...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Strikeforce's final event of 2011 is in the books, with Gilbert Melendez once again defending his Strikeforce Lightweight Championship and Cris "Cyborg" Santos making a successful return to action after 18 months out. Let's take a look at what last night's fights brought us:
-K.J. Noons and Billy Evangelista had a decently fun fight to kick off the show, but it didn't paint either of them as anything more than a middle of the pack 155 lb. fighter. Granted, that's precisely where they are in their careers, but considering Noons has fought for Strikeforce's Welterweight Title and is now likely in line for the Lightweight Title in the organization, that's not a good sign. Additionally, Evangelista's constant smiling and playing the "let's give the fans a show" bit at the end of the fight is one of the biggest pet peeves of many. Playing to the crowd and trying to be entertaining in a slug fest doesn't always make it entertaining, and for Evangelista - who was losing the striking exchanges throughout the fight - it meant he wasn't trying to win. Isn't the goal to win? Being exciting can help your career, but we've seen this type of thing hamper many talented fighters, as they try to get into these brawls they think the fans want to see in lieu of actually using the skills and talents they have to win a fight. Being exciting alone won't keep you on a roster if you're not winning fights.
-Gegard Mousasi said he was sick coming into the fight against Ovince St-Preux, and that makes sense with how badly he faded in the third. That's not really what we've seen from him, at least at that pace, in the past. But the most impressive part of this fight was Mousasi's improved wrestling, especially considering how much that played into his loss to "King Mo" last year and how much that was expected to be St-Preux's strength. St-Preux simply wasn't ready for that big of a leap in competition, it's really as simple as that. He was hesitant, didn't know how to handle Mousasi's vastly superior striking game, and just couldn't get comfortable in the fight. Mousasi now will likely take on the winner of the "King Mo" vs. Lorenz Larkin bout on Strikeforce's January 7 event sometime next year for the Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Title.
-Cris "Cyborg" is clearly the most dominant fighter in women's MMA. The problem is there is just no one for her to fight. Sure, a fight with Ronda Rousey is there, but Rousey wants to go to 135, and Cyborg's going to need to make a serious, concerted effort to drop weight if that's a move she wants to make as well. Dana White's continued maxim that there aren't enough women fighters to make feature a full division is true, and there may need to a move to just one division to have any sort of competition. Maybe moving to one 140 lb. division could work, or if Cyborg can make 135 just keep that division going. There are some interesting matchups there and some solid fighters as well, but there's still a long way to go before women's MMA is a sustainable, viable feature for a major organization.
-Gilbert Melendez is a very good fighter. He's definitely worthy of a spot in the top of the rankings in the lightweight division, and he has the skills to compete with anyone in the UFC. With that out of the way, until he starts getting the opportunity to fight other fighters in that same conversation, he's in a limbo in Strikeforce where he doesn't have any way to go up. There's a potential for the UFC to bring some fighters over to Strikeforce, but that's not a guarantee, and if he isn't competing against other fighters considered to be the best of the best, his standing in the sport will eventually diminish. Now, I don't feel bad for him in that regard, because he chose to re-sign with Strikeforce back in February prior to Zuffa's purchase of the organization. He alone is the biggest reason he's not getting a chance to face those fighters, but it is unfortunate for fans who want to know whether or not he actually can tackle the challenges of the top fighters in the UFC. His win over Jorge Masvidal wasn't his most impressive victory, but it was fairly one-sided win against a solid fighter. But even though Masvidal entered off two impressive performances, he's not a top 10-15 type guy, especially considering how many really good fighters are in the UFC's lightweight division. There's only so long he'll be able to keep himself near the top fighting lesser competition, and he'll always be risking a significant drop should he lose to one of those opponents.
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
