The UFC Isn’t The Only One Loading Up For a Great July, Strikeforce Has An Answer
Let’s face it, Strikeforce has two names that all MMA fans love to hear; Fedor and Henderson. If you are an MMA fan of any kind you know these two fighters. This July, th…
The UFC Isn’t The Only One Loading Up For a Great July, Strikeforce Has An Answer
Let’s face it, Strikeforce has two names that all MMA fans love to hear; Fedor and Henderson. If you are an MMA fan of any kind you know these two fighters. This July, they get to fight eachother.
I would let that settle in before you drastically run and check the pay-per-view listings, because you won’t find if there. Showtime will be airing this event.
If you can show me an American fight fan that doesn’t love Dan Henderson, I will show you a liar. Dan Henderson is loved by everyone in this country.He represented America in the Olympics, for crying out loud. After all, wasn’t it Henderson who quietly listened to Michael Bisping run his mouth about Americans? When Henderson fought him two years ago, he ended up with the biggest knockout in MMA history, and put an exclamation point on the fight with a flying superman punch at the end.
Now Henderson faces a tough challenge in Fedor. He is 31-3 in his career. Fedor was widely considered to be the greatest of all time until back-to-back loses eased those claims. That still doesn’t stop the fact that Fedor went 28 straight matches without losing! This fight is the best main event of the summer.
Also on the main card, fans will get to see someone take control of the Strikeforce welterweight division. With Nick Diaz moving to the UFC to fight GSP, Paul Daley and Evangelista Santos have a chance to take a huge step in claiming the belt. Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal will take on Roger Gracie as well. That fight has the makings to be excited. Lastly, the exciting Scott Smith will enter the ring against Tarec Saffiedine.
The Main event will draw all the fans this event needs. I will watch and root for Henderson as I always have. The other three fights alone make this card worth the time and money spent. Henderson and Fedor will be a blockbuster summer showdown.
Oh did I mention that there is a women’s title fight on as well? Marloes Coenen will face Miesha Tate for the women’s welterweight championship. What, you don’t care about women’s MMA? Fair enough.
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UFC 132 is on July 2nd, at The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, and it Can’t Get Here Soon Enough
If you are a new MMA fan, or someone that hasn’t taken the next step in craziness, you must realize one thing. The UFC always attempts to throw an exp…
UFC 132 is on July 2nd, at The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, and it Can’t Get Here Soon Enough
If you are a new MMA fan, or someone that hasn’t taken the next step in craziness, you must realize one thing. The UFC always attempts to throw an explosive event in July. UFC 86, 100, 116, and 132 all were/are July events and each of them were awesome in their own way, so why would this year be any different?
When the UFC bought out the WEC and added two new weight divisions, one of their goals was to promote Jose Aldo and Urijah Faber. Both of these young men were the faces of the WEC. Aldo holds the featherweight belt, is one of the best fighters in the world, and won’t be beaten for a long time. Faber on the other hand, dropped down weight classes and will face Dominick Cruz. If you don’t know much about Cruz, I will tell you this: his fighting style is so much fun to watch. Cruz has only one loss in his career, and has won in eight straight fights, but who could his last loss be against? Why, only the man he faces in July, Urijah Faber himself!
So there is bad blood. Faber wants a belt and Cruz wants to avenge his only loss. This card couldn’t get better, could it?
Chris Leben has been calling out Wanderlei Silva for a while now. These two sluggers will make for an epic showdown. Silva might be the world’s most popular fighter, but hasn’t fought since February 2010. His return will have fans foaming at the mouth in anticipation. Who doesn’t love a fighter with a nickname “The Axe Murderer”?
The other three main-card fights could be co-main events on 95% of cards. Carlos Condit and Dong Hyung Kim will fight to see who gets a crack at the welterweight belt, after Nick Diaz tries in October. Tito Ortiz looks to show Ryan Badar that he is still a force to be reckoned with. Lastly, Dennis Siver is looking to continue his dominance in the lightweight division. He fights Matt Wiman, who is on a three fight winning streak. A win for Siver might put him in the top five lightweights in the UFC.
That makes for a great night of fights! Now, sprinkle in an under-card with names such as Melvin Guillard, George Sotriopoulos, Raphael Dos Anjos, Brian Bowles, Takeya Mizugaki, Aaron Simpson and Andre Winner. This might be the second most stacked event in UFC history, only behind UFC 100.
As an MMA fan, you cannot miss this event.
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Last Night’s Strikeforce Event, Overeem vs. Werdum, couldn’t have been worse
Ever since Strikeforce came up with the genius idea for a Heavyweight Grand Prix, fans have been anticipating each event. Last night Alistair Overeem faced Fabricio Werdum, a …
Last Night’s Strikeforce Event, Overeem vs. Werdum, couldn’t have been worse
Ever since Strikeforce came up with the genius idea for a Heavyweight Grand Prix, fans have been anticipating each event. Last night Alistair Overeem faced Fabricio Werdum, a fight that would end the quarterfinals of the tournament. As an MMA fan, I was excited to see how this would play out. I couldn’t have been more disappointed in the main event.
