Filed under: UFCCHICAGO — After King Mo Lawal tested positive for a banned steroid this month, he said he believed the substance got into his system because it was in a supplement that he legally purchased over the counter.
CHICAGO — After King Mo Lawal tested positive for a banned steroid this month, he said he believed the substance got into his system because it was in a supplement that he legally purchased over the counter.
UFC President Dana White says that excuse isn’t good enough.
White said Thursday that he thinks all professional athletes need to know for sure what they’re putting in their systems, and that any fighter who tests positive for a banned substance needs to deal with the consequences, regardless of the reason.
“If you get caught doing something, admit you did it,” White said. “The whole ‘Somebody put something in my system that I didn’t know about?’ I mean, who here lets someone put s–t inside them that you don’t know what it is? If you go to the doctor and he gives you a pill, ‘Doc, what am I taking this for?'”
White said he wishes fighters who test positive for performance-enhancing drugs would simply admit that they were trying to gain an unfair advantage, rather than plead ignorance about the contents of the supplements they were taking.
“I don’t buy that s–t,” White said. “Own up to what you did. Listen, it’s out there, it happens, and sometimes everybody makes mistakes.”
White said he hopes the UFC’s new policy of testing all new fighters at the time they sign their first UFC contracts will deter young mixed martial artists from taking performance-enhancing drugs.
“The up-and-coming guys, you’re already talented, you’re already fast, you’re already strong, do not ruin your career by taking this junk that will affect you for the rest of your life,” White said.
And as for the established fighters who test positive and say they didn’t know the ingredients of the supplements they were taking? White doesn’t want to hear it.
“I don’t buy it,” White said. “Anybody that’s ever said that they didn’t know what’s being put in their body is full of s–t.”
Filed under: Strikeforce, MMA Fighting Exclusive, NewsFormer Strikeforce light heavyweight champ “King” Mo Lawal likely won’t appeal a positive steroid test following his win over Lorenz Larkin at a Strikeforce event in Las Vegas earlier this month, th…
Former Strikeforce light heavyweight champ “King” Mo Lawal likely won’t appeal a positive steroid test following his win over Lorenz Larkin at a Strikeforce event in Las Vegas earlier this month, the fighter and his manager, Mike Kogan, told Ariel Helwani on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour. Neither will they admit that Lawal knowingly or willfully ingested the steroid Drostanolone, however.
Instead of pleading innocent or guilty to the charges, it appears the Lawal camp will plead ignorance, blaming an over-the-counter supplement.
“Since we’re not contesting the findings of the commission test, we’re not challenging the chain of custody, we’re not pointing fingers at anybody and we’re not calling for conspiracy theories, I don’t believe we’ll actually file an appeal per se,” Kogan told Helwani. “What we will file is an answer, and an answer would involve affirming their test results and providing our findings and our explanation.”
The guilty party, according to Kogan and Lawal, is a supplement called S-Mass Lean Gainer by Rock Solid, which Lawal said he bought at a Max Muscle store in California and used only sporadically for “rehab stuff,” the fighter explained. It was recommended to him by a Max Muscle employee some time in April of 2010, he said, though it’s since been removed from the market, according to Kogan, who admitted he had no knowledge that Lawal was taking any supplements at all prior to his positive drug screening.
“To the best of my research, this product was taken off the shelves some time in mid-2011, for exactly the same reason that we’re facing right now. Its primary and only relevant ingredient of that particular product is a substance known as Methyldrostanolone, which is basically just a pill format of Drostanolone,” Kogan said.
Lawal insisted he’d “never even heard of [Drostanolone],” and was first alerted that he’d tested positive for it when reporters began calling him with the news handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. Lawal insisted he’d never knowingly taken any illegal performance-enhancing substances at any point in his athletic career, and touted his long history of clean tests in collegiate and international wrestling competitions.
“For me, the best way to get an advantage over your opponent is through hard work, preparation, and your skills,” Lawal said. “That’s the best way to get an advantage over anybody. Game-planning. That’s the best way to beat your opponent.”
