Strikeforce Delivers Again

I know this isn’t about pro wrestling, but it falls into the same vein of sports and entertainment. NO, not sports entertainment, because that phrase is a load of crap!


Last night’s Strikeforce card was excellent. Every fight was wither well contested or had a shocking ending.


The card began with a fight between MMA great and former UFC Heavyweight Kevin Randleman and former Ultimate Fighter contender Mike Whitehead. Randleman may have been favored slightly in this fight as far as experience goes, but he also had a lot going against him. He had previously had some serious health issues in the past few years. Also, Kevin Randleman is a thirty-seven year old man. That in itself is a disadvantage in today’s MMA game. At age thirty-seven, most MMA fighters can be seen heading away from their peak. Those two facts combined with the third fact that the conditioning of younger MMA fighters these days is incredible, even more so than in the early to mid 1990s when MMA broke out, was another disadvantage going for Randleman.


In the beginning of the fight, Randleman looked okay, but expended a lot of energy. Whitehead was able to take him down multiple times, not a good sign for a guy known as one of the best pound for pound wrestlers of all time in the MMA world. In the end it was the fact that Randleman wasn’t throwing many strikes and wasn’t conditioned for the kind of pace this fight ended up having that gave Whitehead the what he needed to win.


At thirty-seven years of age, Kevin Randleman has returned to MMA and vowed to make himself a more complete fighter. I really hope that he can do so, but to be blatantly honest, I’m not holding my breath. We have seen that the legends of the MMA game are all pretty much past their prime these days, and that the sport is reaching an evolutionary plateau with the younger guys. Guys like Chuck Liddell, Frank Shamrock, Tito Ortiz, and even the Gracies just can’t seem to hack it anymore. While there will always be a place for these legends in the MMA game, I’m not so sure it will be in the cage.


The second fight of the night was one that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. “the New York Badass” (that’s not at all pretentious in a blue collar sort of way) Phil Baroni took on Joe “Diesel” Riggs. Neither of these guys are guys that I find to be very exciting in the cage. I just don’t really like Baroni at all. Reportedly he was on a three match win streak before this fight and was talking a good game of smack, but I didn’t see or hear about any of those fights, so I figure they must not have been that important. I have no problems with Riggs, it’s just that I don’t find him to be a very entertaining fighter. In the end, even if you win a fight, if the fans aren’t entertained, your days may be numbered in the big money world of MMA.


The fight turned out to be much more than I expected. These guys went the distance in what was a pretty entertaining fight. Baroni looked ripped at his new lower weight class. Although according to Riggs, there may be some controversy as to how he got that ripped. Hint, hint, wink, wink, Waxman Probe kind of stuff. I won’t substantiate any of that. I don’t like the B.S. and the smack talking. I just want to see good fights.


There was a lot more wrestling I this fight than I expected. The first two rounds were actually dominated by the ground game. I think that Riggs clearly took the first round and Baroni may have eeked out the second round. The third round was the clear deciding factor. Riggs took it to Baroni pretty mercilessly with the strikes in the third round. At about half way into the round, it looked like only a knockout or a tap out was going to win it for Baroni. In the end, he couldn’t pull it out. Again, a lot of talking by the “New York Badass” and not a whole lot of results. He’s kind of like Frank Trigg and Frank Shamrock in that way.


Next we had a fight that I was very much looking forward to. Scott “Hands of Steel” Smith took on Nick Diaz (who doesn’t need a catchy nickname). I was very uncertain as to whether or not Smith could pull this one out. Coming into the fight, Diaz was clearly the better fighter. Actually, aside form the fact that he can take loads of punishment and sometimes unleash a lucky power punch, I don’t think smith is that great of a fighter. That’s meant as honesty, not to be offensive.


Smith came out hard in the first round, while Diaz didn’t seem to be taking the fight very seriously. Smith hit some huge strikes on Diaz when Diaz dropped his hands--not once, but twice--to taunt Smith. I’m not sure if this was Diaz just being Diaz, if he wasn’t serious about the fight, or if he was doing it to make the fight look better to the audience, but either way, Smith landed some absolute bombs in the first round. However, none of them were able to put Diaz down.


The second round was a whole nether story. Diaz came out like a beast. He peppered--and believe me, that cliché is not a strong enough word--Smith with over two hundred punches in the round. I think the actual count was 125/228 punches landed. That is amazing. Let me also mention that there were a substantial amount of kicks thrown in the by Diaz as well. Smith just couldn’t seem to find a way to defend against the onslaught of Diaz. He got a few strikes--kicks and punches alike--off in the round but definitely lost on points. At one point the went to the floor and looked like he might be done. He was literally saved by the bell as the round ended.


The third round was really no contest at all. Diaz was working on all cylinders and smith was beaten up pretty badly. Diaz continued to throw rapid fire strikes until smith shot for a takedown, missed, and went to the ground, exposing his back to Diaz. What’s the one thing you don’t do in a fight with a practitioner of Gracie Jujitsu ? That’s correct, you do not expose your back. With smith on his knees, back exposed, the rear naked choke was an inevitability. Diaz licked in that bar arm choke and smith had no choice but to tap.


