CINCINNATI — The post-fight press conference had almost wrapped up, but Josh Barnett couldn’t resist. When the topic of conversation turned to what Strikeforce was planning to do about its vacant heavyweight title, Barnett just had to put Scott Coker on the spot.
“Why don’t we sweeten the pot?” Barnett asked. “Why don’t we put that title on the line between me and [Daniel] Cormier?”
As he went on to explain, “Strikeforce needs a real champ. It needs a real champ like me or Cormier. Besides us, who is it?”
Coker, who seemed visibly uncomfortable with the question, gave a meandering answer in the form of a history lesson that eventually boiled down to one main point: “Let’s just take it one step at a time, Josh.”
In other words, Strikeforce isn’t committing to anything just yet. Not until it absolutely has to.
And yet, it seems only logical to use the heavyweight Grand Prix to crown a champion now that Alistair Overeem has fled to the UFC and the title is vacant. As Barnett pointed out while slipping into his pro wrestling schtick at the presser, either he or Cormier could be legitimately dubbed the Strikeforce title-holder after winning this tournament.
“Either one of us is a grand champion,” said Barnett. “Either one of us is the kind of guy who can take that belt, hold our hands up with it, and people look at us and say, hey, those guys are champs. That’s the people we want representing our company. That’s the kind of guy I want to look up to and say hey, you want to see a fighter? You want to see a real bad-ass in the world? There he is, right there. See that gold around his waist? That’s not a joke. That’s reality. The people he had to step over to get that, he earned it.”
As Barnett said later, this was a speech he meant to give in the cage for all to see, but forgot it in the post-fight confusion.
“But I really believe that, once it gets to the finals, there really are no two better fighters to represent Strikeforce as a heavyweight champion,” he said. “This is not where we intended to be at this point with the tournament, but the fact of the matter is, this is where we are. We have no champ. It’s vacant. We can’t walk around like that. We can’t hold our heads as high if we don’t have a heavyweight champion.”
The fact that Strikeforce officials won’t go ahead and put the title on the line makes you wonder, what are they saving it for? Or perhaps, is it a decision that’s out of their hands, now that Zuffa owns the organization and seems to be picking it apart one piece at a time?
“I don’t even want to go there,” Barnett said. “I could speculate. I’ve been in this longer than almost anybody you can find at any of these events. But I just don’t want to do it.”
At the moment, he said, his more immediate goal is not just beating Cormier in the finals, but getting at least one takedown to prove that he’s capable of putting a former Olympic wrestler on his back.
“I’ve got to get that takedown on DC,” he said during the press conference, adding that he knew if he managed to do it, “Mo [Lawal] will never let him live it down, ever.”
From the other side of the podium Cormier just grinned and leaned forward into his microphone.
CINCINNATI — The post-fight press conference had almost wrapped up, but Josh Barnett couldn’t resist. When the topic of conversation turned to what Strikeforce was planning to do about its vacant heavyweight title, Barnett just had to put Scott Coker on the spot.
“Why don’t we sweeten the pot?” Barnett asked. “Why don’t we put that title on the line between me and [Daniel] Cormier?”
As he went on to explain, “Strikeforce needs a real champ. It needs a real champ like me or Cormier. Besides us, who is it?”
Coker, who seemed visibly uncomfortable with the question, gave a meandering answer in the form of a history lesson that eventually boiled down to one main point: “Let’s just take it one step at a time, Josh.”
In other words, Strikeforce isn’t committing to anything just yet. Not until it absolutely has to.
And yet, it seems only logical to use the heavyweight Grand Prix to crown a champion now that Alistair Overeem has fled to the UFC and the title is vacant. As Barnett pointed out while slipping into his pro wrestling schtick at the presser, either he or Cormier could be legitimately dubbed the Strikeforce title-holder after winning this tournament.
“Either one of us is a grand champion,” said Barnett. “Either one of us is the kind of guy who can take that belt, hold our hands up with it, and people look at us and say, hey, those guys are champs. That’s the people we want representing our company. That’s the kind of guy I want to look up to and say hey, you want to see a fighter? You want to see a real bad-ass in the world? There he is, right there. See that gold around his waist? That’s not a joke. That’s reality. The people he had to step over to get that, he earned it.”
As Barnett said later, this was a speech he meant to give in the cage for all to see, but forgot it in the post-fight confusion.