At the same time, Lawal admitted that he didn’t research the supplement before taking it, even though he was well aware of instances where over-the-counter workout aids had resulted in positive drug tests for other athletes.
“When I went to Max Muscle, I figured you can’t buy steroids at a Max Muscle. It’s a chain store,” he said. “That’s like going to a grocery store and buying something illegal there. …I guess that’s the mistake I made. When I looked at the bottle, it just had a bunch of numbers on it. It had the ingredients. I didn’t see anything that looked illegal on the bottle, to be honest with you.”
And yet, as athletic commissions love to remind fighters — and as Kogan and Lawal both admitted — the athlete bears the ultimate responsibility for what goes into his system. As Helwani pointed out, even a quick Google search on the product reveals web sites that describe it as “the most powerful designer anabolic ever created,” and suggests that consumers “conduct all the necessary research that comes with using a designer anabolic of this nature.”
Still, Kogan appeared eager to turn the conversation into a referendum on “the supplement industry,” which he said “knowingly, intentionally, and maliciously misguides, hides, mislabels, and resynthesizes and does all kinds of tricks to try to keep selling you the product that they themselves know is illegal.”
“If Mo would have purchased this product in some back alley from some guy who happens to lift weights, the setting itself would probably warrant a lot more alarm than walking into a nutrition store — and not walking in there and saying, ‘Hey do you guys sell any anabolic steroids?’ — but just walking in there and saying that he’s looking for a supplement to help reinforce his muscle during light lifting and being recommended a substance,” Kogan said. “Also, in 2010 this product was not taken off the shelves. This product was not illegal. This product was not being marketed as an anabolic steroid.”
That argument will be part of Lawal’s “answer” when he appears in front of the NSAC, Kogan said, where he’ll likely make more of an attempt to explain his positive test rather than refute it.
“Our primary focus with the commission and the Attorney General’s office is intent,” Kogan said. “We had no intent of taking any illegal substance and we believe we have enough evidence and enough character references to make that point very clear.”
As for whether that explanation will satisfy fans, Lawal declined to speculate, but he did say that he would only take Nature Made supplements from now on.
“People are going to accuse me of whatever they’re going to accuse me of,” he said. “I can’t focus on that. All I know is that I know the truth. The truth is out there, I’ve got nothing to hide, and we’ll see what happens come time for the hearing. I’m not going to worry about the negatives. I’m just going to focus on the positives. That’s all I can do, man.”
Somewhat ironically, Kogan suggested that fans resist forming an opinion on the matter until they’d done all the research — exactly what Kogan and Lawal admit they did not do on the supplement that caused this situation in the first place.
“Listen, everybody has a story and every athlete has an explanation,” Kogan said. “All we ask for is that people do their own research before they jump to conclusions and then arrive to a conclusion after that. Don’t just read the headlines and be influenced by headline-chasing reporters based on that. You know, everybody cries wolf, but there are circumstances where the wolf is really there. I strongly believe that this is that circumstance.”
Filed under: StrikeforceHope you enjoyed your free preview weekend of Showtime in all its MMA-tastic glory. Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine went down more or less exactly as expected on Saturday night, with every favorite notching a victory and every…
Hope you enjoyed your free preview weekend of Showtime in all its MMA-tastic glory. Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine went down more or less exactly as expected on Saturday night, with every favorite notching a victory and every underdog taking a beating that was almost perfectly in line with how long their odds of success were.
With the event over and the Showtime preview curtain drawn closed, it’s time once again to sort through the action in search of the biggest winners, losers, and everything in between.
Biggest Winner: Luke Rockhold
He took a tough situation and made it look easy. Granted, a win over Keith Jardine doesn’t mean what it did five years ago, but you can’t complain about a first-round knockout. Rockhold was calm when he needed to be and ruthlessly aggressive when he saw his opening. He looked like a champion, in other words. His appeal for the UFC to send him some challengers was also a pretty savvy move. Zuffa won’t bring him over to the big show? Then let the big show come to him. Framing it that way lets the fans know that he wants bigger challenges just as badly as they want to see him challenged, but without alienating his employers in the process. For now, Strikeforce could match him against either Tim Kennedy or Robbie Lawler without eliciting too many groans, but if Rockhold keeps winning that talent pool is going to become a puddle very quickly.