The card itself was average at best. Josh Barnett looked great in return to the cage, as he destroyed Brett Rogers. KJ Noons and Jorge Masvidal as provided some energy, although it was mostly from Masvidal as he obliterated Noons. All this was acceptable, because the main event was suppose to be dynamite! When Overeem met Werdum in the cage, the crowd was cheering and going wild. It wouldn’t take long for the booing to start.
Overeem landed some nice power shots and knock Werdum down, but Werdum would stay on the ground inviting Overeem to the engage in the ground game. Now, Werdum is a second degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It was Werdum that shocked the world and submitted Fedor, right? So why would Overeem, ever, engage him on the ground? Overeem would have no part of it, and instead would motion for Werdum to stand.
Overeem clearly had the advantage on the feet, he is a great kick-boxer after all. He would batter Werdum, but not to the point where he pushed ahead for a knockout. He was very picky and patient with Werdum, almost as if he were too cautious.
If you mix Overeem’s timidness with Werdum’s guard pulling strategy, it made for one boring fight. So boring in fact, I went through every main event in the UFC and Strikeforce in the last 3 years and only two were worse. Frank Mir vs Mirco Cro-Cop at UFC 119 and Anderson Silva vs Thales Leites at UFC 97. Both of those were a bit worse, but not by much. To be compared with those two events, should make Strikeforce take a long look at this fight. I understand it happens, and sometimes the main event just lacks explosion and excitement. But, Strikeforce is trying to gauge more and more interest in the Heavyweight Grand Prix and this didn’t help.
I place most of the blame on Werdum for not adjusting his strategy, but Alistair Overeem could have pressed and finished the fight. Both men are at fault and as an MMA fan, I know this is not what the sport is about.
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With the summer suddenly upon us, MMA is about to spike in growth again. When thinking about sports in the summer, three things generally come to mind: the heart of baseball season comes during the next three months, the NBA season—which some (my…
With the summer suddenly upon us, MMA is about to spike in growth again.
When thinking about sports in the summer, three things generally come to mind: the heart of baseball season comes during the next three months, the NBA season—which some (myself included) believe doesn’t end until after the draft—is still going on, and most importantly, the NFL offseason and training camps are underway. Football honks, like myself, scramble to their televisions on a nightly basis just to stay connected to free-agent signings, mini-camp battles, and the start of pre-season football.
Anyone see a problem here?
What happens when the draft is over and football is still locked out? Do you want to sit around on your couch watching lawyers debate about billions of dollars? If you haven’t heard, after the NBA draft, basketball is most likely going to be in a lockout, too. Is there an answer to this madness?
Yes there is, my friends!
Zuffa, owner of UFC and Strikeforce, holds the key.
Mixed martial arts is the fastest growing sport in the world. Why wouldn’t it be? People have watched fighters destroy each other going back to ancient times.
There are people in this world that do not like MMA because of the violence. Yes, it is violent, but it’s violent for all the right reasons. There are some aspects of MMA that get overlooked—a light needs to be shined on them, now.
Have you ever seen the respect each fighter gives his opponent? The sportsmanship in MMA is unlike any other. Spend 15 minutes trying to knock someone out or submit them, then pick them up when the bout is over and give them a hug. It is hard to comprehend, but it happens all the time.
Fighters also show the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Have you ever seen the shape most of these guys are in? I would love to look like GSP, Jon Jones, or Urijah Faber. Their diets are impressive, and their work ethics are unmatched.
Remember, if they mess up in the ring, they have no one to blame it on but themselves. These men make no excuses—unless it’s Tito Ortiz, and he just gets ignored.
So what’s it going to be fans? Would you rather watch a courtroom battle between a “former” union and owners, or see two men, each at his physical prime, punch each other in the face?
That is what I thought, and that is why the MMA is about to get a huge boost in ratings this summer!
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Now that Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum is in the books, I think we can all agree the last two quarterfinal bouts of this Heavyweight Grand Prix were duds compared to the first two back in February.Strikeforce’s goliath tournament continues to b…
Now that Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum is in the books, I think we can all agree the last two quarterfinal bouts of this Heavyweight Grand Prix were duds compared to the first two back in February.
Strikeforce’s goliath tournament continues to be an intriguing draw to MMA fans, even after Saturday’s uneventful fights between Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, Josh Bartnett and Brett Rogers, but still left spectators uninspired.
The culprit here: lopsided, stylistic nightmare matches that were heavily hyped by the press.
As soon as the brackets were announced, I felt like Barnett stood alone on his side of the table as the craftier veteran and heavy favorite to make it to the final showdown, mainly due to the fact he was the only fighter with serious wrestling skills in a pool of mediocre, yet heavy handed, strikers.
Let’s not fool ourselves further by continuing to believe Brett Rogers belongs at the top half of the division. Believe me, this is not a pretentious exercise of proclaiming the correct foresight in hindsight of a fight—but I was weary of calling Roger’s a contender even after he knocked out Andre Arlovski way back when.
