“This hurts me more than it does you.” PicProps: Esther Lin
Bad news for all you rabid Daniel Cormier fans: the big guy confirmed yesterday that his right hand is indeed broken after he used said hand to bludgeon Bigfoot Silva into La-La Land and out of the heavyweight grand prix:
Cormier worked his way from an alternate slot in the Strikeforce GP to a finals matchup with Josh Barnett, but his victories may be all for naught if he doesn’t heal quickly enough.
(Surprise, Strikeforce may be making a mistake with matchmaking.)
I never thought I’d ever speak out against a grand prix tournament, but because the proposed Strikeforce heavyweight tournament has so many question marks surrounding it, I’m almost hoping it doesn’t happen.
When Scott Coker mentioned earlier this year that Strikeforce was either going to piss or get off the pot when teasing its fans with heavyweight fights that never seem to come to fruition because of those crazy Russians for whatever reason, I thought he meant it.
What Sco-Co should have said was, "We’ll likely milk the current roster for whatever we can and if we can make the fights fans want to see, then we will, but we likely won’t."
According to Tatame, the California-based promotion is planning on stretching the tournament over three events and will likely anchor Strikeforce’s foray into pay-per-view TV — a move necessitated by the fact that it’s unlikely that CBS will be having them back on network TV in 2011 and the costs of greasing the pockets of M-1 Global for each Fedor-featured event are likely more than most Russians make in their lives.
The Junkie also notes that a couple months back M-1 boss Vadim Finkelstein said the rent-a-Fedor outfit was “negotiating primarily with Showtime to secure Emelianenko’s return.” Not to read too much into that, but it pretty much makes it sound like Strikeforce itself is the least important party in these talks. It also indicates that maybe Kogan wasn’t just blowing smoke recently when he said M-1 was trying leverage its own live fight events onto Showtime. If they can pull that off, well, I wonder if they could also speak to my mortgage lender.
(Nothing awkward about that. PicProps: MMAZone.nl)
It is with a heavy heart that we must bring you news that Valentijn Overeem – the older but slightly less impressive brother of Alistair – withdrew from his scheduled fight with Bigfoot Silva over the weekend after suffering an elbow injury in training, according to multiple reports. We know, it’s an epic bummer for those of you who were really looking forward to seeing the two middle-of-the-pack heavyweights slug it out on premium cable television. Seriously though, try to pull yourselves together. After this latest injury, Strikeforce is going to have to make some tough decisions and you’re not gonna wanna miss it.
As of this writing, none of our intrepid internet brethren have yet been able to contact anyone at the snakebit promotion to find out how it will cope with the news of a second fight being redacted from its scheduled televised lineup due to late injury. When Herschel Walker dropped out of his glorified sparring session with Scott Carson last week, Strikeforce scrambled to boost middleweights Benji Radach and Lucas Lopes into a light heavyweight bout to fill the void. What will it do now that Overeem is out? Try to find a heavyweight willing to step in against Bigfoot on less than a week’s notice? Press on with just four televised fights, one of which is already a last-minute replacement? Elevate a bout from the typically D-list undercard? We’re not seeing a lot of great options here.
(It was 5:15 and still no sign of the cable guy, but Antonio Silva wasn’t about to call that bitch at Comcast customer service again. PicProps: Strikeforce)
So the Strikeforce heavyweight division has come to this: With Fab Werdum injured and Fedor Emelianenko reportedly warming up to the idea of re-upping with the company following his next bout, Scott Coker and Co. appear intent on feeding Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva to either Fedor or champ Alistair Overeem in the coming months. To what end? Unclear, but with Silva the only legitimate (and healthy) 265-pound contender on the roster who hasn’t suffered a seemingly career defining loss lately, maybe it’s the only thing they can do.
At best, a fight pitting Bigfoot against either Overeem or Emelianenko is a place-holder. Just something to do until the promotion can suffer through another round of prickly negotiations with M-1 Global — rumor is Fedor won’t sign a goddamned thing until Strikeforce ponies up the dough for that racecar bed he’s had his eye on – and takes another crack at getting its two best heavies in the cage with each other. At worst, the Brazilian gigantor actually wins. Then what are you going to do? A Werdum vs. Silva rematch to determine who is The Greatest Fighter of All Time? Don’t think so.
(Seriously. The man showers after every workout, and always uses fresh needles. Image courtesy of CombatLifestyle.)
Thank God for the city of Japan — where else would fighters who are wrongly accused of steroid use get a chance to redeem themselves? According to an article posted yesterday on Tatame (via BloodyElbow), two such innocent victims could be meeting in the ring at the end of this year:
Owner of three heavyweight championships (EliteXC, Cage Rage and Cage Warriors), Antonio "Pezão" Silva is training to return to Sengoku on September 23rd, and now has even more motivation to win. "I have two more fights in Sengoku, and, winning this fight… I’ll fight for the title in December. They’re going to create a championship and I’ll fight for the title," said the American Top Team heavyweight, who is still without an opponent.
"I don’t know who it could be, I don’t have the slightest idea," he affirmed. But, given the choice, Pezão already has someone he’d like to see on the other side of the ring. "I’d like it to be Josh Barnett, since he won’t be fighting in the United States. He has a contract with Sengoku and is trained, so who knows why this fight wouldn’t happen," suggested the fighter, whose steroid suspension in the United States ends next week.
“This hurts me more than it does you.” PicProps: Esther Lin
Cormier worked his way from an alternate slot in the Strikeforce GP to a finals matchup with Josh Barnett, but his victories may be all for naught if he doesn’t heal quickly enough.
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