After watching Stephan Bonnar grind out consistently exciting, if not bloody fights throughout his 5 year UFC career, the no brainer is to stay tuned for his Main Card TUF 12 Finale bout against Igor Pokrajac. But who is Pokrajac and is watching a fight with Bonnar against a virtual unknown worth not tuning in to the if anything, *interesting line-up Strikeforce has put together
About an hour after the TUF 12 Finale card begins on Spike TV, Strikeforce will be airing its card on Showtime with a match-up between an aging Matt Lindland, who at 40 years old can be summed up as an Olympic wrestler with a spotty MMA record (he’s also a politician) and Robbie Lawlor, whose recent losses were met at the hands of notables, Jake Shields and Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Lawlor should grind out the win against Lindland via TKO, but despite the odds stacked against Lindland, he does put in the effort to keep the fight interesting.
Up next on the Strikeforce lineup would be former UFC Welterweight Paul Daley, the guy who got kicked out of the promotion for sucker punching Josh Koscheck after the 3rd round bell. To this day we don’t know exactly what kind of trash-talking Kos did to provoke the punch, but Kos does admit he said something pretty vile. Daley is facing a fellow striker in Scott Smith. The wild nature of Smith’s style and Daley’s technical skills will make for a standup slugfest that should leave Smith on the ground in a TKO.
Finally, the long-awaited rematch, 10 years in the making or that’s what the hype tells us, is the Main Card event between Dan Henderson and Renato “Babalu” Sobral. Henderson is a wrestler who’s developed a powerful right hand and Babalu is a crazy jiu-jitsu artist. The fight should go the 3 rounds, as neither fighter is expected to submit and overall this should be a good one.
Let’s skip back over to the TUF 12 Finale. Let’s face it, you can’t claim anyone on this card is at the tail-end of his career. In addition to Stephan Bonnar versus Igor Pokrajac which should be nothing short of a stand-up and possibly blood-shed war, we have Demian Maia paired up against Kendall Grove that may end with Grove tied up in Maia’s masterful jiu-jitsu, but watching “Da Spyda” trying to use his long legs in defense against Maia won’t be boring.
Also on the TUF 12 Main Card are Welterweights Johny Hendricks and Rick Story. Hendricks is from the hailed wrestling Team Takedown and has yet to take a loss in his pro MMA-career. Rick Story is no joke either, as a Southpaw with a four fight win-streak in the UFC. The fight should go a full three grinding rounds leaving Hendricks the victor.
Both Strikeforce and UFC seemed to be very considerate offering some great fights at no cost (if you already pay for cable) but with the fights overlapping, thank goodness we live in a world of “why choose?” when we have those extra special features like DVR and Tivo to enjoy.
This is the