Needless to say, if Strikeforce’s heavyweight division was well established with a healthy number of legitimate contenders to challenge newly signed Fedor Emelianenko back then, Rogers would have never been picked to be the “up and coming” knockout artist the promotion needed at the time.
Rogers should have never been in a position to fight Fedor or Overeem—at least not at that or this point in his career—and it showed when he lost both fights. Barnett out classing him last night was just icing on my point.
I’m not unjustly tearing Rogers a new one, but like it or not, he was thrown to the sharks. Strikeforce took a gamble on trying to legitimize a fresh face who was coming off an explosive knockout win over an ex-UFC heavyweight champ with a glass jaw.
After looking at Roger’s record leading up to the Arlovski fight—stopping his first ten opponents by either KO or TKO all in the first or second rounds—excitement surrounding his potential was justified to the extent that fans had to realize he was fighting unknowns. Unfortunately for his development, Strikeforce catapulted Rogers into the spotlight against their two best heavyweights after beating Arlovski
Since then, Rogers has been exposed as the unpolished, heavy handed amateur he was coming into Strikeforce, now losing three of his last four—barely getting by Hunt’s poster boy Ruben Villareal back in October.
As I was watching Barnett smother Rogers for a round and a half, the outcome was far from surprising. Rogers was never given a chance to land his “one-hitter quitter” and never had a chance once the fight hit the ground.
In fact, after the night concluded, you could make a convincing case for Barnett to be the new favorite to win the whole tournament.
Moving on to the last Grand Prix bout of the night between Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum.
Stylistically, this was like watching a tango between oil and water or two one-legged dancers. Neither man had any intentions of playing with fire, Overeem stayed as far away from Werdum’s guard as possible and Werdum only stood toe-to-toe with his foe long enough to set up his failed take down attempts.
The tone was set straight out of the gate when Overeem completely stuffed all of Werdum’s shots, using his power and strength to effectively sprawl to safety. Werdoomsday started taking on a whole new meaning once it became evident the he could not take Overeem down by conventional means.
To Werdum’s credit, he did take enough risks to set up his take downs by trading strikes with his K-1 Grand Prix champion opponent—which surprisingly he landed a good amount of his strikes.
Once he clinched with Overeem, Werdum immediately pulled guard in hopes of keeping the powerful Dutchman on the ground, trying to give himself a realistic chance of winning.
This strategy failed too, proving a broader principle that heavily relying on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to get guys to the ground, without any sufficient wrestling skills, is not an effective approach, even against opponents who are primarily strikers.
Werdum ran out of ways of getting Overeem to the ground and more importantly, he had no answer for keeping him there. The few seconds Overeem was in Werdum’s guard, it took just as quick for him to stand back to his feet.
Witnessing both fighters egging each other to play into the other’s strength was exhausting to watch for three rounds. It took the competitiveness and importance out of the fight for me.
Strategically, this all made perfect sense. What didn’t make too much sense to me was how two of the best heavyweights in MMA could make a quarterfinal matchup—a grudge rematch of sorts—look so one dimensional.
Surely each fighter knew the other wouldn’t willingly engage in their strongest attribute. Where’s the Plan-B? As unfortunately predictable as the back and forth charades were, it was caused more because of one-dimensional stylistic difficulties than poor matchmaking.
But, to make matters worse, both Overeem and Werdum were noticeably gassed by the end of the second round, trying to make their V8’s run on Prius gas tanks.
Then again, it’s mixed martial arts, a sport that forces all types of competitors into adapting numerous skill sets, not just to rely on one.
Overeem needed the break out performance he didn’t get and Werdum was never able to execute his newly refined game plan he had promised in interviews leading up to the fight. Neither guy really strengthened their cause to fight the UFC’s best—namely Cain Velasquez and Junior Dos Santos.
Unlike Werdum, Overeem has kept his chances of winning the tournament alive and he still has the opportunity to prove why he should be considered a top five heavyweight in the world.
But, that has become a much taller order after the last 48 hours, with Antonio Silva and possibly Josh Barnett waiting in line to strip Overeem of his belt. Silva’s strikes are more powerful than Werdum’s and Barnett won’t have the same problems getting Overeem to the mat.
At best, it was a shaky entrance into the tournament’s for Strikeforce’s heavyweight champion.
On paper it appeared to have the makings of a great card, but the main event ultimately failed to live up to the hype and was a disappointment to many of the fans watching.Nonetheless, Overeem did what he had to do and will now advance to the tournamen…
On paper it appeared to have the makings of a great card, but the main event ultimately failed to live up to the hype and was a disappointment to many of the fans watching.
Nonetheless, Overeem did what he had to do and will now advance to the tournament semi-finals to face the man they call “Bigfoot.”
Additionally, Josh Barnett picked up his first win under the Strikeforce banner and will also advance to the semi-finals against Sergei Kharitonov.
