By Alex Mattis
Boy oh’ boy has the MMA landscape changed since the first stage of Strikeforce’s Heavyweight Grand Prix took place. Zuffa has conquered more land in the MMA world and left many Strikeforce fighters, including those doing battle this Saturday night, scratching their heads as to what the future holds.
When Strikeforce initially announced the idea for the Grand Prix, there were many doubts as to whether or not this would be pulled off. So far, so good. The tournament kicked off back on February 12th when quarter-final bouts saw Sergei Kharitonov destroy Andre Arlovski and ‘Big Foot’ Silva shockingly force a doctor stoppage over perennial God of combat sports, Fedor Emelianenko. So not only did the start of the GP completely shake things up, it also built a greater amount of interest.
Saturday night in Dallas (Texas represent!), the opponents for Silva and Sergei in the semi-finals will be determined. The co-headlining spot will feature the extremely stretched-out US return of charm machine, Josh Barnett as he battles the incredibly hard-to-locate Brett Rogers. A Classic “Grappler Vs. Striker” affair instantly comes to mind.
On the other side of Saturday night’s Texas Two-Step will be a rematch from PRIDE in 2006. At PRIDE Total Elimination Absolute ’06, Fabricio Werdum submitted Alistair Overeem via kimura in the 2nd round. Fast forward to 2011 and replace the Pride ring with a Strikeforce cage and add in two drastically different fighters.
As much as Werdum has grown in all areas of his game, namely his striking, the Overeem of today is not that of 2006. The Reem of today is the current Strikeforce and DREAM heavyweight champion as well as the winner of the 2010 K-1 World Grand Prix… dude’s legit.
“For me it’s going be a big challenge but I’ll show the world I can beat him again,” said Werdum during the recent media call for this event. Fabricio Werdum made the Earth, nay, the Universe temporarily cease existence last June when he became THE man to defeat Fedor. Stray dogs ran the street, storm clouds immediately shrouded the planet, men forced their wives and children to take shelter, the price of gas immediately went up four-and-a-half dollars, every X-Box 360 in the world suddenly suffered a red ring of death, President Obama’s red phone rang and Fabricio Werdum laughed maniacally as his hand was raised and his name was put in the history books as the man who did the inconceivable.
Coming off of that is incredible, yet most aren’t giving Werdum a chance. This doesn’t seem to bother him one bit as he assured the media that “June is my month” and in 100% confident he will win.
Always a man of few words, Alistair Overeem was quick and to the point when asked about all the other happenings in MMA right now, stating that he was simply “focused on myself” and “just focused on this fight.” Reem will be happy to avenge a former loss but is just intent on continuing his current MMA winning streak (currently at six; all 1st round stoppages).
Shedding light on the recent acquisition of Strikeforce by Zuffa, Reem said he’d like to see “the winner of the tournament against the UFC champion, Cain Velasquez.” (Yes, Cain will still be champion when this tourney concludes.)
These two Texas-sized fights (someone HAS to walkout dressed like Big Tex) go down this Saturday night in Dallas from The American Airlines Center. The event also features Daniel Cormier taking on Jeff Monson, not the return of Gina Carano, a should-be-great in KJ Noons battling Jorge Masvidal, and more. Catch it on Showtime, and prelims on HD Net. Don’t miss it!
