My Take Radio

Strike­force has shown that they can be a major con­tender in MMA against the UFC, just check out any media web­site where they nor­mally talk all about UFC. Strike­force flooded the MMA web­sites this past week­end due to the Jan­u­ary 30th Strike­force: Miami event.

Although I really enjoyed Strike­force: Miami, it wasn’t any­thing spec­tac­u­lar, but still a good show. There were a total of 12 fights on the card,  6 of which had major impor­tance to Strike­force. I’ll break down those 6 cards real quick before get­ting into the upcom­ing Women’s Tour­na­ment at Strikeforce.

Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs
This fight was shown free on www.easportsmma.com, obvi­ously to pro­mote the upcom­ing EA MMA game (which actu­ally doesn’t look too bad, but I’m still unsure whether or not I will buy it). It’s dif­fi­cult to for­give a hyp­ocrite game com­pany like EA for bash­ing MMA a cou­ple of years back when the UFC wanted to make an EA MMA game, and then they come out with an MMA game of their own. But we’ll see.

Any­way, the Jay Hieron vs. Joe Riggs fight was sub-par, end­ing with Hieron win­ning via Unan­i­mous Deci­sion. Hieron won, and there­fore was sup­posed to get a shot at whomever won the fight that night between Nick Diaz and Mar­ius Zarmon­skis for the Wel­ter­weight Title. Though, it now looks like Diaz may be head­ing over to Japan to fight in Dream against Hay­ato Saku­rai for one fight, since Strike­force has aligned them­selves with the Japan­ese promotion.

With that, I’ll jump into the head­lin­ing fight of the evening.

Nick Diaz vs. Mar­ius Zarmon­skis
Mar­ius Zarmon­skis was sup­posed to be the man to give Diaz the most dif­fi­cult time in the Wel­ter­weight Divi­sion (out­side of the UFC), but Diaz pretty much picked apart Zarmon­skis through­out the whole fight, never let­ting Zarmon­skis estab­lish a game plan. Diaz ended the fight 4 1/2 min­utes into the first round via TKO.

Bobby Lash­ley vs. Wes Sims
This fight went pretty much as expected. The out-of-shape Wes Sims, who had a week to pre­pare for the fight, was dom­i­nated through­out the fight, and was taken to the ground, and treated like an ama­teur. Lash­ley fin­ished Sims two min­utes into the first round, which prompted Sims to start a bar­rage of name-calling after the fight. He even called Lash­ley a “juiced-up turd” in a post-fight inter­view.….. really? It wouldn’t break my heart if we never see Wes Sims in the MMA cage again. Unfor­tu­nately, he is get­ting back into the cage in March, against for­mer UFC Heavy­weight Cham­pion Tim Sylvia in an MMA event in Ohio. You know, I’d actu­ally love to see Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims - at a hot­dog eat­ing con­test. That would be more entertaining.

So, what’s next for Bobby Lash­ley? Strike­force needs to give him a step-up in com­pe­ti­tion, and he just might get that step-up in Brett Rogers. Strikeforce’s CEO Scott Coker has talked about the pos­si­bil­ity of Bobby Lash­ley vs. Brett Rogers, and although it would most cer­tainly be a great fight to watch, I don’t see Lash­ley sur­viv­ing that fight. Lash­ley is a very lik­able guy, and is fun to watch, so I’ll be root­ing for him in that fight.

Her­schel Walker vs. Greg Nagy
Her­schel Walker didn’t look too bad in his MMA debut, but he was fight­ing against Greg Nagy, some­one who nobody knew any­thing about until he fought in the cage. It didn’t take long to see why they put him in against Walker. Nagy shouldn’t have been in there in the first place. Nagy went after Walker like a zom­bie goes after brains. Hands out front, wav­ing around, and he even ducked down like he was going to ram Walker with his head. It took three rounds to for Walker to fin­ish off Nagy, and even that fin­ish wasn’t very con­vinc­ing. Again, I like Her­schel Walker a lot. He is a tremen­dous ath­lete and great per­son­al­ity, but he should prob­a­bly just retire from MMA undefeated.

