I find myself on vacation from my full time job allowing me to have more time to write “opinion” articles for the next two weeks, so why not kick it off with “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly” from last nights Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal show in San Diego.
Looking at the amount of articles that most sites put out for the event and the noticeable decrease in visit numbers, it’s clear that fans were not turning out in droves to catch the Dec. 17 Strikeforce event. “Uncle” Dana (White) has some work ahead of him to make Strikeforce a viable promotion, and not a feeder league to the UFC.
Here’s how I think he’ll do it.
The Good
The performance of Strikeforce lightweight champ Gilbert ‘El Nino’ Melendez, who successfully defended his title against Jorge Masvidal in the main event. Despite a less than thrilling performance against Masvidal, Melendez stuck to his game plan to win the match by unanimous decision. This, in my eyes, solidifies him as a top lightweight who has cleared out the entire Strikeforce promotion of challengers. This opens a great opening for the UFC Pres to send over lightweight fighters from the UFC’s bloated lightweight division. A great choice, in an article written by Mike Chiappetta, would be BJ Penn who is likely far from either of the UFC lightweight or welterweight titles but is always looking to challenge himself.
The Bad
Despite us fans getting to watch some entertaining bouts, with good performances by Gegard Mousasi and KJ Noons, we missed some of the great action from the undercard. We missed finishes by Caros Fodor and Roger Bowling who stopped their opponents in under a minute. I had really wanted to see Bowling take on Jerron Peoples, as Peoples missed weight for the welterweight, and then 179 lbs catchweight fight, by hitting the scales at 180.5 lbs. So it was sweet justice for Bowling to have finished Peoples in 42-seconds. The UFC and Bellator show fights from earlier in the evening during their broadcasts, so we can only hope that with the new deal in place between Strikeforce and Showtime, that we won’t miss any of the great finishes from future events.
The Ugly
I was thinking of classifying Strikeforce women’s featherweight champion Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos sixteen second technical knockout of opponent Hiroko Yamanaka under “The Good” but the more I thought about the long term ramification I had to but it under “The Ugly”. Santos simply ran through Yamanaka last night, simply asserting her dominance in the women’s 145 lbs division. Certainly have a strong champion like that is great to have, but who does Strikeforce find next? Ronda Rousey? ‘Rowdy’ has talked about the fight ‘Cyborg’ but she’s already running for the bantamweight division. In my eyes, I think Rousey is looking at Tate as an easier opponent than Santos would be. So then who? Zuffa had to go to Japan to get Yamanaka, leaving them with few options. I think Strikeforce is going to have to find an Olympic level female wrestler to find a good match for Santos, but anyone at that level will require a lot of training. It could be a year or two before a strong contender surfaces for the women’s featherweight title.