Biggest Loser: Adlan Amagov
It looks bad enough when you wind up and hit a guy with a very illegal knee early in the first round. It looks even worse when that same guy comes right back at you with a very legal knee that floors you en route to a quick finish. Amagov seemed to be doing well against Lawler in the opening seconds, but that flagrant foul halted his momentum and only made Lawler mad. Then Amagov found out for himself what it’s like to be on the business end of a Lawler blitz. Strikeforce seemed hot on the young Russian coming into this bout, and that enthusiasm was not entirely unfounded. But this loss shows that he’s still in need of a little more seasoning — and maybe a primer on the unified rules — before he’s ready for the big fights.
Most Predictable: Keith Jardine
Again, you can’t blame Jardine for stepping up and taking his shot when Strikeforce offered — what’s he supposed to say, ‘Thanks, but I don’t deserve it’? — but the rest of us saw this coming. Jardine’s toughness has never been a question, but his skills have eroded with age. So has his chin. As nice a guy as Jardine is, we’ve got to be honest and admit that he’d done nothing to justify a title shot. Yes, he’s had a full, interesting career. And sure, anything can happen in a fight. At least, theoretically. At the same time, just because a given outcome is not impossible that does not make it likely. ‘Anything can happen’ is what you tell yourself when you’re about to do something that you know is a bad idea. It’s a way of reassuring yourself that while failure may be likely, it’s not guaranteed. That’s fine for some pursuits, like buying a lottery ticket. But maybe it’s not the right way to go about booking title fights.
Most Impressive in Defeat: Tyler Stinson
When the fight stayed standing, he had Tarec Saffiedine looking worried and confused. It was just when it hit the mat that Stinson seemed woefully out of his element. If he had better takedown defense or even just more of a sense of urgency about getting off his back, maybe this one would have gone a different way. Instead, he came off looking like a decent prospect with some obvious holes in his game. That’s not the worst thing that can happen. Saffiedine is a good fighter who’s struggled less with bigger names, so Stinson can take some minor solace in that. He can also get back in the gym and improve his wrestling, and then maybe the next time he gets a shot like this he’ll earn more than just a moral victory.
Least Impressive in Victory: Tyron Woodley
If you’ve been waiting for Woodley to develop into something more than just a wrestler with perfunctory ground-and-pound, your wait continues. He had little trouble taking Jordan Mein down and keeping him there, but once on top he seemed to put it in cruise control. Woodley’s ground attack appears designed solely to avoid stand-ups and submissions. Anything else — say, I don’t know, damaging his opponent in search of a finish — is a bonus. There were very few bonuses to be had against Mein, and so Woodley contented himself with staying on top and out of harm’s way. That’s smart, in a way, and it resulted in a decision victory. But as far as career advancement goes, it’s maybe not the best strategy. Woodley is 10-0 in his three years as a pro, which means he ought to be able to do a little more than just wrestle at this point. This fight was a great opportunity for him to show off a more well-rounded game, or at least a little more aggression once he had the fight where he wanted it. He took the cautious approach instead, and fans surely took note.
Most Passionately Compassionate: Mo Lawal
After knocking out Lorenz Larkin with a torrent of rapid-fire right hands, Lawal’s biggest concern seemed to be the lack of concern displayed by referee Kim Winslow. He seemed disgusted with how long she allowed the beating to continue and could even be heard on the broadcast chiding her for it as they stood awaiting the official announcement. Winslow claimed she wanted to give Larkin the chance to show he was still in it, but this was after he’d already been knocked out of it and then briefly back in again. Apparently Lawal doesn’t like being forced to hurt his fellow man more than is absolutely necessary, which is strange, considering his stated goal of ending “Feijao” Cavalcante’s career in a rematch. Let’s hope Winslow isn’t the ref for that one.
