("All in all, I prefer chest-biting." Photo courtesy of Esther Lin/Strikeforce.)
In the wake of Valentijn Overeem’s mildly disappointing injury withdrawal over the weekend, we racked our brains trying to come up with logical heavyweight replacements to face Antonio Silva. Strikeforce, however, took the opposite approach — drafting one of their light-heavyweights and hoping for the best. The promotion confirmed today that reformed bad boy Mike Kyle would be facing Bigfoot on the televised portion of this Saturday’s "Henderson vs. Babalu" card. Huh. That’s an odd one.
To be fair, Kyle has competed at light-heavyweight and heavyweight throughout his career, and has gone 5-0 with 1 no-contest in his last six fights. But his record — especially under the Strikeforce banner, where he’s never won as a heavyweight — suggests that he’s best suited for 205. Competing at light-heavy last year, he scored an upset TKO over current champ Rafael Cavalcante, and made another LHW appearance in July, choking out Abongo Humphrey. The last time Kyle competed for Strikeforce as a heavyweight, he was quickly choked out by Fabricio Werdum.
The list of names in Strikeforce’s heavyweight division is undeniably impressive: Former No. 1 fighter in the world Fedor Emelianenko. The man who beat him, Fabricio Werdum. Former UFC heavyweight champions Andrei Arlovski and Josh Barnett. Hot prospects Daniel Cormier and Shane del Rosario. And the champion, K-1 wrecking machine Alistair Overeem.
The on-again, off-again battle between 