Amadi's Take
AMADI: A breakdown of Strikeforce's CBS... breakdown
Apr 18, 2010 - 4:03:27 PM AMADI: A breakdown of Strikeforce's CBS... breakdown

DISCUSS ALL THIS IN OUR NEW MMATORCH FORUM

...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!

By: Jason Amadi, MMATorch Columnist

Just a week removed from a lackluster UFC event, Strikeforce had a golden opportunity to show up MMA’s leading organization and turn in a great show on CBS for free. Unfortunately for them, that didn’t happen, and it wasn’t even close.

Instead, the default number two organization’s second foray onto CBS exploited some fundamental problems with the depth of the Strikeforce roster and how fighters outside of the Zuffa umbrella are ranked. The “non Fedor” Strikeforce card on CBS was simply a complete disaster.

Gegard Mousasi (c) vs. Mohammed “King Mo” Lawal for the Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship

Prior to the two actually squaring off, "King Mo" Lawal and Gegard Mousasi were thought to be the two best light heavyweights outside of the UFC. Before this fight, many people were discussing how Gegard Mousasi would fair against the UFC’s Brazilian trio of doom, Lyoto Machida, Mauricio Rua, and Anderson Silva.

After this fight, many will have some explaining to do when it comes to exactly what Mousasi did to deserve such high praise. Lawal was completely untested before this fight, but was thought to have much more polish than someone with his experience had any right to posses. When the two fighters actually matched up, it wasn’t pretty.

Mousasi hurt Lawal in the first round with his stand up, and subsequently Lawal had to fall back on his wrestling ability, and the two fought from there. Before this fight, this is exactly how most pictured this fight to go. However, what people didn’t expect was for Lawal to have such timid ground and pound, poor guard passing ability, and poor cardio.

Lawal’s cardio abandoned him almost immediately in this fight. Mousasi, the favorite going in, was just as bad. His takedown defense was non-existent, his stand up did damage but never put “King Mo” into any significant trouble, his cardio also eventually failed him, and his guard was neutralized by a gassed but still talented Lawal.

If this were a fight between two other up and coming prospects (which Mousasi and Lawal still are), there would be no real problem. This would just be a learning experience for them both, and they would move on to face stiffer challenges, and improve. The problem is these were two highly touted fighters, and this was a championship fight for Strikeforce, a distinction that is usually designated to the very best that an organization has to offer.

The light heavyweight landscape in Strikeforce, DREAM, Bellator, or Sengoku leaves a lot to be desired. Mousasi and Lawal were likely each other’s stiffest test outside of the UFC, and that is a serious issue for their continued growth as fighters. The result of this fight is also telling about the standards that Mousasi and Lawal are held to, in comparison to the standards to which UFC light heavyweight prospects like Jon Jones, Phil Davis, and Ryan Bader are held.

Jones, Davis, and Bader have all had fights like the one Lawal had against Mousasi, where each gassed out early and used their wrestling to control the fight and win. The difference is that they moved on, got stiffer challenges, and evolved as fighters. Unfortunately for Lawal, there aren’t too many steps above Gegard Mousasi outside of the UFC.

Gilbert Melendez (c) vs. Shinya Aoki for the Strikeforce Lightweight Championship

This fight went exactly how fans who were truly familiar with Shinya Aoki’s style expected. Aoki is so one dimensional that it’s almost unfair to put him up against truly well rounded mixed martial artists, and almost everyone knew this going in. Most people knew that if Shinya Aoki fought guys like Melendez, his takedowns would be stuffed and he’d eat knuckle sandwiches for as long as the fight lasted, and that’s exactly what happened.

This was without a doubt the biggest victory for Strikeforce of the night, but by complete default. However, it should be interesting to see how the partnership with DREAM continues from this point forward considering that so many of their top fighters like Melvin Manhoef, Marius Zaromskis, and their biggest star, Shinya Aoki have all been demolished by American fighters.

If Nick Diaz is able to do the same in Japan against Hayato “Mach” Sakurai when they meet, it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if DREAM decided to cease relations with Strikeforce out of self preservation. Ultimately though, the bigger story here is similar to the Mousasi/”King Mo” fight. Why was Aoki so highly touted when it was so obvious how limited he would be against higher level fighters in America?

Mousasi and Aoki are two products of the Japanese MMA circuit and received critical acclaim for years there. However, as Aoki feared it would, their two defeats somewhat cement Japan as a colony of the U.S in terms of MMA. Far too many fans and journalists fear completely embracing American MMA as the best in the world, mostly in fear of being accused of promotional bias. There are countless sites out there that rank fighters from Japan very highly based on their performances against other fighters there, as if dominating outside of America is the equivalent to doing so inside. Those who continue to do so post Strikeforce: Nashville will be in serious danger of losing credibility. They also need to see Caol Uno's last fight against Gleison Tibau.


Jake Shields (c) vs. Dan Henderson for the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship

Dana White must be smiling like a cheshire cat right now. The story going in to this fight was that Dan Henderson, who went 3-2 in the UFC after his KO of Michael Bisping at UFC 100, wasn’t getting paid what he felt he deserved from that organization, so he went to a place that met his price and was getting big star treatment.

Advertising for this event focused heavily on the challenger, Henderson, and made little mention of Shields, as it was widely believed that Shields was on his way out and being fed to “Hendo” as a possible going away gift of sorts. Well, Shields decisively defeated Henderson, ruined Henderson’s big debut, Strikeforce’s promotion of Henderson was wasted and Shields is now a free agent holding their Middleweight Championship.

More interesting than that though was the post fight brawl that erupted between Jake Shields’ camp and an interrupting Jason “Mayhem” Miller. The very last thing that should have happened on a nationally televised MMA event is a fight in the cage. Yes, I’m being sarcastic. This wasn’t quite as bad as it will be made out to be in the coming days, but it definitely put MMA in a bad light on network television.

This was Strikeforce’s chance to come through big time for those who put down major bucks to see Anderson Silva’s five round comedy routine last week. Rather than upstage the UFC by producing a quality show, they instead highlighted every one of their weaknesses as a company. Ah well, at least there is the WEC next week.


RELATED STORY: Penick's detailed Strikeforce on CBS report with star ratings and analysis: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]