Strangest Sight: Mauro Ranallo interviewing Dana White
A year ago it would have been difficult to imagine a Strikeforce broadcast punctuated by a cageside interview with the UFC president. And now there he is, standing alongside the voice of MMA on Showtime, doing an interview that is noticeably less enthusiastic than the screaming pre-fight pitches he’s used to doing with Joe Rogan. In fairness, this time White didn’t have a pay-per-view to sell, but neither did he look terribly happy about his camera time. I guess some things you do because you want to, and other things you do because you have to. For White, all things Strikeforce seem to fall into the latter category.
Filed under: StrikeforceStrikeforce returns on Showtime tonight, and thanks to the free preview weekend it’s available even for you non-subscribers out there. So what are you going to be looking at when you accidentally stumble onto the channel that yo…
Strikeforce returns on Showtime tonight, and thanks to the free preview weekend it’s available even for you non-subscribers out there. So what are you going to be looking at when you accidentally stumble onto the channel that you usually breeze right past on your way to Nat Geo Wild? Here are just a few of the major storylines and pressing concerns heading into Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine.
I. For the sake of argument, let’s try and justify the decision to give Keith Jardine a middleweight title shot:
a) For starters, there’s Scott Coker’s ‘anything can happen’ defense, which suggests that because it’s not impossible for Jardine to win, it must therefore be reasonable for him to get the chance. That has a certain simplistic beauty to it, but if you accept that you must also accept that any fight would, by that logic, be acceptable. Rockhold vs. a bloated Tyron Woodley? Yep, that works. Rockhold vs. a dangerously emaciated Bobby Lashley? That too. As long as we’re at it, I could make 185 pounds no problem. So why didn’t my phone ring with an offer, forcing me to immediately fake a staph infection? You get the point.
b) Then there’s what I like to call the ‘cumulative effect’ defense. This argues that when you look at Jardine’s entire history as a fighter — from his 2006 TKO of Forrest Griffin to his 2007 split decision over Chuck Liddell to his recent draw with Gegard Mousasi — it’s not too shabby. And that’s true. Taken as a whole, Jardine’s career is pretty solid. It’s just the last few years — including the 2-5-1 record his last eight bouts — that have been pretty dismal. But hey, if we’re giving out title shots as lifetime achievement awards now, I assume Wanderlei Silva’s shot at Anderson Silva must be coming up any day now.
c) Finally, the old ‘he was the best we could find on short notice’ defense. What it lacks in poetic flourish, it makes up for with cold, hard pragmatism. Tim Kennedy was hurt, according to Coker. Robbie Lawler was coming off two straight losses. ‘Mayhem’ Miller, Jake Shields, and Dan Henderson had all fled the organization, and ‘Jacare’ Souza just fought Rockhold back in September. Who else is left to take this fight? The answer, apparently, is Jardine. And so here we are.
II. But no matter what you think of the matchmaking, don’t blame Jardine. He’s been saying he wants to drop down to middleweight for a while now, and from his perspective, why not say yes to a title shot in his first fight there? He’s got nothing to lose. If he wins, he’s the Strikeforce champ and his career is revitalized. Even if he loses he can still earn some brownie points for making a fight out of it. Really, the only way he comes off looking bad is if he gets knocked out or submitted in the first two minutes. That’s always a possibility — the old ‘anything can happen’ saw cuts both ways — but let’s just say the bar is set very low for him here. He made the weight, which is a good start. Now it’s up to him to see if he can’t justify this bizarre matchmaking and get his name back in the news for the right reasons.
III. Luke Rockhold summed up his reaction to the Jardine fight in one word: “dumbfounded.”At least he’s honest. It’s the kind of fight a rising young champ absolutely cannot lose. It’s also the kind where he can’t afford to be anything but totally and completely dominant. Basically, it’s a bad fight for Rockhold, and he knows it. But hey, what could he do besides sign on the dotted line and make the best of it? As his management no doubt told him, now is not the time to be making waves in Strikeforce. Now is the time to keep your head down and win.