“But I really believe that, once it gets to the finals, there really are no two better fighters to represent Strikeforce as a heavyweight champion,” he said. “This is not where we intended to be at this point with the tournament, but the fact of the matter is, this is where we are. We have no champ. It’s vacant. We can’t walk around like that. We can’t hold our heads as high if we don’t have a heavyweight champion.”
The fact that Strikeforce officials won’t go ahead and put the title on the line makes you wonder, what are they saving it for? Or perhaps, is it a decision that’s out of their hands, now that Zuffa owns the organization and seems to be picking it apart one piece at a time?
“I don’t even want to go there,” Barnett said. “I could speculate. I’ve been in this longer than almost anybody you can find at any of these events. But I just don’t want to do it.”
At the moment, he said, his more immediate goal is not just beating Cormier in the finals, but getting at least one takedown to prove that he’s capable of putting a former Olympic wrestler on his back.
“I’ve got to get that takedown on DC,” he said during the press conference, adding that he knew if he managed to do it, “Mo [Lawal] will never let him live it down, ever.”
From the other side of the podium Cormier just grinned and leaned forward into his microphone.
CINCINNATI — MMA Fighting spoke to Daniel Cormier following his knockout of Antonio Silva about the way the fight played out, his patience throughout the fight, his injured right, when he will be ready to fight again and meeting Josh Barnett in the finals.
CINCINNATI — MMA Fighting spoke to Daniel Cormier following his knockout of Antonio Silva about the way the fight played out, his patience throughout the fight, his injured right, when he will be ready to fight again and meeting Josh Barnett in the finals.
CINCINNATI — Daniel Cormier may have entered the Strikeforce World Heavyweight Grand Prix as an alternate, but after a dominant performance in a knockout victory over Antonio Silva, no one can question whether he deserves a place in the finals.
However, after Cormier showed up at the post-fight press conference early Sunday morning with the right hand he used to dispatch “Bigfoot” Silva wrapped up in a tight wad of bandages, some may question when he’ll be fit enough to fight again, and whether it will be soon enough for the powers that be.
“I kind of hurt my hand on the very first right hand,” Cormier said. “When he went down, he got up and I was like, man, how am I going to get through the next fifteen minutes of this with my hand hurting like it was. I just kept throwing it.”
It didn’t take long before Cormier connected again, putting Silva down with a short right uppercut near the end of the round and then finishing him off with dueling hammer fists. With the win, the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain secured a spot opposite Josh Barnett in the Grand Prix finals, though whether he’ll truly get that chance could be contingent upon his injury and availability, said Strikeforce’s Scott Coker.
“If Daniel wasn’t available for an extended period of time we would consider another fight [for the Grand Prix final],” Coker said, explaining that the goal was to complete the tournament some time in the first quarter of 2012.
That would make for a bittersweet ending to Cormier’s improbable run in the tournament. After being named as an alternate in the tournament, he defeated Jeff Monson via decision in June, then got the call to join the Grand Prix after heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem was pulled from the tournament and dropped from Strikeforce.
He came into the fight with Silva as a slight underdog, but the undefeated Cormier demolished the much bigger Brazilian thanks to his powerful right hand. If the right hand is broken — and, judging from Cormier’s post-fight remarks, it may very well be — it could be months before he’s able to fight again.
If that’s the case, it could put Strikeforce and its parent company, Zuffa, in a tough spot. Both want to wrap up the Grand Prix before it stretches on too long, but after Saturday night it’s clear that Cormier vs. Barnett will be the only legitimate final.
%VIRTUAL-Gallery-133146%
For Cormier, however, an injury withdrawal at this stage is a worst-case scenario that he hasn’t even begun to consider too heavily. Getting a win over Silva, who defeated Fedor Emelianenko in the quarterfinal of the tournament, is a huge accomplishment at this stage of his MMA career, and he admitted that it hadn’t “completely sunk in yet.”
Still, on a night when all three of his AKA teammates on the card recorded victories, Cormier had the confidence and the backing of his coach and manager Bob Cook to carry with him into the cage. And that, he said, made all the difference.
“Bob Cook is my guy. Right before my fight he came up to me and said, ‘Look man, he has nothing for you. You’re a winner. That’s what you do, and I have all the faith in the world that you’re going to win tonight.’ That statement was enough. I was in the back kind of putting some pressure on myself, with all the [AKA] guys winning. But then I was like, you know what, I’ve won before. I just need to do what I know and what I’ve trained to do and the result will take care of itself.”
