Category — Strikeforce

As someone who’s gotten in a few heated exchanges and altercations with movie theatre assholes, I can appreciate Ronda Rousey’s story about confronting an Ugg-wearing seat kicker (4:20 mark of the first video).

Rousey, who’s known just as much for her shoot-from-the-lip Chael Sonnen attitude as her four armbar wins in four minutes, will challenge Strikeforce women’s 135-pound champ Miesha Tate on March 3. I just wish she didn’t sound so much like an entitled high schooler when she talks.

She also brings up an interesting if debatable point at the 5:00 mark of the video below when she argues that Nick Diaz beating Georges St. Pierre would be good for the sport:

“It’s not the Olympics. It’s not about just coming home and bringing home a medal, and just having hardware and getting the win. It’s about pulling more fans in, and being entertaining. I think that fighters that just try to win by points and come away with a win are actually bad for the sport. If you never saw MMA before, and you walked in and you saw GSP and Koscheck, and all this jabbing out the whole time, it looks like a boring boxing match. And I don’t think you gain any fans with a fight like that. And so I really hope that Nick Diaz beats the crap out of him, because Nick Diaz is entertaining, and he’s an entertaining character in general. He might not be popular but I mean I can’t help but watch every video he puts out on YouTube. I think it’s funny as hell. And every single one of his fights is a brawl. It’s not like a pitter-pat match where afterwards he goes ‘Were friends, were all friends, buy Gatorade and let’s go home.’ I think that’s boring. GSP was good for the sport for a while. He brought in some big sponsors like Gatorade and UnderArmor. But I think he’s done everything he can in a positive way and he needs to step aside and let Nick Diaz kick his ass.”

She’s not wrong in that it would excite the welterweight division by levelling the playing field a bit. It would make match-ups in the division far more exciting because no longer would fighters be battling to be the next one to lose to the champ. But GSP does more for the sport in terms of attracting new fans and conveying a sense of civility and respectability that it would hurt the sport if he weren’t champion.

If you need a clear sign that Strikeforce is in palliative care then the live attendance figures for the promotion’s most-recent event should convince you that Zuffa is about to pull the plug. According to figures released by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, a mere 1,992 people showed up to watch Luke Rockhold knock out Keith Jardine at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas on January 7. Of those, 1,065 had their tickets comped to them, leaving 927 actual paying customers and a gate of $68,805. Another 727 tickets went unsold.

It’s been a rough week for Zuffa and the UFC, despite delivering off one of the most-exciting cards of the past year. The high of seeing featherweight champ Jose Aldo’s crowd surfing following his UFC 142 triumph was soon dampened (and I’m not just talking about Anthony Johnson’s weight problems).

UFC 145, originally set for March in Montreal, has been scrapped because of “scheduling complications” and an inability to lock down a championship main event, according to UFC boss Dana White. Already announced for the card were Che Mills vs. Rory MacDonald, Ben Rothwell vs. Brendan Schaub, Mark Bocek vs. Matt Wiman, Mark Hominick vs. Eddie Yagin, Travis Browne vs. Chad Griggs, Mac Danzig vs. Efrain Escudero and Chris Clements vs. Keith Wisniewski. So yeah, the card was in desperate need of some big names, which are becoming more and more scarce due to injuries (Georges St. Pierre, who’s on the shelf until at least November) and there just being too many damn cards.

Meanwhile, Chael Sonnen will step in to replace the injured Mark Munoz against Michael Bisping at UFC on Fox 2 on January 28, with the winner set to face middleweight champ Anderson Silva.  While the war of words between Sonnen and Bisping is bound to entertain, I’m a bit disappointed that we won’t see Bisping against Demian Maia.

Even more disappointing is that leg lock monster Rousimar Palhares turned down a crack at Maia because his passport has expired and he’s tired from fighting in two UFC events (including a 63-second submission win over Mike Massenzio at UFC 142 that saw him barely break a sweat) and the ADCC in the past year, which is really a way of saying he’s afraid of locking horns with the Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace Maia. Because claiming he can’t get his passport renewed in time or that he’s too tired to take the biggest fight of his career is just plain ridiculous. Maia will now face Chris Wiedman, who stepped up without a second thought. Wiedman last fought at UFC 139, scoring a technical-submission win over Tom Lawlor.