IV. Number that will continue to blow my mind every time I’m given a reason to look it up: 29. That’s how old Robbie Lawler is heading into his 28th professional bout. How is that even possible? The guy’s been a pro fighter since 2001. He debuted in the UFC in 2002. He’s been doing this since back when Dana White had hair, and you’re telling me he’s not even 30 years old yet? If he were a Cuban Little League pitcher, no one would believe it. Lawler seems like he was born with a thousand-yard stare and a laconic nonchalance about his own ability to knock people stiff with one punch, and not much has changed over the years. He’s still more or less the same fighter he’s always been. His game plan for his 28th fight will probably be roughly the same as it was for his tenth. He still makes interviews more difficult than they have to be, and still has the same general disdain for all the non-fighting aspects of the fight game. At least Adlan Amagov knows what he’s up against. But then, so have a lot of people who ended up flat on their backs at the end of the night.
V. Only one person can beat Mo Lawal on Saturday night, and it’s Mo Lawal. I know, I know — anything can happen — but let’s stick to what’s likely to happen. He’s a good enough striker that he doesn’t have to dive in for a takedown right away, and yet his takedowns are such a constant threat that Lorenz Larkin will have to worry about them every time he opens up with an attack. Lawal’s best chance to lose this fight is to decide to keep it standing for too long in some misguided attempt to prove a point. That would be dumb, but it also might be the kind of thing a guy with an oversized ego would do. From the outside Lawal might seem like a Ric Flair-esque narcissist, but he’s actually a pretty savvy student of the game. At least, most of the time. Like most pro fighters, no matter how sober his analysis is when he’s watching others, his vision gets a little hazy when he turns his focus upon himself. The only way he doesn’t win this fight is if he gets to thinking too highly of his own striking skills and not highly enough of Larkin’s. Even the best wrestler is going to have trouble scoring takedowns if he only shoots after he’s been stung on the feet.
VI. Fun fact about Jordan Mein: seven fights into his pro career, he had a losing record. He began his pro career with a loss, in fact, to Rory MacDonald. That one must have started to look better as time went by, but Mein also dropped fights to several guys who didn’t go on to become UFC standouts. After back-to-back losses at the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007, he was a very mediocre 3-4 as a pro. A lot of guys might have quit then, maybe decided to take their family’s advice and finally entered that management trainee program at the rental car place. Mein kept at it, and just a few years later he’s poised to take the leap from Strikeforce prelim fighter to solid undercard performer. It’s almost fitting that he should take on Tyron Woodley, the former Mizzou wrestler who seemed destined for big things in MMA right off the bat, and has been groomed as such in his time with Strikeforce. You never know from its beginning what a guy’s career will look like by the end. Sometimes those early struggles prove helpful later on.
VII. Know where to find Showtime Extreme in the premium cable labyrinth? If so, then you can watch the prelim bouts before the main card gets underway. While the old Strikeforce used to treat those fights as if they weren’t even worth turning the cameras on for, the new Strikeforce seems to realize that you might as well do something with them, even if probably not a whole lot of people will be ignoring the Lions-Saints NFL playoff game to watch Trevor Smith and Gian Villante go at it. Still, it’s a step in the right direction, as is the decision to time this event to coincide with a Showtime free preview weekend. If Showtime wants to be in the MMA business, it needs to get all the way in. Just like I first made the decision to pony up for HBO so I could watch the last season of The Wire in real time, I’ll admit that I never felt the urge to get Showtime until they had Strikeforce. I can’t be the only MMA fan who feels that way, so why not get behind it and push it as the asset that it is? Besides, with the avalanche of commercials that accompany any NFL playoff game, we’ll have plenty of chances to switch back and forth and check on how Villante is doing.
