(Props: Showtime via MiddleEasy)

It took their lazy asses two full months, but Strikeforce has finally released the video of Marloes Coenen‘s rematch with Roxanne Modafferi, which was part of the unaired preliminary card at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers. Though Modafferi was able to grind out a split-decision victory when she first fought Coenen in the finals of an eight-woman K-Grace tournament in May 2007, their last meeting was a 65-second pwnage by Marloes, who used razor-sharp striking to drop Modafferi before methodically setting up an armbar. With her Strikeforce debut an unqualified success and her reputation growing in the States, the good-lookin’ Golden Glory product will now challenge for Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos‘s 145-pound belt on January 30th. Any predictions?

(Props: IrishRottie)

Okay, as far as we can tell, the above images are not photoshopped. At a recent media appearance somewhere in the Old Country, Fedor Emelianenko set aside his usual pastel stripes for a brand-new Daffy Duck sweater with matching Daffy Duck jeans, courtesy of Lot 29. I don’t even know how to interpret this. Is it a public "F U" to all us Internet knuckleheads who are obsessed with the Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory? Did he find it at a Salvation Army, and figure "hey, it fits, so why not"? Or does he genuinely love Looney Tunes and ugly sleeves? Considering Fedor’s drawings, his child-like tastes shouldn’t surprise us. And yet here we are, dumbfounded.

On a far-less-important note, Fedor’s November 7th bout with Brett Rogers may have been the most watched MMA fight in history. According to a new press release sent out by M-1 Global and Strikeforce, the fight was viewed by over 25 million fans worldwide, including 16 million in Russia, 5.46 million in the U.S., and millions more in South Korea, Japan, China, Latin America, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Ukraine, Finland, Africa, Turkey, Israel, Indonesia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Malta. Said M-1 Global CEO Joost Raimond: "All early accounts and indications tell us that ‘Fedor vs. Rogers’ delivered worldwide more than any other MMA show in the history of the sport."

Fedor vs. Rogers post-event press conference – Watch more Funny Videos

Here’s some footage I took at the Strikeforce post-event presser on Saturday night, which all the main event fighters showed up for. You’ve already heard what Fedor had to say, but check out the reactions from everybody else…

— Fabricio Werdum says he’s earned a shot at Fedor, who Werdum believes is the best fighter in the world. After a week of rest, he’ll be back to training hard.

— Gegard Mousasi says people underestimated Sokoudjou, and called the fight a learning experience.

— Jason Miller blames himself for not capitalizing on the chances he had in his fight against Jake Shields, and for not training his wrestling enough; he was not expecting a "grapplefest."

— Shields still thinks that his best weight is welterweight. Scott Coker would like to put him against Marius Zaromskis or Hayato Sakurai at 170.

— Shields thinks Cung Le is avoiding him. "That’s why he vacated the belt, obviously, and fights a month later."

Interview With Scott Coker After Fedor vs. Rogers – Watch more Funny Videos

Following the Fedor vs. Rogers press conference on Saturday night (more on that later), I was one of several MMA scribblers to corner Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker for a family-style follow-up interview. Some highlights are above: Coker revealed that Marloes Coenen will be the next challenger to Cris Cyborg‘s 145-pound women’s title, threatened that he would be Strikeforce’s heavyweight champion if Alistair Overeem continues his shucking and ducking, and gave his generally positive analysis of Strikeforce’s first CBS show. Regarding his rivalry with the UFC, Coker says "Every day when I wake up, I’m thinking about what Strikeforce needs to do, not what somebody else needs to do, or another company’s doing" — which seems a lot more pleasant than Dana White’s morning routine. More viddys to come…

(The two pictures above contain 246 differences. Can you find them all? Photo courtesy of Esther Lin / Strikeforce)

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Fedor night in America. The Last Emperor show has come to the Chicagoland Area, and his dance partner for this evening will be lead-fisted work-doer Brett "The Grim" Rogers, who’s just itching for a chance to snatch that king spot. Also: MTV personality Jason "Mayhem" Miller fights Jake Shields for Strikeforce’s first middleweight title, large-skulled bruiser Antonio Silva squares off with grappling ace Fabricio Werdum, and Gegard Mousasi will toy with Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou for a while before damn near ending his life.

