was very sad and disappointed in the beginning, but today I think he did the right thing going to the UFC,” Silva said via a translator. Even without Overeem in the tournament, Silva said, winning out over a field that included fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Sergei Kharitonov would be “a big accomplishment.”
But for others, like Barnett, the tournament title doesn’t add all that much to an already high-stakes pursuit.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but for me it’s the same thing that’s always at stake, and that’s my own personal pride,” Barnett said. “I’m not walking out there to get my [expletive] beat by anybody. The way I see it, it always comes down to, so you think you can kick my [expletive], huh? Then let’s go. I don’t think you can, but I want you to try. I want to crush everything about you. I want you to come in there so full of life and thinking about all these things that are going to happen for you, all these doors that are going to open and your life is going to get better, then I’m going to step on it, crush it, destroy it, and leave you in a smoldering heap with all your dreams dead.”
You know, he deadpanned, the kind of thing that “me and the Dalai Lama have talked about a lot.”
For Daniel Cormier, the Grand Prix alternate who took Overeem’s spot, simply being in the tournament is still something of a surprise.
“I didn’t think I’d have the chance to fight in the tournament,” Cormier said. “I looked it as such a big thing, a big event, that I would never have imagined anybody being out of the tournament. I thought they’d do anything in their power to stay in the tournament.”
Of course, for Cormier the tournament still offers plenty of upside. He’s the least experienced fighter in the field, and a win over any of the big names left in the bracket would instantly elevate his status.
For more seasoned competitors like Barnett and Kharitonov, there might be more to lose than gain. These are uncertain times for all Strikeforce fighters in general, and that’s no less true for the Grand Prix participants. Of the four men to lose in the quarterfinal round, only one — Fabricio Werdum — is still employed by the organization.
Just as no one knows what the winner of the tournament will have actually won (aside from that shiny belt), it’s similarly unclear what will become of those who fall short. That’s why the best approach might be the one Kharitonov is taking.
“I’m here to win,” he said through a translator. “That’s what matters the most.”
CINCINNATI — The fighters on Saturday night’s Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov fight card gathered at the U.S. Bank Arena to step on the scales and make it official on Friday afternoon.
The event airs live on Showtime beginning at 10:35 pm ET on Saturday night, with the undercard kicking off on HDNet at 8 pm ET.
Main Card
Sergei Kharitonov (256.5) vs. Josh Barnett (261)
Antonio Silva (264.5) vs. Daniel Cormier (247)
Ronaldo Souza (185) vs. Luke Rockhold (185)
Mo Lawal (205) vs. Roger Gracie (205)
Pat Healy (155) vs. Maximo Blanco (155)
Preliminary Card
Marcos Rogerio de Lima (205) vs. Mike Kyle (205)
Yoel Romero (205) vs. Rafael Cavalcante (205)
Evangelista Santos (170) vs. Jordan Mein (170)
Amanda Nunes (134.5) vs. Alexis Davis (135)
Dominique Steele (184.5) vs. Chris Mierzwiak (185)
CINCINNATI — The fighters on Saturday night’s Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov fight card gathered at the U.S. Bank Arena to step on the scales and make it official on Friday afternoon.
The event airs live on Showtime beginning at 10:35 pm ET on Saturday night, with the undercard kicking off on HDNet at 8 pm ET.
Main Card
Sergei Kharitonov (256.5) vs. Josh Barnett (261)
Antonio Silva (264.5) vs. Daniel Cormier (247)
Ronaldo Souza (185) vs. Luke Rockhold (185)
Mo Lawal (205) vs. Roger Gracie (205)
Pat Healy (155) vs. Maximo Blanco (155)
Preliminary Card
Marcos Rogerio de Lima (205) vs. Mike Kyle (205)
Yoel Romero (205) vs. Rafael Cavalcante (205)
Evangelista Santos (170) vs. Jordan Mein (170)
Amanda Nunes (134.5) vs. Alexis Davis (135)
Dominique Steele (184.5) vs. Chris Mierzwiak (185)
Filed under: StrikeforceCINCINNATI — Like any good fighter beef, they can’t agree on how it all got started. If you ask Josh Barnett, he’ll say he was complimenting Antonio Silva’s performance against Fedor Emelianenko, then woke up the next morning t…
CINCINNATI — Like any good fighter beef, they can’t agree on how it all got started. If you ask Josh Barnett, he’ll say he was complimenting Antonio Silva‘s performance against Fedor Emelianenko, then woke up the next morning to read reports of Silva bashing him in the press. If you ask “Bigfoot” Silva, he’ll say he had only a mild dislike for Barnett until he crossed the line by commenting on Silva’s acromegaly.
