(Props: MMA-Core)

If you’re one of the people taking issue with referee Josh Rosenthal’s stoppage of the Gina Carano vs. Cris "Cyborg" Santos main event at Strikeforce, last night, you might ought to pause and look at this.  Here’s what it looked like from where Rosenthal was standing.  What he sees is a downed Carano who is not making any attempt to intelligently defend herself from a torrent of right hands.  He seems willing to let her try to ride out the end of the round, but when Cyborg slips a right around her defenses and Carano appears to spasm with shock after the punch, that’s when Rosenthal has to stop it. 

If you still need convincing, look at Gina’s reaction after the stoppage.  She’s saying something there, but I don’t think it’s, ‘You idiot, I was just about to launch my counter-attack!’ 

(‘Let’s talk about boys!’)

With Strikeforce’s big Gina Carano vs. "Cyborg" Santos main event on Showtime just a day away, we go head-to-head to determine just how unmissable this card is after all the injuries, whether Nick Diaz has hurt our feelings for good, and more in this edition of Ben vs. Ben.

After all the injuries and changes to the line-up, where does this Strikeforce card rank on your must-see MMA spectrum?

BF: If we’re looking at a 10-point scale, with 10 being UFC 100 and 1 being YAMMA Pit Fighting, I give the current iteration of this Strikeforce card a 6.5.  Originally it was probably at least an eight, maybe even a nine.  Then it lost Overeem, Thomson, and Riggs.  Then it actually got a little better when Jay Hieron stepped in.  Then Nick Diaz declined to even submit to a piss test and, well, this is where we find ourselves now.