My name is BG, and I’ll be your guide for the evening. I’m currently chillin’ in the press pen at the Sears Centre, and I can already tell you that Fedor’s entrance music will be unbelievably Russian. Live results from the CBS broadcast can be found after the jump, beginning at 8 p.m. CT. Refresh the page every few minutes to get all the latest. Warning: The show may not be broadcast live in your area, so check your local listings before you go running headlong into spoilers.

(Props: shosports via Bloody Elbow)

Behold, the opening video for tonight’s broadcast of Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT). As Strikeforce doesn’t have the rights to show clips from Emelianenko‘s last two Affliction fights, we have to settle for a montage of Sherdog photos soundtracked by Mauro Ranallo’s high-pitched re-enactments. But we do dig the Citizen Kane-esque shots of Fedor perched in this throne in the middle of a broken-down warehouse. Is Rogers ready to take the crown. Or will his coup attempt end in a humiliating public execution?

Not that it matters much, but Emelianenko/Rogers will in fact be contested for Emelianenko’s WAMMA heavyweight title. Said Vadim Finkelchtein: “Recognizing Fedor as the undisputed WAMMA heavyweight champion means that Fedor is the world champion wherever and whenever he fights.” Suck it, Overeem.

After the jump: Footage from yesterday’s Fedor vs. Rogers weigh-ins, courtesy of MMA Fanhouse.

…and Brett Rogers can appreciate an attractive woman. Photo courtesy of the Strikeforce Fedor vs. Rogers: Press Conference Pics set on CombatLifestyle. A few more good ones after the jump.

(Props: sports.sho.com)

For Brett Rogers, the challenge on Saturday will be to strip away the myth from Fedor Emelianenko and approach him like he’s any other man. Which he is, of course. Fedor, as we saw last night on Fight Camp 360, is just a guy who loves his family and God, who works out in a community gym alongside schoolchildren, who still lives in the small mining town he grew up in, who enjoys a good oak-twig whipping in a Russian sauna. It’s unnerving how normal Fedor is. His priest/BFF, Father Andrey, says: "You can feel the kindness come out of him, and when you communicate with him, you are being charged by his kindness." Really? Are we talking about the same guy who did this to Gary Goodridge?

(Props: M1mixfight)

Letting Jerry Millen and his D-bag friend Ron introduce this footage of Fedor Emelianenko kickin’ it in Stary Oskol may be an immediate buzzkill, but stick with it and you’ll catch the Glorious Sweater of Absolute Victory paying its respects at church and settling down for a nice cup of tea. Hopefully tonight’s episode of Fight Camp 360 will shed a little more insight on where the sweater came from and what it might want from us.

(Props: sports.sho.com)

With Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers just five days away, Showtime is spreading the word with an episode of their new half-hour hype-series, Fight Camp 360; the Fedor/Rogers installment debuts tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT, so set your DVRs now. As you can see from the preview clip above, Emelianenko is being presented as a living embodiment of "fear of the unknown" — an immortal of MMA with no apparent weaknesses — while Brett Rogers is the man of little fear and great faith, who can create his own legend with a win on Saturday.

Fight Camp 360 will take viewers inside the training camps of both fighters, from Fedor’s remote compound in Stary Oskol, to Rogers’s home base in Minnesota. For a better idea of what you’ll be seeing tonight, check out MMA Fanhouse’s detailed recap of the show, and MMA Junkie’s exclusive photo set from Emelianenko’s camp (warning: shirtless Jerry Millen). Replay times are after the jump…

("Stay…off…my…LAWN!" Photo courtesy of Fighters.com)

While Strikeforce is still locking down fights for their November 7th "Fedor vs. Rogers" card, the UFC already has their plans finalized. In an effort to draw eyes away from the World’s Greatest Heavyweight, Spike TV will be airing a two-hour special at 9 p.m. ET/PT called "UFC Main Events." The lineup will include:

– Randy Couture vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira from UFC 102
– Vitor Belfort vs. Rich Franklin from UFC 103
– BJ Penn vs. Kenny Florian from UFC 101
– Forrest Griffin vs. Anderson Silva from UFC 101

None of these fights have ever been seen on basic cable, which is good news for those of you who haven’t had the time or money to keep up with the UFC’s recent pay-per-view broadcasts. But while previous viewership battles between the UFC and Strikeforce haven’t always been held on level playing fields, the UFC will now be putting some of its best product on Spike to compete with a potentially massive audience on CBS. Tables, they turn sometimes. We’re about to find out how strong the UFC brand really is…

(As you can see, Antonio’s head is roughly the size of Fabricio’s torso.)