Rob­bie Lawler vs. Melvin Man­heof
It’s been seven months since Lawler’s defeat against Jake Shields, and in this fight he was look­ing to get his grove back. Man­heof was dom­i­nat­ing Lawler through­out the entire fight with dev­as­tat­ing punches and leg kicks. 3 1/2 min­utes into it, Lawler threw a hail mary punch which con­nected with Manheof’s chin and knocked him clean out. Just goes to show that any­thing can hap­pen in MMA.

So, what’s next for Rob­bie Lawler? Noth­ing has been dis­cussed as of yet, but per­son­ally, I would really like to see Rob­bie Lawler vs. Cung Le. I think that would be a hell of a match!

Cris­tiane “Cyborg” San­tos vs. Mar­loes Coenen
This was pos­si­bly the fight of the night, and was also the fight that showed how well Cyborg can take a punch. Coenen hit Cyborg with every­thing she had, and Cyborg barely flinched. At the end of the fight, Cyborg became vic­to­ri­ous 3 min­utes and 40 sec­onds into the third round via TKO, and the pun­ish­ment she dished out showed on Coenen’s face. I don’t think there is any­one in the 145-lb women’s divi­sion that can defeat Cyborg right now.

Strike­force is now set­ting up tour­na­ments in the 135-lb. and 145-lb. Women’s Divi­sion, which is some­thing I’m look­ing for­ward to! There are a lot of great fight­ers in those divi­sions. Unfor­tu­nately, unde­feated 135-lb. fighter Sarah Kauf­man will not be com­pet­ing in the tour­na­ment, but instead, she may be fight­ing for the vacant title against Smack­girl vet­eran, Takayo Hashi.

Other nota­bles to look for in the upcom­ing 135-lb. women’s tour­na­ments are Miesha Tate, Kaitlin Young, and Shayna Bas­zler; and pos­si­bly Kerry Vera and Kim Cou­ture tak­ing their spot in the 145-lb. tournament.

No set date for the tour­na­ments as of yet, but expect them to start in the spring.

After three oppo­nents have been denied the chance to fight Bobby Lash­ley by the Florida Ath­letic Com­mis­sion, all being called “not com­pet­i­tive” fights for the 4–0 pro wrestler-turned MMA fighter; Strike­force has finally got an approved oppo­nent for Lash­ley. His oppo­nent for Jan­u­ary 30th’s Strike­force: Miami event will be Wes Sims (22–12-1). This Ulti­mate Fighter alumni and UFC vet  is best known for his two losses against for­mer UFC Heavy­weight Cham­pion Frank Mir (one loss being a DQ due to ille­gal stomps to the head), and his antics on The Ulti­mate Fighter Sea­son 10.

Wes Sims is cur­rently on a three-fight win streak (his first round loss on The Ulti­mate Fighter does not count on his record), and is look­ing to upset the unde­feated Lash­ley. Bobby Lash­ley has fin­ished 3 out of his 4 wins, only once going the dis­tance with Ulti­mate Fighter Sea­son 8 cast mem­ber, Jason Guida. Lashley’s only other notable win is against Bob Sapp at Fight Force Inter­na­tional: Ulti­mate Chaos in June.

Strike­force: Miami will also have sev­eral other high pro­file fights, includ­ing Heis­man Tro­phy win­ner Her­schel Walker (0–0) in his MMA debut against Greg Nagy (1–1); Rob­bie Lawler (18–5) vs. Melvin Man­heof (24–6-1); Strike­force Women’s Light­weight Cham­pion Cris­tiane “Cyborg” San­tos (8–1) vs. Mar­loes Coenen (17–3) for the title; and Nick Diaz (20–7) vs. Mar­ius Zarom­skis (13–3) for the Wel­ter­weight Championship.

You can watch Strike­force: Miami on Show­time at 10pm EST on Jan­u­ary 30, or live at BankAt­lantic Cen­ter in Sun­rise, Florida. Tick­ets are going for around $50.