Strikeforce Heavy Weight Division - That Good?

Everyone keeps saying that the Strikeforce HW division is becoming a real powerhouse and is the best in the world and specificly better then the UFC but is this really true?

Well, lets start with Fedor. Fedor, Fedor and Fedor has not fought much since he got triangle choked out in 69 seconds to Fabricio Werdum, a guy that went 2-2 in UFC and got fired. Well, it looks like he won't be fighting any time soon and certainly not before Q1 2011 when the negotiations are going to begin between Strikeforce and the weird guys from M1.

Next up is Barnett. He has talked and talked about how he could beat anyone at the UFC and now has signed with Strikeforce. The truth is and I agree with Dana White on this is that Josh does not really care about anyone but himself and the money. He will walk away from Strikeforce or the UFC if it suits him. The guy just doesn't care about anybody or anything and he feels absolutely no guilt about Affliction MMA going down in flames. Why would someone want to trust him it is unclear, a guy with a bunch of failed performance enhancing drug scandals.

After that you've got Werdum who I actually respect and Antonio Silva who has a real future in MMA as well. Both guys are great in my opinion but just won't make it to the big UFC stage because they don't speak english. Well, they've already fought but these guys are real, they will fight anyone any time.

Overeem or OBEREEM, the champion, the vicious striker with a guillotine choke that has sent even Vitor Belfot tapping out in Pride is the real deal. I'm really impressed with him and I think he will soon be moving over to the UFC once he accomplishes his dream in becoming the K1 champion this year. Dana White will sign this guy and I think Overeem will agree when he finds out that Fedor is too scared to fight him and Werdum is probably the last bout he will have left at Strikeforce.

Well, thats it guys. Lets not mention Kharitonov and Aleks Emelianenko. Both of these guys are really out of shape and should not be fighting in their condition. I hope they do join some good MMA team soon though.

Fedor fighting?

I love the way Fedor and his management behave. First they react by wanting a rematch straight away. Then they realize that Werdum is not fighting and they challenge Overeem who they did not want to fight before and since Overeem is now busy (and they knew this and that is why they challenged him) they don't want to fight until next year.

Shit! what happended to fighting Antonio Silva, Josh Barnett or even Kharitonov?! Well, all of them are still strong opponents for Fedor and losing to one of these guys would send Fedor out of the top-10 rankings all together.

So what does M1 together with Fedor decide instead? Ah!! lets not fight until Q2 2011 and meanwhile just negotiate endlessly with Strikeforce. Now Scott Coker says to us (the fans) that Fedor is too busy to fight this year and that his schedule is full..... I'm luck WHAT!!!???? He is not fighting anybody, what is he doing? Last year he fought once, the year before he fought basically once since Arlovski was like in January.

I think basically the guy should either retire or fight. I think he still loves to shine like this unbeatable champion where as really his is a judo/sambo fighter with good but not elite ground game and heavy hands who is not in shape to fight anymore at the top level. The guy just needs to face it. Either you train properly with good sparring partners (take Roger Gracie and learn the triangle armbar setup) and compete 2-3 times per year as a real champion or you retire.

Fedor is an amazing fighter but this whole idea that he is still the greatest and that Sambo is the best is crazy. There are monsters out there like Brock Lesnar, like JDS, like Overeem and Werdum. These guys are at the very top now and for Fedor to go and say that Lesnar vs Carwin was a fight between two second-rate fighters is just stupid. Lesnar or Carwin have huge weapons against Fedor. If he thinks he can easily beat them, he just need to step up because talk is cheap and those guys are real dangerous, no one can deny that. Join UFC or Strikeforce. Right now Fedor belongs to neither. He works with M1.

Reasons Why Fedor Lost!

