With a nagging wrist injury likely the suspect in Strikeforce middleweight champ Luke Rockhold’s reason for withdrawing from next months Strikeforce: Champions event, it leaves opponent Lorenz ‘The Monsoon’ Larkin (13-0, 1NC) without a fight for a second scheduled event.
Larkin and Rockhold had been scheduled to meet on Nov. 3rd at the ‘Strikeforce: Cormier vs. Mir’ event until Rockhold withdrew due to injury.
Now the champ has pulled out of a second straight fight and Larkin’s manager Arnold DeWitt is not to pleased about it. DeWitt tells MMADieHards.com that he thinks Rockhold is simply protecting his title before the move over to the Ultimate Fighting Championship, but regardless they plan on fighting him in either promotion.
“For Luke, of course he wants to keep his title when he goes over to the UFC,” DeWitt said. “That’s going to be a bargaining chip when he restructures his contract for a UFC contract. I can see why this is a dangerous fight and obviously they don’t want to fight us….”
“I hope that (UFC president) Dana White is paying close attention to this situation and comments on it publicly,” DeWitt said. “We all know and have heard Dana in the news and what he expects of his fighters. We know that pulling out because of injuries continually is frowned upon. Does the guy want to fight or not want to fight? I don’t give a crap if we fight him in January, but we want to fight the guy because now it’s become personal. We’ve done our due diligence, we signed our contracts to fight just like his camp has and at the end of the day we’re supposed to go out there and fight. We have our duties….”
“To me, unless we’re fighting Luke, nothing makes sense. If he won’t fight us in Strikeforce we want to fight him in the UFC. He’s got to fight us some way, somehow.”
Larkin’s remains undefeated as a pro with thirteen victories and one “No Contest.” ‘The Monsoon’ made his middleweight debut last July in Oregon by winning a decision over Robbie Lawler at the Rockhold vs. Kennedy event. Previous to that win, Larkin fought at light heavyweight, facing Muhammed ‘King Mo’ Lawal this past January. Larkin would lose the fight via knockout but would see the result changed to a “No Contest” after Lawal tested positive for steroids.