“In the beginning I found him to be an anti-social guy,” Silva said through a translator. “I talk to everybody, shake everybody’s hand, and he wasn’t like that. After I commented on that, he moved into commenting on my condition, and that’s not something he should do.”
Barnett’s response?
“I didn’t know gigantism made you so sensitive.”
Of the four fighters left in the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix, Silva and Barnett are the only two who seem to have any personal animosity against one another. A little strange, considering they’re not even fighting each other. Not yet, anyway.
Barnett will take on Sergei Kharitonov in the semifinal round of the tournament on Saturday night, while Silva has a date with Alistair Overeem’s replacement, former U.S. Olympic wrestler Daniel Cormier. So how did these two even end up in this minor feud, when they couldn’t possibly meet until the finals?
“What it came down to was, he didn’t know me enough to know whether I was friendly or unfriendly, and he just started going off,” Barnett said, tracing the beef’s genesis to a post-fight press conference after the opening round of the tournament in New Jersey.
“Ten minutes before he got to the podium I was talking about how much he’d improved as a fighter and how tough he was, so on and so forth,” Barnett said. “Then the next day I read the internet news and I’m going, what? He was saying I hate Brazilians, saying I’m a jerk, saying all sorts of stuff when he doesn’t know me. But hey, I’m one to mess with somebody, so I said, sorry I’m not trying to be your best friend.”
Barnett has predicted a win for Cormier on Saturday night, citing the smaller man’s wrestling skills as a difference-maker. Even Silva admits he had to change everything about his preparation when his opponent changed from Overeem, a bulky kickboxer, to Cormier, a smaller, more agile wrestler.
“Things changed completely. My plan [for Overeem] was to take him down and get on top of him. Now my game plan is to stay standing or impose my jiu-jitsu. It really changed things.”
On the other side of the bracket, Silva said Barnett is in for a tough night, though he gives him the slight edge over Kharitonov.
“They’re two great fighters and it’s going to be a great fight, but I’m rooting for [Barnett]. I want to fight him. I bet he’s not thinking like that. I bet he’s hoping that he doesn’t have to face me in the finals.”
In a way, Barnett admitted, he’s almost right.
“I could go on about this,” Barnett said. “I don’t care about fighting him or anybody. Already I’ve given him too much press.”
Filed under: StrikeforceCINCINNATI — Now that they’re over, it’s easy for Daniel Cormier and Mo Lawal to laugh about their lean years in the world of amateur wrestling. When they were walking around broke most of the time, however, it wasn’t quite so …
CINCINNATI — Now that they’re over, it’s easy for Daniel Cormier and Mo Lawal to laugh about their lean years in the world of amateur wrestling. When they were walking around broke most of the time, however, it wasn’t quite so funny.
“Wrestling — even wrestling at the highest level — we weren’t getting paid nothing,” Lawal said at Thursday’s Strikeforce press conference.
In fact, Cormier added, they were making so little on their USA Wrestling stipend that once they both went to the bank and cashed their paychecks all in dollar bills, just to make it seem like more. And now?
“Let’s just say we can’t cash our checks from this weekend all in ones,” Cormier grinned.
Cormier and Lawal go back a long way, to when both were college wrestlers in Oklahoma and neither thought he’d ever make much of a living at it. Back then, Cormier was almost like a big brother and mentor to Lawal.
As Cormier remembers it: “[Lawal] wanted to learn so much that he was just hanging on you. He was like, teach me this, teach me that. Then he just got so much better. He was at Central Oklahoma. He had no connection to Oklahoma State. But he would come up in the summer to wrestling camps. He was like a sponge. It was like, well, Mo’s here. Guess we got to wrestle with him. Then he got so good we wanted him around.”
But when it came to making the move into MMA, it was Lawal who led the way, spurred on by another mentor who had learned all he cared to about getting by on what little money is available for amateur wrestlers in the United States.
“Matt Lindland told me, ‘Look, you’re wasting your time wrestling,'” Lawal said. “I was like, what do you mean? He told me, ‘You’re going to be broke.'”
