After rattling off four straight wins under the Strikeforce banner, including a title earning UD over Tim Kennedy at Strikeforce: Houston, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza was gaining a lot of praise throughout the MMA blogosphere; some sites even went as far as to claim that he was one of the last challengers out there with a chance of beating Anderson Silva. Many of us thought this hype was a bit inflated, and following his rather uninspiring (not to mention title losing) effort against current champ Luke Rockhold, it seemed that ”Jacare” was all but completely written off, destined to be the number two fighter in a promotion that was quickly running out of potential, not to mention challenging, match-ups.
Well, it looks like Souza will not be given an easy fight to begin his climb back to the top, as he has been booked to take on tough undefeated prospect Derek Brunson on the main card of the upcoming Strikeforce: Tate vs. Rousey event, which goes down March 3rd from the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Brunson, who has compiled 3 straight in Strikeforce, is a well rounded fighter out of Team Jackson who has notched 4 TKO victories alongside 3 submissions in his 9 fight career, most recently scoring a unanimous decision over Nate James at Strikeforce Challengers 20.
In other fight booking news…
Believe it or not, Mike Massenzio WAS able to walk away from his first round submission loss to Rousimar Palhares, which is more than we could say for this poor guy, and will square off against Karlos Vemola at UFC on Fox 3. Vemola was set to face CP blogger and MFC Light Heavyweight champion Ryan Jimmo back at UFC on FX 1, but the bout was scrapped after Jimmo suffered an undisclosed injury and was forced to withdraw. Currently 1-2 in his UFC run, Vemola may be fighting for his contract when he faces a consistently inconsistent performer in Massenzio, who has yet to put together a two fight win streak in his 7-fight octagon career.
Who takes these, Potato Nation?
-J. Jones