According to a report on MMA Junkie, bout agreements have been finalized for heavyweights Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva and Fabricio Werdum to face each other on the main card of Strikeforce’s "Fedor vs. Rogers" event on November 7th. With Alistair Overeem pissing his career away in Holland, the Silva/Werdum matchup would logically produce the next opponent for the winner of the night’s main event.

Silva has gone 2-0 in Sengoku since catching a one-year steroid suspension from the California State Athletic Commission following his victory over Justin Eilers at EliteXC: Unfinished Business. Werdum made his Strikeforce debut in August with a quick submission win over Mike Kyle; two weeks ago, he swept the heavyweight division at the 2009 ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship. With the addition of this bout, the Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers main card looks like this…

(In Russia, we don’t train with heavy bags, just gypsys. Photo courtesy of CanvasChronicle.)

As first reported by MMA Weekly, Strikeforce’s upcoming CBS event on November 7th will go down at the Sears Centre Arena, an 11,000-seat venue in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, near Chicago. Tickets for the event, which start at $35 and can be purchased at Ticketmaster and Strikeforce.com, go on sale to the general public this coming Monday at 10 a.m. CT. Besides the heavyweight headliner of Fedor Emelianenko vs. Brett Rogers, the show will feature Jason Miller and Jake Shields fighting for Strikeforce’s newly-vacant middleweight title; Gegard Mousasi and Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos are also rumored to appear, against opponents to be named later.

In other Strikeforce news, Kim Couture and Kerry Vera have agreed to meet in a 135-pound bout at a proposed Strikeforce Challengers event on November 20th. Couture is 1-1 in professional MMA, and hasn’t competed since her first-round TKO win over a befuddled Lina Kvokov last November. Vera, who previously competed as a kickboxer and won the 2007 season of Fight Girls, won her MMA debut via unanimous decision over Leslie Smith at a Bellator event in May. Kim’s soon-to-be-ex-husband Randy and Kerry’s husband Brandon, are scheduled to fight one week earlier at UFC 105.

(Props: CageWriter)

Maybe Dana White locked himself in a bathroom at some point after hearing that Fedor vs. Rogers would be broadcast on CBS, and screamed until he cried. But at least he’s putting on a brave face for the media. Following a UFC 103 press conference held yesterday, White told Steve Cofield that Strikeforce on CBS is not a game-changer:

No, probably not. EliteXC reportedly hemorrhaged money during their run on CBS, because the license fee they received from the network wasn’t nearly enough to cover their expenses. Maybe Strikeforce was able to carve out a more satisfying deal than EliteXC did, but you have to assume that Strikeforce’s actual end-game is to build up enough interest in their brand on CBS that they can start putting on pay-per-view shows, which would theoretically be much more profitable. Until that happens, Dana White has enough problems of his own to worry about.

(Hey, don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Image courtesy of kamipro.)

Strikeforce’s "Fedor vs. Rogers" card on 11/7 has locked down a co-headliner. According to MMA Weekly, Jake Shields and Jason "Mayhem" Miller will fight for the organization’s undisputed middleweight title — not one of those weak-ass "interim" belts. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker explains the situation:

(Props: shosports)

According to a press release just sent out by Strikeforce, Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers will face each other on Saturday, November 7th, in a Strikeforce event that will be broadcast on CBS (9:00 PM, live ET/delayed PT). It was previously announced that the matchup would air on Showtime, which explains some of Strikeforce’s quietness over the last couple weeks — they were working out the details on this surprising change of plans. Now, Dana White won’t be able to crow about how his reruns outdraw Strikeforce’s live fights, and he probably won’t risk defeat by counter-programming Strikeforce with a live UFC event, especially considering the UFC already has events scheduled for the following two weekends.