Published on various sites, November 2010
Strikeforce went head to head against the UFC, and showed them how to put on a real card. Substance over style, minimal hype, and in the words of K-1 bad boy Badr Hari; REAL fight, REAL knockouts!
Strangely enough, the card has been met with mixed reaction. On the one hand, the crushing finishes that were provided in four of the five main card fights has led a certain section of the more cynical MMA fanbase to declare the card full of “mismatches”. The other chain of thought – the one I subscribe to – is simply that the card was booked for precisely these finishes, and it duly proved the superiority of substance over style.
Benji Radach was raped. Not literally; he wasn’t stripped and penetrated per se… but the fight resembled the act. Beyond a few desperate exchanges on the feet, he spent the majority of the fight on all fours while his opponent Ovince St Preux rained down shots to the side of his head. One was reminded of Mark Kerr vs Kazuyuki Fujita in the Pride Open Weight Grand Prix 2000. Turtle and survive style! In fairness to Radach, he came out for the third round swinging, but ultimately he was simply dominated for the majority of the fight.
Mike Kyle almost sprung the surprise of the evening with a tremendous first round against the top 10 ranked heavyweight, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Despite stepping in at short notice as an undersized underdog, the American came agonisingly close to finishing the huge Brazilian early in the fight. After dropping him with punches, Bigfoot scrambled and twisted desperately to avoid his pursuer, who kept throwing aside the flailing legs of Silva to land shots on the downed heavyweight. Silva managed to survive the ground’n'pound, and came out with a vengeance in the second round. After catching Kyle, he followed with what was truly scary G’n'P from such a massive man. Despite his better efforts, Kyle simply got caught too many times, and did not move after the justified stoppage. He was out.
The fight reflected well on both Kyle’s stature as a dangerous LHW, and on Bigfoot’s recuperative powers and ability to pound human faces into hamburger meat.
Matt Lindland may have been an Olympic Silver Medallist, but he has come unstuck against strikers before. Burned into recent memory is the grappler’s dramatic wipeout at Affliction, when he was “zulu’d” by the lightning fast hands of Vitor Belfort. Well, this short but sweet scrap with power punching “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler will evoke similar memories in time, as the Olympian was faceplanted by his opponent’s heavy hands. It may be time for the veteran to bow out; a serious decline seems imminent, and we’ve seen enough of those already. They’re never pretty.
Smart money at this point would have gone down on Lawler winning knockout of the night at a canter. Hell, stupid money, retarded money and their cousin, foreign money, would have been placed on Lawler at this point. So it took something special from Paul Daley to earn that mantle, and indeed, in doing so he lived up to his nickname and its explosive characteristics; Semtex.
Daley vs middleweight banger Scott Smith was always going to be a barnburner. The only questions really were a) how long would the fight last, and b) who would be throwing the knockout blow? The answers were as follows; not long, and Semtex.
Landing a left on the American, Daley skipped back as Smith lumbered forwards, and landed the most perfect check-hook I’ve ever seen in Mixed Martial Arts. Smith’s momentum carried him forwards, but the problem was that the punch had knocked him unconscious immediately on impact. So he faceplanted. BOOM!
Awesome stuff.
Next up for Daley will be a fight against KJ Noons (he hopes) which should guarantee some fistic fireworks, and of course if Noons declines, there is always Tyrone Woodley. One would think that Daley is potentially only one victory away from a dream title fight with Nick Diaz, which stylistically should be extremely interesting. Can Diaz’s legendary durability (as seen as recently as against Dream champ Zaromskis) hold up against an absolute BEAST at welterweight, with fantastic thai-boxing technique and explosive power? Or will Diaz be able to get the notoriously grappling-shy Daley to the ground, where he could finish the fight with his deep submission skills?
Time may tell.
And finally, the main-event. God Bless Strikeforce for not trying to feed it to us – hype machine style – as “the rematch we’ve all been waiting for, for 11 years!” And as such, as a good fight between two veterans and former champs in Pride & Rings (Hendo) and Strikeforce (Babalu), I was able to take it at face value and just enjoy the fight. And to many, it delivered, as Henderson caught Sobral who desperately dived for a single leg takedown. Sadly for him, Henderson’s positional control is excellent, and he emerged from the scramble in a dominant position with Babalu trapped with his head against the fence. Pushing his feet aside, Hendo landed a huge bomb flush on the face of his foe, and the fight was done. The following shots and quick intervention of the official were all immaterial; the result was academic.
A main card with FOUR dramatic finishes out of five. Not bad, say I.
The biggest irony that may yet emerge from this night, could be that the next person to get a title shot at the Light Heavyweight championship of Strikeforce, may be a loser from this card as opposed to a winner.
The crazy world of fightsports. It is what it is.
Fletch
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