Then there’s Zuffa instituting a  new policy requiring all potential UFC and Strikeforce fighters, including those who compete on The Ultimate Fighter, pass a pre-contract screening for performance-enhancing drugs. You can thank Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal for prompting the promotion to take a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, TUF fighters will still be allowed to consume alcohol.

How much longer will Zuffa allow Strikeforce to limp along before putting it out of its misery? With somewhere in the range of 40 UFC events scheduled for 2012, MMA fans are already reaching a saturation point where we don’t have enough energy to care about what’s going on at Strikeforce. And Strikeforce is making it easy to ignore it, too.

The Strikeforce light heavyweight and welterweight titles are both vacant and the heavyweight division has been gutted and will be scrapped altogether in a couple of months (with Fedor Emelianenko’s return rumoured as a last-gasp swansong).

There’s also discontent within the ranks. Like lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez, middleweight champ Luke Rockhold, fresh off an unsurprising knockout of Keith Jardine on Saturday that saw the downed and defenseless fighter take way too many punches before referee Herb Dean stepped in, has said there’s no competition for him in Strikeforce (although Tim Kennedy might have something to say about that).

Meanwhile, Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal went a little nuts after knocking out Lorenz Larkin on Saturday by by calling out everyone from Quinton “Rampage” Jackson to Gegard Mousasi. King Mo’s desperate need to hype himself is understandable given he just signed a four-fight contract with the withering Strikeforce.

Then there’s Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, who put another nail in the coffin of women’s MMA when she tested positive for steroids. No surprise there. She’s a beast and her fights were freak shows that did little to help the growth of women’s MMA. Perhaps, then, her suspension might actually help women’s MMA by levelling the playing field, although I don’t see Strikeforce being able – or willing – to capitalize on it, no matter what CEO Scott Coker says.

The 145-pound division is dead. Coker is dead wrong about there being any viable competition in that weight class, which is part of the reason why Cyborg was on the shelf for more than a year prior to her last bout. And I don’t think we’ll ever see Gina Carano back in a cage for a real fight despite her admission that she’s on the fence about it. Her movie, Haywire, is getting rave reviews and the life of a Hollywood starlet, even on a Cynthia Rothrock level of fame, is much easier and more lucrative than getting beat up in a promotion that won’t be around much longer.

Still, there’s some hope on the women’s front. Arm-ripper Ronda Rousey has leapfrogged into title contention after just four fights — four one-minute fights ending with armbar submissions, mind you — to face 135-pound champ Miesha Tate at a rumoured March 3 event. Also on the card will be former champ Sarah Kaufman, who’s likely still smarting as a result of the prettier, mouthier and more marketable Rousey getting the title shot over her. Kaufman will instead face Alexis Davis. Two women’s bouts on the main card could be a sign that Striekforce is getting behind the division; more likely, it’s a sign of just how desperate and depleted the promotion’s roster really is.

Saturday sees Keith Jardine making his middleweight debut against Strikeforce champ Luke Rockhold, which sounds like a porn name or a Flintstone character.

Jardine is 2-2-1 in his last five fights, including a draw against Gegard Mousasi in his last fight nine months ago. This is a meaningless fight to everyone except Jardine, who’s never been more than a journeyman. He only has two wins over significant opponents, a first-round TKO of Forrest Griffin five years ago and a split decision over Chuck Liddell four years ago. He’s got a soft chin and, as much as I’m entertained by his herky-jerky drunken homeless man style, he’s not champion material. I certainly don’t see Rockhold having much trouble solving Jardine’s awkward fighting style and laying him on his back, and the match-up just shows how desperate Strikeforce is, especially as more and more fighters are being siphoned off by the UFC. And it’ll be in even worse shape if Jardine somehow manages to beat Rockhold.

In fact, the only reason to watch the card is to see Jordan Mein’s scrap with Tyron Woodley. Mein elbowed his way to an upset victory over Evangelista Santos in his Strikeforce debut and is out to make it two in a row against Woodley. But even that fight is something I can find online on Sunday (along with the inevitable quick finish of Jardine).

After watching a few of Alistair Overeem’s old Pride battles, losing efforts against the likes of Mauricio “Shogun” Rua back when Overeem looked like a Boyz II Men wannabe and tipped the scales at 205 pounds, or about 50 pounds lighter than the Overeem who will step in against Brock Lesnar at UFC 141, I settled in for Saturday’s Strikeforce event, which played out in predictable and boring fashion, as expected, especially lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez’s five-round decision win over Jorge Masvidal.