Filed under: StrikeforceMo Lawal can admit it now: things didn’t go the way he thought they would when he first walked though the doors of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif. in the spring of 2011. What happened was simple, really. He c…
Mo Lawal can admit it now: things didn’t go the way he thought they would when he first walked though the doors of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose, Calif. in the spring of 2011. What happened was simple, really. He came in with all the swagger you’d expect from a man who goes by the moniker of “King” Mo, and then he found out the hard way that he wasn’t the only MMA royalty on those mats.
Or as he put it: “I got beat up.”
And we’re not talking just normal bumps and bruises, either. We’re talking good old-fashioned butt-whoopings. One right after another, after another, after another.
For the former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion, a man who had racked up seven straight wins in just a year and a half of professional competition, this wasn’t just a surprise — it was a travesty. It was a challenge to everything he thought he knew about himself and his abilities. It was unacceptable. And he had his best friend and former Oklahoma State wrestling teammate, Daniel Cormier, to thank for it.
Cormier convinced Lawal to come up to the Bay Area gym after he heard that his old friend wasn’t totally satisfied with the training he was getting down in Orange County. Lawal had recently suffered the first loss of his career in a Strikeforce 205-pound title defense against Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante in August of 2010, and now he was looking for a new home after rehabbing a knee injury.
“I was asking him to come up here,” said Cormier. “I heard he was looking to move and we talked a lot. I told him it was the best place for him.”
After weeks of going back and forth, Lawal finally made the move. But when set foot on the mats after being out of action for a while, he was in for a rough welcome.
“I remember him struggling early on,” Cormier said. “His timing was off. He hadn’t fought in almost a year. He just wasn’t himself.”
His first day of sparring, as Lawal remembered it, he went up against his buddy Cormier. He started off getting the worst of it, and things only deteriorated from there as his cardio showed the effects of his injury layoff.
“I was kind of getting beat down,” Lawal said. “I’m not going to lie.”
The next day of sparring, Lawal got matched up with a tall, lanky surfer kid by the name of Luke Rockhold — a middleweight who Lawal took one look at before deciding that his fortunes in the gym were about to change.
“I was like, yes! I’m going to smash him!” Lawal said. The way he saw it, Rockhold was a pretty boy who wasn’t going to like getting hit in the face. He was, in Lawal’s eyes, “a fake Ken doll.”
But before they strapped on the gloves, Cormier tried to warn his friend that it might not be as easy a sparring session as he thought.
“I told him, Luke is a guy you have to watch out for. He goes a thousand percent all the time.”
Lawal wasn’t convinced. This guy? The one who looks like he stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog? He was the one who was going to give a former Strikeforce champ and NCAA All-American a hard time? Please.
“I was like, I can’t wait till I spar with Luke,” Lawal said. “I’m going to put them thangs on him.”
A few rounds later, Lawal found out what Cormier was talking about. Rockhold popped right back up after Lawal took him down. He fired off kicks that seemed to come from odd angles and yet always found an open target. Lawal found himself getting punched, kneed, and kicked in places he thought he’d been defending well.
“I got beat up,” Lawal said. “…I got exposed. Because I came from training in Orange County, which was a good camp, some good guys out there, but the whole level of intensity, I felt like I was in Holland or something. I was like, these guys are trying to knock me out.”
Cormier had tried to tell him what he was in for, but maybe it was something he had to experience for himself to understand. That’s how it was for Cormier when he first joined the team, he said.
“Other guys may train hard and spar hard, but it’s different here, where you have so many top guys and they’re all there every single day. I think that’s probably the biggest thing. There’s a core group of guys who are here every day, and they’re all mostly top ten in the world. It’s a daily grind. You don’t go to the gym and not have to deal with Luke Rockhold, [Josh] Koscheck, [Jon] Fitch, Cain [Velasquez] — they’re all there every time you step on the mat. There’s no easy days.”
Cormier knew his old friend would benefit from those daily battles, but he also had selfish reasons for enlisting him, he admitted.
“I just know that my best years, whether it was wrestling or whatever, Mo was right there close to me. The comfort that I have training with that dude, his ability to talk you up when you’re having bad days, just having a friend around helps so much.”
