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« | Home | »

Strikeforce 1/30 Sunrise, Florida

By Zach Arnold | January 30, 2010

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A lot of NFL stars were in attendance at tonight’s Strikeforce event, including New York Jets HC Rex Ryan. Jay Glazer brought several Pro Bowl players to the event in Sunrise.

Thoughts on the show

Go to full-page view if you don’t want spoilers.

The Herschel Walker freak-show experiment worked…

…in terms of media attention. I was paying attention to Twitter during the fight and it never seemed like the chattering would end on Walker’s squash match. I know the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has been riding the Herschel bandwagon hard and it looks like, for media attention, they were onto something.

As for a fight? It went as expected. Put it in perspective.

The media outlets in Dallas and Georgia tonight are going crazy with Herschel coverage. The Georgia Bulldog faithful is sure a passionate bunch.

The biggest celebrity at the show was…

Rex Ryan, naturally. Miami/New York as a football rivalry will always carry weight, even after all these years when the Jets passed up on drafting Dan Marino and instead took Ken O’Brien.

A close second was Georges St. Pierre, which goes to show you how fortunate UFC is right now to have two mega-stars in Brock Lesnar and Georges St. Pierre. If BJ Penn continues high-profile domination for a year more, he may end up in that same mega-level star class.

Dan Henderson’s star power was also off the charts. That win over Michael Bisping at UFC 100 really vaulted his star power up big time.

Strikeforce’s big concern

The guys who got reaction on tonight’s show were all UFC or ex-UFC guys. That says that the promotion itself isn’t strong in terms of making new stars or having the brand power to help fighters elevate their star power to the next level.

Strikeforce’s biggest star attractions? Gina Carano (still) and Herschel Walker. Oh yes.

Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 117 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

117 Responses to “Strikeforce 1/30 Sunrise, Florida”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    Excited about Diaz/Zaromskis and Manhoef/Lawler. Could care less about the rest.

  2. Steve4192 says:

    I’m pretty much of the same mind.

    The Walker and Lashley fights are just awful, and Cyborg-Coenen doesn’t really do anything for me.

    I’m cool with women’s MMA as a concept, and respect the hell out of the athletes, but it really is no different than women’s basketball or soccer. The level of athleticism and skill are WAY below the men’s level. I mean, the #1 FW in the world pulled mount twice in her last fight, and her opponent looked completely hapless trying to pull off a rolling kneebar. Anyone that claims the women have the same skill level as the men is kidding themselves.

    Women’s fights are good filler, but I really don’t place the same value on them as I do men’s fights.

  3. Scott R says:

    Another tape delay for the West Coast. HBO boxing airs fights live on HBO West, yet Showtime continues to show Strikeforce on tape delay. I would subscribe to Showtime if I could get the shows live. Instead I will just watch live on a stream.

  4. Steve4192 says:

    Can’t you watch it live on Showtime East?

  5. Zack says:

    It always says its tape delayed on the showtime website, but it’s always on at 7 for me…I’m on the west coast.

  6. jr says:

    Herschel Walker needs to make a bobsledding comeback

  7. Scott R says:

    I don’t get Showtime East on Comcast here. I’ll check Showtime West at 7 and hope for the best, but it is listed as starting at 10.

  8. darkmader says:

    I don’t know if it’s just a special deal for me but if you have Directv see if you have Showtime. I got something in the mail that said I have two free months and others might as well.

  9. Detective Roadblock says:

    Zack, do you have Direct TV? That may be why. Direct TV shows everything on East Coast time. I have Comcast and am on delay.

  10. Ivan Trembow says:

    I’m not looking forward to this event for anything other than the two title fights. The rest of the card is largely a joke (even with Lawler vs. Manhoef, it’s Lawler’s choice whether to take Manhoef down and get an easy win, or remain standing and have a 50/50 chance at best of winning).

    It’s ridiculous that Hieron vs. Riggs is a prelim. Even if one argues that there’s no room on this event’s main card (because of Lashley and Walker, lol), why not just put Hieron vs. Riggs on one of the Strikeforce Challengers shows?