Once Lindland started telling him what he made from fighting, as well as from seminars and sponsorships, Lawal knew it was time to make the leap. As a wrestler, he said, he was lucky to make $25,000 in a good year.
“At one point I was making $500 a month and I thought I was balling,” Lawal said.
When he took up MMA, that all changed. Soon Cormier couldn’t help but notice.
“It’s hard to miss his chain. It’s hard to miss him buying a Cadillac with ostrich skin seats. He has ostrich seats, ‘King Mo’ in the headrest. I was like, I have to get some of this.”
Making the switch from wrestling to MMA required some obvious adjustments, like getting used to being punched in the face, but it wasn’t as if neither of them knew what that was like before putting on the four-ounce gloves. As Cormier explained, when they went to wrestle in Russia they’d frequently end up in fist fights on the mat.
“We had plenty of fights,” Cormier said. “We fought Russians. You can find mine on YouTube. Mo was fighting the guy right before.”
But once they got into MMA, their wrestling base allowed them to dictate where the fight took place, which is helpful when your stand-up skills haven’t yet caught up with your ground game.
Now Cormier’s on the verge of taking on Antonio Silva in the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix and Lawal, a former Strikeforce champion, is getting set to take on Roger Gracie in his first fight since losing his title.
They’ve both come a long way, but neither has forgotten where he came from. They never get the chance. Not with the other around as a constant reminder.
“I’ve known Mo for a long time,” Cormier said. “I’m not talking about ‘King’ Mo. I’m talking about Muhammad Lawal with the afro. I’m talking about ashy Muhammad Lawal.”
“I wasn’t ashy,” Lawal interrupted.
Cormier shot him a look.
“Okay, the one thing he wasn’t was ashy, but he did have the afro.”
Though Fedor Emelianenko’s M-1 Global management team has yet to confirm it, Jeff Monson told MMA Fighting he’s absolutely fighting the Russian heavyweight in St. Petersburg on November 12, and will head to Russia for a pre-fight press conference on S…
Though Fedor Emelianenko‘s M-1 Global management team has yet to confirm it, Jeff Monson told MMA Fighting he’s absolutely fighting the Russian heavyweight in St. Petersburg on November 12, and will head to Russia for a pre-fight press conference on September 16.
And no, he’s not kidding himself. He knows exactly why, after unsuccessfully angling for a fight with Emelianenko for years, he’s finally getting it now.
“I think basically it’s that he lost a couple and [M-1 Global] want[s] him to fight a guy with a name, but obviously they feel confident in the fight,” Monson said. “…Obviously, they think if he fought someone without a name that would look bad, and if he lost again that would also look bad.”
For the 40 year-old Monson, it’s a little bittersweet to get this fight only now, and only after Emelianenko was cut from Strikeforce following a three-fight losing streak, he admitted.
“I wish it was a year ago,” Monson said. “But I’ve said this before, he’s the best heavyweight of all time. Granted, he’s lost a couple in a row here, all against good guys, but other than that [TKO via cut] that wasn’t really a loss, what’d he go, ten years without losing? Nobody’s ever done that, ever. And he beat the best of the best. That was back when Pride definitely had the best heavyweights, and he beat everybody in Pride, and he finished people.”
And the fact that Emelianenko’s management called up Monson when they needed a beatable opponent with some name value? Monson’s not exactly taking it as a compliment, but he’ll still take it, he said.
“The thing is, he’s the only guy allowed in the ring with me. I feel confident. I would never take a fight I didn’t think I could win. It’s a fight I’ve wanted for a long time, and no one’s going to determine what happens in the fight except me and him. Regardless of why they gave it to me or whether my management thinks I can win it, when the bell rings that’s not going to mean anything.”
Though he lost his last fight to Strikeforce heavyweight Daniel Cormier in June, Monson said he is still under contract to the organization and is taking this fight with Strikeforce’s permission. Still, Monson’s plan to eventually cut to light heavyweight remains unchanged, even though he’ll fight Emelianenko at heavyweight.
“I will never fight another heavyweight fight for Strikeforce,” he said. “It will all be at 205 [pounds]. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s just one of those things where you can’t turn it down.”
Weight isn’t likely to be a major factor in this fight anyhow, Monson said. Emelianenko is just a shade taller than Monson, but both men will likely come into the fight hovering somewhere in the 230-pound range.
This one is less about establishing a future at any particular weight class, according to Monson, and more about fulfilling a career goal and taking a swipe at one of the sport’s greats.