Now he just has to hope that his injuries aren’t too serious and that Strikeforce isn’t too impatient for a Grand Prix final. Either one could mean disappointment for Cormier, and neither is within his control at this point.
CINCINNATI — Daniel Cormier may have entered the Strikeforce World Heavyweight Grand Prix as an alternate, but after a dominant performance in a knockout victory over Antonio Silva, no one can question whether he deserves a place in the finals.
However, after Cormier showed up at the post-fight press conference early Sunday morning with the right hand he used to dispatch “Bigfoot” Silva wrapped up in a tight wad of bandages, some may question when he’ll be fit enough to fight again, and whether it will be soon enough for the powers that be.
“I kind of hurt my hand on the very first right hand,” Cormier said. “When he went down, he got up and I was like, man, how am I going to get through the next fifteen minutes of this with my hand hurting like it was. I just kept throwing it.”
It didn’t take long before Cormier connected again, putting Silva down with a short right uppercut near the end of the round and then finishing him off with dueling hammer fists. With the win, the former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain secured a spot opposite Josh Barnett in the Grand Prix finals, though whether he’ll truly get that chance could be contingent upon his injury and availability, said Strikeforce’s Scott Coker.
“If Daniel wasn’t available for an extended period of time we would consider another fight [for the Grand Prix final],” Coker said, explaining that the goal was to complete the tournament some time in the first quarter of 2012.
That would make for a bittersweet ending to Cormier’s improbable run in the tournament. After being named as an alternate in the tournament, he defeated Jeff Monson via decision in June, then got the call to join the Grand Prix after heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem was pulled from the tournament and dropped from Strikeforce.
He came into the fight with Silva as a slight underdog, but the undefeated Cormier demolished the much bigger Brazilian thanks to his powerful right hand. If the right hand is broken — and, judging from Cormier’s post-fight remarks, it may very well be — it could be months before he’s able to fight again.
If that’s the case, it could put Strikeforce and its parent company, Zuffa, in a tough spot. Both want to wrap up the Grand Prix before it stretches on too long, but after Saturday night it’s clear that Cormier vs. Barnett will be the only legitimate final.
%VIRTUAL-Gallery-133146%
For Cormier, however, an injury withdrawal at this stage is a worst-case scenario that he hasn’t even begun to consider too heavily. Getting a win over Silva, who defeated Fedor Emelianenko in the quarterfinal of the tournament, is a huge accomplishment at this stage of his MMA career, and he admitted that it hadn’t “completely sunk in yet.”
Still, on a night when all three of his AKA teammates on the card recorded victories, Cormier had the confidence and the backing of his coach and manager Bob Cook to carry with him into the cage. And that, he said, made all the difference.
“Bob Cook is my guy. Right before my fight he came up to me and said, ‘Look man, he has nothing for you. You’re a winner. That’s what you do, and I have all the faith in the world that you’re going to win tonight.’ That statement was enough. I was in the back kind of putting some pressure on myself, with all the [AKA] guys winning. But then I was like, you know what, I’ve won before. I just need to do what I know and what I’ve trained to do and the result will take care of itself.”
Now he just has to hope that his injuries aren’t too serious and that Strikeforce isn’t too impatient for a Grand Prix final. Either one could mean disappointment for Cormier, and neither is within his control at this point.
Filed under: StrikeforceIn a shocking upset in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, Daniel Cormier absolutely dominated Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, battering Silva’s face with hard punches and eventually knocking him out.
In a shocking upset in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, Daniel Cormier absolutely dominated Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, battering Silva’s face with hard punches and eventually knocking him out.
Most people thought that for Cormier to have any chance, he’d need to use his Olympic-caliber wrestler skills to control Silva with takedowns. Instead, Cormier did it all with striking: Cormier dropped Silva with a big overhand right in the first minute of the first round, and after he did that he let Silva get back up, feeling more confident in his ability to beat Silva on his feet than on the ground.
Cormier continued to show off power punching throughout the round, and Silva had no answer. Eventually Cormier leveled Silva with another hard punch and then landed one more punch on the ground to knock Silva out. The whole fight lasted just 3 minutes, 56 seconds.
“It was great,” Cormier said afterward. “I fought one of the Top 5 heavyweights in the world and knocked him out. Give me some respect now.”