  11. David M says:

    This is going to be a fun card. Nick Diaz is always exciting, Lawler v Manhoef will be a war for 30 seconds until Robbie is unconscious, and Im curious to see Herschel and Lashley fight. This is more watchable than UFC 109 (but wouldn’t be if UFC 109 were on spike, as it should be, instead of 50 dollars to see 2 geriatric washed up fighters hug for 3 rounds).

  12. Ivan Trembow says:

    I’m not sure why my comment from earlier didn’t post, but here’s a new one: Don’t quit your day job, EA Sports!

  13. 45 Huddle says:

    The worst live feed I have seen in a few years…. Perhaps since I went to a cable connection.

  14. Detective Roadblock says:

    The EA thing crapped out on me mid first round. Won’t reconnect. This happen to anyone else?

  15. Dave says:

    It actually loaded for you? Awesome.

    It refuses to load for me, but the fight sounds awful anyway.

  16. Detective Roadblock says:

    I logged on around 5:50 and it kept playing a 2min loop of video. I saw the first couple minutes of round one. Then it froze. I reloaded and it said “the live event is not currently streaming video”. The stream was trash while active. So was the “fight”.

  17. General Stoor says:

    Wow. Unfortunately for Wes Sims, commission rules won’t allow for him to fight with his shirt on. I’m calling it now: Sims by moob choke R1.

  18. Detective Roadblock says:

    I’ve seen some tomato cans in my time. But good gracious this guy who laid around vs Herchel Walker doesn’t even belong on an amateur show.

  19. Detective Roadblock says:

    Everybody off the Zaromskis bandwagon! This is the last stop on that train. Too bad it won’t be the end of grotesquely over ranking Japanese based/ non-UFC fighters. Can’t wait for Mousassi to fight Hendo so he can get exposed too.

  20. Alan Conceicao says:

    I caught bits and pieces. Didn’t see the women’s fight at all. Nick Diaz beat up the European guy that isn’t all that great. Not sure how Zaromskis is comparable to a guy that scorched Babalu in like 30 seconds, but whatever. Walker looks about as good as Kimbo and wasn’t in the main event, so I guess that means he was promoted properly as a freakshow according to 45 Huddle criteria. Lashley is a non-factor. Melvin Manhoef loses to a guy ranked higher than him for the hundredth time, but this time, it was by a mindblowingly hilarious KO.

    Interesting, for a show with all stops, I’m sure we will hear complaints about that, unlike UFC shows with all stops, which are action packed. But whom am I to say anything? I barely cared about this show either. At least it was on my TV in glorious HD and without the guilt of knowing I paid a ton of money when I changed the channel back and forth with Fox Sports. Two thumbs squarely doing something else more interesting.

  21. Tomer Chen says:

    Detective Roadblock,

    Isn’t Henderson technically a ‘Japanese-based’ fighter given that most of his professional career was in RINGS & PRIDE?

  22. Mr.Roadblock says:

    Alan, the comparison between Zaromskis and his ranking and Mousassi and his is due to Zaromskis being ranked in the top 10 in the last Independent Rankings Zach posted here.

    Tomer your question is so out right dumb I’m not even going to address it, beyond this sentence.

  23. henning says:

    Great event. Diaz is a monster. love how he just keep punching.

    Cyborg is fantastic. yeah, perhaps, as someone said, the women aren’t that skilled yet. but they put on great fights and they cettainly have a place in the world of MMA.

  24. Alan Conceicao says:

    Mousassi has at least beaten well regarded 205lb fighters with a history of competition in the US. Zaromskis was overrated; no question. The guy never really learned the ground game, and as it turns out, his standup wasn’t all that either.

    Still, Mousassi is a much higher quality fighter than Zaromskis, otherwise I think he would have already lost. That’s not to say I think he walks over Hendo, but I still want to see the fight happen.