Still, it wasn’t just himself he was trying to help by bringing Lawal onto the team, Cormier said.
“I knew it would be good for him, but I also knew it would be good for Luke. We didn’t have that many smaller guys for him, so Luke had been sparring me and Cain. That’s not a good day for any [middleweight].”
With Lawal now on the AKA roster, Rockhold had a sparring partner closer to his size who could help him improve his wrestling, and Lawal had one who would force him to work on his stand-up skills. It was a symbiotic relationship that benefited them both, even if it resulted in the two of them showing up places with matching cuts and bruises when they traveled together to promote their respective fights on Saturday night’s Showtime card in Las Vegas.
“I’m going to be real with y’all,” Lawal said while sitting next to Rockhold at a recent media Q&A at the MGM Grand. “This man right here is a top three middleweight in the world. You see my eye? I’ve got a little black eye, that’s because of him. He kneed me in the face and punched me.”
Rockhold just shrugged and smiled before showing off his own battle wounds courtesy of Lawal and explaining that “iron sharpens iron.”
Which is kind of the whole point, as you can tell when you glance around the room at a place like AKA. The mats are crowded with UFC and Strikeforce fighters, former and current champions who make sure that there are no days off inside those walls. And that, Lawal said, is exactly what he needed. That’s why unbeaten prospect Lorenz Larkin is in trouble once the cage door closes on Saturday night, he explained.
“He’s undefeated. He’s a tough, young kid, hungry like me, but I’m starving,” Lawal said. “I’m an Ethiopian right now.”
That’s the good part about taking your beatings in the gym. There, no one’s watching. No one’s keeping score. There, the pounding is intended to make you better, or at the very least tougher. It’s on Saturday night, when the cameras are rolling and the crowd is cheering, that you find out if it worked.
Filed under: StrikeforceIf you’re tired of all those UFC events loaded with nothing but competitive fights, Strikeforce has got some good news for you. Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine event features no shortage of long odds and lopsi…
If you’re tired of all those UFC events loaded with nothing but competitive fights, Strikeforce has got some good news for you. Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine event features no shortage of long odds and lopsided match-ups, complete with a title fight that oddsmakers seem to think will be among the biggest mismatches of the night.
Let’s jump right into it and see which big underdog has just enough of a chance to convince us to do something stupid with our hard-earned cash, shall we?
Honestly, I’m a little surprised the line is this close. In Jardine’s last performance he fought to a draw against Gegard Mousasi in a fight that left his face looking like a watercolor painting gone wrong. The odds for that fight looked exactly the same as they do here, and yet I can’t help but feel like Jardine has even less of a chance this time. Rockhold is a better defensive wrestler than Mousasi was then, so Jardine probably won’t be able to score with takedowns as easily. Rockhold’s also a little more unpredictable on the feet, and I can’t think that losing a significant amount of weight at this point in his career will do much to help Jardine’s already suspect chin. Really, the only thing Jardine has going for him here is the fact that he has no business in this title fight at all. That means he has nothing to lose, but more importantly it means that Strikeforce is tempting the MMA gods, and they have a way of punishing matchmaking hubris like this. It would almost serve Strikeforce right if it ended up with a 36-year-old middleweight champ who had only one middleweight fight on his record. Then again, you really want to bet on a cruel twist of fate to catapult an aging journeyman over a rising young star? My pick: Rockhold. Barring anything totally weird — though, let’s face it, some nights this is a really weird sport — I don’t see how he doesn’t win this. At these odds, it’s prime parlay material.