“I’ve never been in the ring with someone where I was like, it’s an honor to be in there with this guy, but it is,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try and beat him, but it is an honor to fight him.”
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King” Mo Lawal was the first to say it at the Strikeforce pre-fight press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“I was hoping there would be more people out here, more media, more questions, but really I guess ya’ll don’t care about us that much,” Lawal said. In his eyes, Saturday’s Strikeforce event on Showtime looks to be a strong card that many fans will likely miss “because everybody’s worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend — I’m just being real.”
Looking around at the sparsely attended presser — as well as at the frenzy of online attention being paid to the Nick Diaz fiasco in the UFC — you have to admit that he has a point.
At least on paper, this may be one of the best Strikeforce cards in recent memory. But is anybody paying attention? And if not, is Zuffa, the parent company of both Strikeforce and the UFC, planning to do anything to change that?
“It’s disappointing,” said Josh Barnett, one of the four Grand Prix semifinalists on the card. “I’d really like it if we could get a little bit of back-up from the UFC on this. Just a blurb. I’ve talked to some of the fighters and the conversation has come up, why can’t Dana [White] do one little video blog, one little piece saying, please come watch these fights because they’re good fights? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t think they’re good fights.”
On some level, the drop-off is understandable. With Diaz bailing on this week’s UFC 137 press conference and being pulled from the title fight with Georges St. Pierre, UFC president Dana White has had his share of fires to put out.
Then again, the UFC did schedule several media events during the same week as the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but all of them were to promote a UFC fight card that’s still more than a month away. If you take that as an indicator of where Zuffa’s priorities lie, it’s not a good sign for Strikeforce.
As Lawal sees it, the lack of attention from both the media and Strikeforce’s parent company is an insult to the heavyweights in the Grand Prix, as well as to “Jacare” Souza and Luke Rockhold, who will vie for the Strikeforce middleweight title at the U.S. Bank Arena on Saturday night.
“[Rockhold]’s fighting for a title, you got two fights in the heavyweight tournament. …It’s not to me, but it’s a slap in the face to them,” Lawal said.
Of course, calling out the Zuffa brass right now seems like a risky proposition, since it’s still unclear what White and company plan to do with Strikeforce or its fighters. This is the same organization that just snatched a title shot away from Diaz for the kind of antics he used to regularly get away with in Strikeforce, after all.
Criticizing them could have its risks, though Lawal said he refuses to be swayed from calling it as he sees it, regardless of what happened to someone who simply failed to live up to his promotional responsibilities.
“I don’t give a [expletive],” he said. “I’m going to speak my mind. What are they going to do, say ‘Respect the organization or you’re going to be out forever?’ Get the [expletive] out of here with that [expletive]. I’m just keeping it real. Make sure you put that in there.”
Diaz no-showing a press conference, however, that’s a different story, Lawal said.
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s not like he was speaking his mind, saying ‘I think this press conference is dumb.’ He just didn’t show up. Now, speaking out and telling the truth is a different story than not doing something that helps the fight. That’s on Diaz. I think he’s a hell of a fighter, but like I said, here we are talking about Diaz instead of this event.”
As for Rockhold, he didn’t expect to get much press for his middleweight title fight to begin with, he said. As he put it, “People don’t know who I am. They’re going to find out, though.”
And sure, this weekend’s event was being buried in the headlines by Diaz and other UFC news, but he’s finding a way to stay optimistic.
“Yeah, it’s being overshadowed, but at least it’s overshadowed by Strikeforce guys,” Rockhold said. “Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem — at least we’re being overshadowed by our own people.”
But then, if this is all the attention even a stacked Strikeforce card can muster from fans and its own parent company, what does that say about the future for these fighters? If a former Strikeforce employee’s antics garner more attention than actual fights by the current employees, how much longer until there is no Strikeforce at all? And what then?
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but we might be looking at the end of something,” said Rockhold. “We’re going to have to perform and go out with a bang, and I think this is a good opportunity.”
As for Lawal, he just shrugged when asked what lay ahead for himself and the other fighters on the Strikeforce roster.
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King” Mo Lawal was the first to say it at the Strikeforce pre-fight press conference on Thursday afternoon.
“I was hoping there would be more people out here, more media, more questions, but really I guess ya’ll don’t care about us that much,” Lawal said. In his eyes, Saturday’s Strikeforce event on Showtime looks to be a strong card that many fans will likely miss “because everybody’s worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend — I’m just being real.”