  25. Alan Conceicao says:

    The guys who got reaction on tonight’s show were all UFC or ex-UFC guys. That says that the promotion itself isn’t strong in terms of making new stars or having the brand power to help fighters elevate their star power to the next level.

    I don’t hate anything more than the recent “making new stars” meme. Stars are made by winning fights. If anyone beats Dan Henderson, their stock rises appreciably. They cannot make guys stars out of thin air with no wins over credible opposition. Which, yes, generally means guys who’ve been in the UFC. Its not like anyone was waiving their arms in the air saying that Don King couldn’t make stars in 1975 because he was resorting to sign fighters who had been promoted to success first by other men.

  26. Brad Wharton says:

    Wow, so Scott Coker is saying that Hayato Sakurai is a more likely first opponant for Nick Diaz.

    What a slap in the face for Hieron. Jay’s contract is up…if he’s going to get passed over again in favour of a guy comming off two decisive losses, maybe it’s time to give Dana another call.

  27. Steve4192 says:

    Iagree with Roadblock that Zaromskis was incredibly overhyped, but he is dead wrong about Mousasi. Gegard might not deserve his ranking yet, but his skills are legit. He is one of the most talented guys in the sport and will be one of the top guys in P4P rankings for years to come.

  28. 45 Huddle says:

    Mousasi lacks great skills off his back. He is far from unbeatable.

    Cyborg has no real challenger awaiting her. Diaz has Hieron, but he hasn’t been on TV yet. And I hope Sakurai is not next. That would be horrible matchmaking.

    Strikeforce really needs to do what the WEC does and have the #1 Contender fights on the same card as the main event. And shown on TV of course.

  29. Wolverine says:

    Sakurai is clearly shot, why even bother bringing him to US.

  30. JRN says:

    If Sakurai is really the first challenger, it must be that Hieron is on the way out and Strikeforce knows it. That might also explain his fight not being on the main card again.

    Under those circumstances, Sakurai is sadly their best option, since I suppose they can’t snag Gono from SRC and Hieron already beat Jason High. What a bummer.

  31. Brad Wharton says:

    The mind boggles. It’d make more sense if Diaz was fighting him on a Dream show (more sense for Dream, anyway)…but Strikeforce don’t have the roster at the moment to let their champions fight overseas in other organisations.

    Sakurai has absolutly no upside in terms of appealing to the US audience outside of the hardcore fanbase…but the hardcore fanbase all know that Mach is done.

    Apparently Coker is looking at Lashley vs Rogers next as well…another horrible fight from a matchmaking perspective.

  32. Alan Conceicao says:

    If Jay Hieron doesn’t end up getting the title shot, Hieron isn’t getting the title shot because he’s boring. I feel like I’ve heard that story before. Mach’s upside is obvious; he’ll get beat up really bad.

    I’ll believe Lashley/Anyone With a Pulse when I see it in the ring.

  33. Mark says:

    Scott Coker is probably praying to whichever God he worships this Sunday that this wasn’t on CBS, because that show was terrible, a complete opposite of the good CBS show in November.

    Cyborg was a big disappointment. She did what she had to do to win, but that’s not what women’s MMA needs, women’s MMA needs a series of barnburners to break through. Cris Cyborg would be marketable as a 1 round killer, but if she’s going to be cautious as a champion I don’t know. Women in MMA have such hurdles to overcome they HAVE to have MOTN’s every time out to get respected. This wasn’t that.

    I wasn’t aware Zaromskis had a bandwagon to exit. Every internet post I’ve ever seen on him has either been “Who is Zaromskis?” or “He’s overrated because he’s in DREAM.” But on the plus side, there’s always a likely chance of your loss to Nick “Reefer Madness” Diaz getting reversed.

    Walker wasn’t the disaster he could have been, but that means he’s still a disaster. He had absolutely nothing against a complete can so shitty they might as well have put a corpse on marionette strings in, and he got a charity stoppage. Please fire him.