Amagov may not be a household name in MMA just yet, but believe me when I tell you that he’s no joke. He can grapple and he can bang, and his record reflects both. But then, there’s a big difference between fighting Ronald Stallings and fighting Robbie Lawler. It’s easy to look at Lawler’s record and come away thinking that the hard-nosed brawler is falling off. He’s lost four of his last six, after all, and he’s currently on a two-fight skid. Then again, look at who he’s been losing to: Tim Kennedy, “Jacare” Souza, Renato Sobral, Jake Shields. Any one of those guys would be the test of Amagov’s young life, but for Lawler it’s just a normal couple of years. That experience matters, as does Lawler’s ability to knock your fondest childhood memories out of your brain with one punch. Amagov is a serious fighter and he may be on his way up the ranks, but he’s never fought anyone quite like Lawler before. As long as Lawler doesn’t let that fact go to his head, he should bounce back here. My pick: Lawler. Assuming he’s more or less healthy and doesn’t fight a dumb/reckless fight, I like his chances to find Amagov’s chin sooner or later.
On paper, Larkin looks like an impressive fighter, but it’s what you don’t see on his resume that could make all the difference. He might be undefeated in MMA, but he’s lacking two things: 1) a serious wrestling pedigree, and 2) experience against high-level opponents. Lawal has both, which should help explain why he’s such a heavy favorite. The question here is whether Lawal will approach this fight with the right temperament, or whether he’ll let his considerable ego get the better of him. His striking has come a long way in recent years, but that doesn’t mean he has to rely on it here. He can probably take Larkin down at will beat him up on the mat; he just has to believe that this is the right way to go and stick with it. Reasons to think he’ll do that: Lawal’s no dummy, and the AKA crew he’s working with knows how to put together a game plan and drill it into a fighter’s head. Reasons to think he won’t: Lawal is a showman, and he’s got just enough of a chip on his shoulder to want to do whatever his haters think he can’t. My pick: Lawal. It’s entirely possible that he could get himself into a boxing match that doesn’t favor his skill-set, but even then he always has wrestling to fall back on. I’ll put him right next to Rockhold in the parlay.
As anyone who saw him turn on the go-go-gadget elbows against Evangelista Santos already knows, Mein is for real. He’s got a six-fight win streak going, and the last few have come against increasingly challenging opponents. Woodley, however, represents a different kind of test altogether, and it’s the variety that Mein has yet to prove he can pass. We all know what the former Mizzou wrestler brings to the table. His stand-up game might be coming along, but it’s not what he relies on to win fights, as his takedown-heavy performance against Paul Daley showed. Mein has shown in the past that he can be outwrestled, but Woodley’s shown that he doesn’t always have much of a plan B when he faces someone who can stuff a takedown or two. The line here seems to suggest that Woodley will stomp all over Mein, but I’m not sure that’s the case. If Woodley wins, it’ll probably have to be via decision. That gives Mein plenty of opportunities to figure something out and exploit an opening. Or maybe it just gives him plenty of chances to get taken down. My pick: Mein. Of all the big underdogs on this card, he’s the one with the best chance to surprise some people. Woodley has looked a little too one-dimensional lately, and Mein is undervalued. That’s all a riverboat gambler like me needs to know.
Saffiedine is one of those fighters that Strikeforce has been grooming in its Challengers shows for a while now, but those days are done. He looked solid while out-pointing Scott Smith in his last outing, but his game is not without its holes. The question is, can Stinson exploit those holes before Saffiedine goes upside his head with a flashy combo? Probably not. Stinson’s been in with some tough customers during his time, and he’s come away with wins over a few of them. Still, Saffiedine seems more polished. Anybody who has a 15-second knockout of Eduardo Pamplona on his record — as Stinson does — needs to be taken seriously. But if Saffiedine plays it smart and keeps this from turning into a streetfight, he should take this. My pick: Saffiedine. I’ll admit that I was tempted to leave Mein alone and take Stinson as my big underdog, but I just don’t see it here. He’s been too up and down, and the ups haven’t been quite high enough to make me a believer yet.
The ‘For Entertainment Purposes Only’ Parlay: Rockhold + Lawler + Lawal.
CHICAGO — After King Mo Lawal tested positive for a banned steroid this month, he said he believed the substance got into his system because it was in a supplement that he legally purchased over the counter.
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Hope you enjoyed your free preview weekend of Showtime in all its 
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