Looking around at the sparsely attended presser — as well as at the frenzy of online attention being paid to the Nick Diaz fiasco in the UFC — you have to admit that he has a point.
At least on paper, this may be one of the best Strikeforce cards in recent memory. But is anybody paying attention? And if not, is Zuffa, the parent company of both Strikeforce and the UFC, planning to do anything to change that?
“It’s disappointing,” said Josh Barnett, one of the four Grand Prix semifinalists on the card. “I’d really like it if we could get a little bit of back-up from the UFC on this. Just a blurb. I’ve talked to some of the fighters and the conversation has come up, why can’t Dana [White] do one little video blog, one little piece saying, please come watch these fights because they’re good fights? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t think they’re good fights.”
On some level, the drop-off is understandable. With Diaz bailing on this week’s UFC 137 press conference and being pulled from the title fight with Georges St. Pierre, UFC president Dana White has had his share of fires to put out.
Then again, the UFC did schedule several media events during the same week as the Strikeforce Grand Prix, but all of them were to promote a UFC fight card that’s still more than a month away. If you take that as an indicator of where Zuffa’s priorities lie, it’s not a good sign for Strikeforce.
As Lawal sees it, the lack of attention from both the media and Strikeforce’s parent company is an insult to the heavyweights in the Grand Prix, as well as to “Jacare” Souza and Luke Rockhold, who will vie for the Strikeforce middleweight title at the U.S. Bank Arena on Saturday night.
“[Rockhold]’s fighting for a title, you got two fights in the heavyweight tournament. …It’s not to me, but it’s a slap in the face to them,” Lawal said.
Of course, calling out the Zuffa brass right now seems like a risky proposition, since it’s still unclear what White and company plan to do with Strikeforce or its fighters. This is the same organization that just snatched a title shot away from Diaz for the kind of antics he used to regularly get away with in Strikeforce, after all.
Criticizing them could have its risks, though Lawal said he refuses to be swayed from calling it as he sees it, regardless of what happened to someone who simply failed to live up to his promotional responsibilities.
“I don’t give a [expletive],” he said. “I’m going to speak my mind. What are they going to do, say ‘Respect the organization or you’re going to be out forever?’ Get the [expletive] out of here with that [expletive]. I’m just keeping it real. Make sure you put that in there.”
Diaz no-showing a press conference, however, that’s a different story, Lawal said.
“I don’t know what happened, but it’s not like he was speaking his mind, saying ‘I think this press conference is dumb.’ He just didn’t show up. Now, speaking out and telling the truth is a different story than not doing something that helps the fight. That’s on Diaz. I think he’s a hell of a fighter, but like I said, here we are talking about Diaz instead of this event.”
As for Rockhold, he didn’t expect to get much press for his middleweight title fight to begin with, he said. As he put it, “People don’t know who I am. They’re going to find out, though.”
And sure, this weekend’s event was being buried in the headlines by Diaz and other UFC news, but he’s finding a way to stay optimistic.
“Yeah, it’s being overshadowed, but at least it’s overshadowed by Strikeforce guys,” Rockhold said. “Nick Diaz, Alistair Overeem — at least we’re being overshadowed by our own people.”
But then, if this is all the attention even a stacked Strikeforce card can muster from fans and its own parent company, what does that say about the future for these fighters? If a former Strikeforce employee’s antics garner more attention than actual fights by the current employees, how much longer until there is no Strikeforce at all? And what then?
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but we might be looking at the end of something,” said Rockhold. “We’re going to have to perform and go out with a bang, and I think this is a good opportunity.”
As for Lawal, he just shrugged when asked what lay ahead for himself and the other fighters on the Strikeforce roster.
CINCINNATI — When Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker first announced plans for a heavyweight Grand Prix, it seemed almost recklessly ambitious. Eight well known — and, in some cases, mercurial — heavyweights all vying against one another in a single-elimination tournament to crown one king. 
CINCINNATI — The fighters on Saturday night’s Strikeforce World Grand Prix: Barnett vs. Kharitonov fight card gathered at the U.S. Bank Arena to step on the scales and make it official on Friday afternoon. 
CINCINNATI — Like any good fighter beef, they can’t agree on how it all got started. If you ask 
CINCINNATI — Now that they’re over, it’s easy for 
Though 
CINCINNATI — He couldn’t have been the only one who was thinking it, but “King”