Everyone has to respect Cormier now: He’s 9-0 in his MMA career, and he’s now earned by far the biggest win of his life. Daniel Cormier isn’t just a wrestler. He’s a complete mixed martial artist.
CINCINNATI — This is the Strikeforce live blog for Antonio Silva vs. Daniel Cormier, a heavyweight bout on tonight’s Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov event at the U.S. Bank Arena.
The winner of this Heavyweight Grand Prix fight will meet the winner of Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov at a later date. Silva (16-2) is coming off the biggest win of his career, a stoppage over Fedor Emelianenko in February. Cormier (8-0), who replaces Alistair Overeem in the tourney, bested Jeff Monson in June.
Round 1: The size difference is very apparent when you see these two next to each other. Cormier looks like a child next to Silva. They touch gloves to start off and Silva goes on the attack first, charging straight in with a punch combo that Cormier avoids before tying up. Big right hand from Cormier slams home and drops Silva flat on his back. The crowd seems shocked as Cormier tries to follow up, but gets stymied by a recovered Silva. After a referee stand-up Cormier again finds opening on the feet, dotting Silva up with punches and prompting him to shoot a slow double-leg that has almost no chance of success against an Olympic wrestler like Cormier. Cormier slams Silva down but again can’t do much with the big man on his back. He lets him back up, and moments later drops Silva with a short right uppercut in close. Silva seems done, but Cormier lands one hammerfist and then another before the referee decides to step in. A dominant victory by Cormier, and he’s officially arrived in the big time.
Daniel Cormier def. Antonio Silva via KO (punch) at 3:56 of round one
CINCINNATI — This is the Strikeforce live blog for Antonio Silva vs. Daniel Cormier, a heavyweight bout on tonight’s Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov event at the U.S. Bank Arena.
The winner of this Heavyweight Grand Prix fight will meet the winner of Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov at a later date. Silva (16-2) is coming off the biggest win of his career, a stoppage over Fedor Emelianenko in February. Cormier (8-0), who replaces Alistair Overeem in the tourney, bested Jeff Monson in June.
Round 1: The size difference is very apparent when you see these two next to each other. Cormier looks like a child next to Silva. They touch gloves to start off and Silva goes on the attack first, charging straight in with a punch combo that Cormier avoids before tying up. Big right hand from Cormier slams home and drops Silva flat on his back. The crowd seems shocked as Cormier tries to follow up, but gets stymied by a recovered Silva. After a referee stand-up Cormier again finds opening on the feet, dotting Silva up with punches and prompting him to shoot a slow double-leg that has almost no chance of success against an Olympic wrestler like Cormier. Cormier slams Silva down but again can’t do much with the big man on his back. He lets him back up, and moments later drops Silva with a short right uppercut in close. Silva seems done, but Cormier lands one hammerfist and then another before the referee decides to step in. A dominant victory by Cormier, and he’s officially arrived in the big time.
Daniel Cormier def. Antonio Silva via KO (punch) at 3:56 of round one
UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez was interviewed recently by Full Contact Fighter and the UFC heavyweight champion dropped an interesting nugget about a hypothetical fighting situation that could happen one day.
Velasquez says that if push came to shove and he was matched up with his American Kickboxing Academy teammate Daniel Cormier in the future, he would fight him, but only if there were ranking or title implications on the line and that the sentiment is a mutual one he’s spoken about with the wrestling standout.
UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez was interviewed recently by Full Contact Fighter and the UFC heavyweight champion dropped an interesting nugget about a hypothetical fighting situation that could happen one day.
Velasquez says that if push came to shove and he was matched up with his American Kickboxing Academy teammate Daniel Cormier in the future, he would fight him, but only if there were ranking or title implications on the line and that the sentiment is a mutual one he’s spoken about with the wrestling standout.
Maybe Velasquez and Cormier should talk to Jon Fitch and Josh Koscheck about how friends fighting friends — which happens a lot in the college and amateur wrestling circuits — isn’t a personal thing. It’s just business.
CINCINNATI — The post-fight press conference had almost wrapped up, but Josh Barnett couldn’t resist. When the topic of conversation turned to what Strikeforce was planning to do about its vacant heavyweight title, Barnett just had to put Scott Coker on the spot.
CINCINNATI — 
In a shocking upset in the 
CINCINNATI — This is the