Boring except for 16 seconds late in the card, the precise 16 seconds that Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos needed to blast Japanese dominatrix-turned-punching bag Hiroko Yamanaka into a puddle to retain her women’s 145-pound strap. The 18 months off since her last fight didn’t hurt Cyborg’s performance, or maybe it did and she should’ve demolished the number-two-ranked featherweight in the world in six or seven seconds. After all, she dropped Yamanaka with a left hook and a couple of sharp rights within three seconds, considered and reconsidered a rear-naked choke and then crushed her against the fence with fists.

And again the question needs to be asked: Who can stop Cyborg Santos? Who can match her power, her fury? Ronda Rousey? Don’t bet on Rousey ripping Cyborg’s arm off. Even if Cyborg drops to 135 pounds, something she’ll consider, although making the 145-pound limit is already a test, she’ll be the biggest monster on that block, as well.

A quick Strikeforce update. Along with a new Showtime TV contract expect a contraction within the promotion. The heavyweight division will get the axe following Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier’s Grand Prix final (give or take a fight), which is predictable considering that there’s not many big men left after it was announced Fabricio Werdum will return to the UFC to face Roy Nelson. Also gone is the Strikeforce Challengers series, which was already redundant given that Strikeforce is pretty much a feeder league for the UFC already.

The new Showtime deal kicks off on January 7 when middleweight champ Luke Rockhold faces Keith Jardine. It’ll be the first of eight Strikeforce shows on Showtime in 2012, which makes me think back fondly to when there were barely a dozen UFC events each year, leaving plenty of weeks in between to watch old fights and get pumped for the next great match-up. So maybe a smaller, more focused Strikeforce will be a good thing, delivering just a little bit of that young UFC nostalgia.

Anyone have any idea how I can watch Saturday’s Strikeforce card in Canada? It’s airing on Showtime in the U.S. but I have no idea where to find on the Canadian dial and it’s actually a Strikeforce event I’d hate to miss, especially since Zuffa is showing some surprising confidence in the promotion by getting a new TV deal signed with Showtime (although it probably has more to do with keeping another promotion off Showtime than in any desire to keeping Strikeforce running, even as a scantily-clad chickfight league).

Okay, back to Saturday’s event. Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal is a great post-UFC 140, pre-Christmas card. Lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez will put his belt on the line against Jorge Masvidal in the main event. A win for Melendez will be bittersweet considering that UFC boss Dana White, who stepped in to help get the Showtime deal finalized, has made it clear that Melendez will have to finish out the remaining four fights on his Strikeforce contract before he’s brought into the UFC, even though Strikeforce draws such as Nick Diaz, Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum have already moved to the UFC this year. If I was Melendez I’d be pissed.

Rounding out the main card, former light heavyweight champ Gegard Mousasi faces fast-riser Ovince St. Preux, KJ Noons and Billy Evangelista will meet in a battle of 155-pounders, and women’s 145-pound champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos will defend her title for the first time in 18 months when she takes on former Smackgirl open weight champ Hiroko Yamanaka. It’ll likely be her last title defence at 145 pounds — she’s expected to drop down to 135 as Strikeforce consolidates things into one women’s division (instead of going all-female, which isn’t a bad idea as argued here).

A couple of days away from the biggest Strikeforce card of the year — and on the same day Strikeforce is set to announce a new TV deal with Showtime — and it’s announced that the UFC’s ugly stepsister has lost another big-name fighter. Fabricio Werdum will return to the octagon on February 4 to face Roy “Big Country” Nelson. The heavyweight bout will bolster the sagging GSP-less UFC 143 headlined by the interim welterweight title fight between Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz. Werdum scampered from the UFC after an up-and-comer named Junior dos Santos punched him out in 81 seconds at UFC 90. Since then he’s gone 3-1, including a stunning submission win over Fedor Emelianenko and a decision loss to Alistair Overeem in his last bout.

Never leave a free arm dangling in front of Ronda Rousey. The judo Olympic medallist and world champion has had four professional MMA fights and four victories, all by armbar. Her latest victim, Julia Budd, had her arm mangled inside of 40 seconds during Friday’s Strikeforce Challengers event. Why Budd didn’t tap sooner is beyond me. She had to have known she wasn’t going to escape.