    Sims is a clown so who cares about Lashley beating him. The very thought of Sims fighting Sylvia makes me throw up in my mouth. That is so bad it’s going to make YAMMA’s abortion of a show look like 2003 PRIDE.

    Strikeforce is far more kind to boring fighters than UFC so I wouldn’t rule out Hieron getting a title shot. I’m sure it won’t be on CBS, but they won’t “Okami” him by what they’ve shown in past decisions.

  34. 45 Huddle says:

    Hieron is at the end of his contract. The problem is that he signed with EA Sports, so the UFC won’t touch him. And he is far too boring for SF to give him a title shot. Hence why they are trying to bring in Sakurai now. Which is about as much of a gimmie fight as you can give Nick Diaz. He had an interview on Sherdog and basically said he has nobody left to fight.

  35. Tomer Chen says:

    Roadblock,

    Given that 72% of Henderson’s career fights occurred in a Japanese fighting organization (RINGS or PRIDE), I don’t see how exactly my question was ‘dumb’ given that you were arguing that Henderson would ‘expose’ Mousasi as being an overrated Japanese-side fighter (ala Chris Leben saying the same about Anderson Silva before getting horribly mauled) yet Henderson is also technically a Japan-side fighter who fought the last 2 years in the US for the UFC (and not a UFC ‘establishment’ fighter like Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture who fought most of their careers with the organization).

  36. Mr.Roadblock says:

    Tomer,

    Since PRIDE folded/was bought by UFC, outside of the 155 and 145lb weight classes, Japanese MMA is not world class. DREAM and Sengoku are about on par with KIng of the Cage in terms of relevancy. Maybe that’s a bit extreme, but they’re certainly minor league. That is where Mousasi’s background is. So I need to see him fight some real top competition before I’d consider him top 10.

    Every weight class has one or two of these guys who fight in Japan that get ranked considerably higher than where their resume should have them.

    Dana White used to make a similar argument about the rankings back in the PRIDE vs UFC days. He was being ridiculous then. But that argument has turned out to be true now with the quality of fighters and matchmaking in DREAM and Sengoku today.

    Unfortunately this is a trend that appears as if it will continue for quite some time. As now you have the two (though they’ll probably combine soon) Japanese groups, Strikeforce who seems content to build and protect fighters and UFC where top fighters when not being injured constantly fight each other.

    UFC has become what PRIDE used to be. Namely the top fighters are there and are constantly fighting each other. Strikeforce’s top guys are not being challenged on a regular basis and neither are the top guys in Japan. This is exactly what happened in boxing in the 90’s with the belts being controlled by rival promoters.

  37. robthom says:

    Good show IMO.

    I would have enjoyed seeing Riggs/Heiron instead of Hershel or wes sims, but I understand.

  38. Ivan Trembow says:

    I think last night’s show was probably the worst one Strikeforce has had on Showtime.

    Hieron is getting screwed again. Yes, he did turn down a fight against Zaromskis before this event, but giving Sakurai a title shot before Hieron if Hieron re-signs with Strikeforce would be bogus.

    Lashley turned down a fight against Shane DelRosario for this event, so I’d be shocked if he accepts a fight against Rogers. Lashley’s post-fight interviews seem to support that: He either wants easy opponents or he wants a champion like Overeem or a #1-ranked fighter like Fedor.

    As for Diaz seeming disinterested in fighting Hieron or Sakurai, I wouldn’t put much stock in that because Diaz isn’t interested in much, but he still performs very well when he fights. On the conference call before this event, someone asked Diaz if he could summarize what he thinks Zaromskis’ strengths and weaknesses are, and Diaz said, “Why? What is this shit?” and said that he didn’t even know he was on a conference call. As disinterested as he seemed in Zaromskis, he still went out and destroyed him, so I wouldn’t equate Diaz having a lack of interest with Diaz not performing well on fight night.

  39. Michaelthebox says:

    “Strikeforce is far more kind to boring fighters than UFC”

    They are? Seriously?