After the fight, in his usual controversial fashion, Nick Diaz had some less than kind things to say about Scott Smith’s camp. He did not go as far as to say anything that anybody other than smith and his camp might find offensive, but the remarks were definitely inflammatory. He did suggest that Smith’s camp might not be as loyal to him as Smith thought and that Smith might be better off joining the Gracie Jujitsu camp with himself, Gilbert Melendez, Jake Shields, and a few others.


Let’s be honest, this is what Diaz does. He goes out there, he kicks ass, he talks smack while he’s doing it, and he makes controversial remarks after the fight. Nick Diaz, as controversial as he is, and as negatively as he is often portrayed by the MMA media, it one of the best damn fighter in the entire world. That is not another cliché. It is a concrete reality. Diaz destroyed MMA legend Frank Shamrock in his last fight and he will go on destroying guys for as long as he can. I don’t know about the remarks he made about Smith’s camp. I can’t substantiate or discredit them, nor would I care to. There is some reality in the suggestion that Scott Smith might be better off with the Gracie Jujitsu camp. I think he could improve his fight game a whole lot by joining up with them. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not sure there’s much that makes him a “good” fighter, other than the fact that he can--as they say--take a licking and keep on ticking.


The next fight was truly a shocker, and a very important fight for Brett “The Grim” Rogers as he defeated former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andre Arlovski. Arlovski is a fighting machine, much like many of the Russian fighters in the MMA scene. Another such notable Russian is Fedor Emelianenko, who has blasted onto the American MMA scene with a fury. He has taken the Affliction promotion by storm and it can’t be long before Dana White and UFC convince him to fight for them. To be honest, I would love to see Fedor vs. Lesnar. I think that Fedor may be the only guy in the world right now that can take Lesnar and win the UFC Heavyweight Title from him. Of course, Lesnar still has to get through Frank Mir, but Mir is coming off an injury for one thing, and for another Lesnar beat the living hell out of him the last time they met.


All digressions aside, the fight was short and surprising. It was made well known that Brett Rogers recently quit his day job to join the MMA game full time. It was also made well known that he planned to buy his wife and kids a new home with the money he could get from winning this fight. Rogers was hungry in this one folks, damn hungry. He was a one man pride of lions.


Arlovski on the other hand may not have been as focused on this fight as he needed to be. He has been talking a lot lately about getting into boxing (why anyone would go from MMA to boxing these days is beyond me) and may not have had his head right for this fight. I find it hard to believe that he might have underestimated a man with the size and power of Brett Rogers. But as the saying goes, them’s the breaks.


Arlovski came out very tentatively at the beginning of this fight and it cost him. He was expecting to have the same sort of feeling out process that goes on when two men face each other that have never fought before. Brett Rogers had other things in mind. Arlovksi threw a less than committed leg kick to open up the fight and Brett Rogers went to work on beating in his face. The result was a twenty-two second first round knockout on Arlovski. Afterward, Arlovski’s face conveyed the thoughts that must have been going through his head. Those thoughts were undoubtedly dominated by “what the hell just happened here?”


This win is going to go a long way to establish Brett Rogers as a true contender in the heavyweight divisions of the MMA world. If he takes the Strikeforce Heavyweight Title from Alistair Overeem, a UFC contract may not be far off.


The main event of the night was Gracie Jujitsu practitioner Jake Shields facing off with striking powerhouse “Ruthless” Robby Lawler. This fight was much anticipated by a lot of people, including myself. It was a classic striker vs. grappler match up.


Shields came out in the first round with the idea that he was going to take Lawler down. Shields had moved up a weight class for this fight and I don’t think he knew what to expect form Lawler strengthens. Lawler was able to ward off his initial takedown attempts fairly easily, turning the fight into a striking contest. After enduring a few moments of striking, in which he held his own pretty well, Shields saw his opening and grabbed it by the horns. With Lawler back up and near the cage, the fight went to the ground. As I mentioned before, the ground is Shields domain. He proved it by locking in a guillotine choke in quick fashion. Lawler attempted to stand up the alleviate some of the pressure, but it didn’t do any good. He went back down to the mat and went out. The result, Jake Shields wins by choke out.


It should also be mentioned that this fight maneuvers Shields into a position to take on The Middleweight Champion Kung Lee. Shields, who is a friend of Kung Lee, went as far as to actually call out Kung Lee in his post fight interview. Personally, after seeing this fight, I would love to see Shields take on Kung Lee. Shields is the man who tapped out “Ruthless” Robby Lawler and Kung Lee is the man who broke Ken Shamrock’s arm with one kick. What more can you ask for in a fight?


While Strikeforce is not a large enough promotion to really be a contender against the UFC, nor are they attempting to do so, they do put on some great shows. This was a prime example of one such show. This card had three highly anticipated main events, all of which delivered in one way or another. The undercard as well turned out to be excellent, bucking my expectations, and probably the expectations of many others as well. If there was any weakness in this show it was that there were none of the incredible women’s fights that the smaller promotions--Elite XC and now Strikeforce in particular--have become known for. However, on August 15, we get the see the long awaited match up of Chris Cyborg taking on the face of women‘s MMA, Gina “conviction“ Corono. That will definitely make up for the lack of women fighters o this card.


Also, there is the Affliction Trilogy event coming up. The event will feature Fedor Emelianenko, the baddest man in MMA today. And there are also some great UFC events coming up soon. There is going to be no shortage of great MMA to come in the next few months, so make sure to check it all out.