  40. 45 Huddle says:

    I think Strikeforce has the luxury of cheery picking fighters who are pleasing to the fans. The UFC has a lot of wrestlers and grapplers who can make for some boring fights. On average, Strikeforce just doesn’t sign these guys as often. Because of this, they can have better slugfests.

    Look at Nick Diaz. He struggled against guys with even solid wrestling backgrounds like Diego Sanchez. There are no Koscheck’s, Fitch’s, or GSP’s to make him look bad in Strikeforce. That gives him the ability to strike more and look more exciting. Against those 3 guys, he would look awful boring on his back for 15/25 minutes.

  41. robthom says:

    Oh stop it Ivan Trembow!

    And how besides your personal irritation was that a shitty show exactly?

  42. IceMuncher says:

    Every fight Strikeforce does seems like it’s a one-and-done deal with whomever they can scramble to find. Granted, that’s because that’s exactly what they’re doing, but it’s showing. The hardcores know who all these guys are, but the casual fans are lost. There’s no structure.

    Every fight here had at least one fighter who’s never been televised on a Strikeforce show before, which is rather alarming given that there were two title fights. They really need to give their contenders more airtime so they can build interest, instead they’re clutching desperately to known names like Lashley and Walker who probably aren’t going anywhere in the sport.

  43. robthom says:

    ^^
    Your looking for fires.

    It was a good show and strikeforce is what you said, mostly scrambled singles.

    Thats not a bad thing, its just different.

    If I may blaspheme, it makes more sense than a one night tournament IMO.

  44. 45 Huddle says:

    I don’t think he is looking for fires. I think he is seeing reality and commenting on it.

    This stuff will catch up with them eventually.

    Look at what happened with the WEC and Mike Brown beating Urijah Faber. It took them a good while to get back on track after an unknown beat their post boy.

    And Strikeforce has another threat. They could lose talent to the UFC.

    Look at their title situation. Diaz, Melendez, and Cyborg all have no challengers available who have been seen before on a Strikeforce card.

    How do you make it to the next level by promoting like that? You can’t.

  45. marlowe says:

    Does anyone know how many fights Lawler has left? I still think him and Shields take off for the UFC first out they have in their contracts.

  46. 45 Huddle says:

    I heard he had 2 left. Not sure if that is true.

    Win or lose, I think Lawler is out of Strikeforce.

    The UFC could easily hurt Strikeforce by signing even 5 of their top 20 draws. They don’t have a deep enough roster to take a hit like that.

  47. Fluyid says:

    Wes Sims is all class:

    “I warned [the referee] three times that he kept gouging me in the throat. Then I rolled over and gave my back, I took one strike and the ref stops it? I ain’t no rookie. I’ve been in the sport for a long. I have a helluva high pain threshhold. Bogus stoppage.”

    “He needs to go back to being a security guard. He doesn’t have the mike skills to be a pro wrestler.”

    “He’s just a big juiced up monkey. He ain’t got the MMA skills.”

    http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/Sims-says-Lashley-is-juiced-up-and-that-he-che?urn=mma,216704

  48. Michaelthebox says:

    “signing even 5 of their top 20 draws.”

    They have 20 draws?

  49. David M says:

    I think what we all need to remember is that Strikeforce isn’t exactly working in ideal circumstances. They have limited talent, a limited budget, limited exposure, and mma is still a small sport. Some of you have unrealistic expectations.

    The two things Strikeforce has going for it are Fedor and CBS. They are just treading water until Fedor’s next fight, which will probably do an even bigger number than the first one based on how amazing his battle with “Buck” (LOL) Rogers was..

  50. Ivan Trembow says:

    For what it’s worth regarding Sims, the referee can clearly be heard several times warning Lashley to get his thumb off of Sims’ throat. So at least on that point, Sims has a valid point.

    As for the stoppage, I don’t think he has a valid point at all because his body went limp, so the referee did the right thing by stopping the fight.

    and lol at Rex Ryan for getting in trouble (and having to publicly apologize) for flipping off some angry Miami Dolphins fans

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