Here are some of the primary reasons Fedor lost this fight however:

1. Fedor has never trained with decent sparring partners for grappling. Instead he trains in Stariy Oskol with Sambo guys that are nowhere near as technical as somebody like Fabricio Werdum. These guys don't have a guard as technical and as difficult to pass as Werdum's so I think this is part of the reason why Fedor got so confident there. What Fedor needs to do is something that is normal for many top fighters. Anderson Silva, GSP, BJ Penn, Machida and Lesnar all train with elite BJJ players and ADCC level grapplers. Fedor needs to leave Stariy Oskol and train with good sparring partners.

2. Training facilities and trainers. Fedor's conditioning may be decent but his coaches are part of the reason why he lost. Not many people know that Fedor was not made by his current trainers he has today in fact. They inheritted Fedor, the awesome machine that could dominate Pride. He now needs to consider whether he may really benefit from modern MMA training and coaches.

3. People around Fedor. Fedor has a lot of people around him who are there to get his money and use his fame. Starting from Rinat Layshev, Igor Petrukhin, Vadim Finkelstein and ending with a crazy guy they have over there who things sauna and "Banya" is training. They are extremely arrogant and talk so much shit it is unbelievable and thank god for Fedor people outside of Russia don't hear this crap. They were saying that Sambo is the best martial art in the world, Fedor is the best fighter in the world, and on and on. These guys are screwing with his training and his mind.

4. Religion and priests. We never knew Fedor like this but when priests start to accompany you to fights that is the worst sign you can have. "God wanted Fedor to lose?", if Fedor is not insane, he will be soon with these guys. I am telling you that those priests have been messing with Fedor's head for ages. Now Fedor has to go and prey instead of training. Good luck Fedor if you carry on like this.

5. Bring the wife. Fedor has not been taking fighting seriously for a few years now. He is told by his mates that he is unbeatable and that he can relax i gather. That is why he lost in Sambo last year - he did not train, and he was doing movies before the Arlovski fight that even his trainers started talking before being told to hush hush.

remember he got married just before the Rogers fight? Now he brings his fight to San Jose, bad sign.

Lastly, Fedor went in to MMA to make money for his family. This was a mean machine who was training with nasty guys like Volk Han. I think Fedor forgot where he came from and how hard he had to work to get there, who made Fedor. He should really look for outsiders to help him here. Speak to Mousasi and GSP, speak with guys that have accomplished something. Train with Roger Gracie.

Fedor has to do a lot of work before he goes in and fights again. The fact that they already want the next fight in September and that he will never leave M1 is a bad sign.

Jiu Jitsu Prevails: Fedor loses to Werdum

How unbelievably arrogant were the M1 Global commentators in the Fedor vs Werdum Strikeforce show. The crap that comes out of the mouth of Finkelstein, Igor Petruhin and Rinat Layshev and their friends is unbelievable.

Propoganda message number 1: "Sambo is the best" - yeah they go on and on that Dana White nor any of the brazilian know what Sambo is. That Fedor can do anything he wants to a jiu jitsu fighter because he is the best in the world, no one can submit this guy, blah, blah blah. I think at some point even Fedor decided he could do his sambo tricks on Werdum.

Basically what happened was Fedor went in and forgot who he was dealing with. When he fought Nogueira he understood how dangerous Nogueira is from the guard. He was very cautious despite trying to GNP Nogueira.

This time however he tried to pass Werdum's guard with no respect for Fabricio's guard game and submission abilities. What happened, well, it turns out Sambo and Fedor are not invincible after all. I guess Fedor forgot the Arona fight and what happened there.

For some reason he decided he could do more than just land strikes from the guard. He tried to pass the guard and naturally Werdum landed a nice triangle choke. Vai Cavalo locked it in quick and real nice and once its locked, well, unless your name is Roger Gracie you are not getting out. That means even if your name is Fedor Emelianenko, you are still going to tap. That is what happened.

After that basically the guys commenting the Russian side of the show started to feel embaraced, embaraced that Fedor lost, embaraced by how little chance they gave Werdum and tried to explain that this was like an accident etc etc

The thing is though, these guys give so little respect to guys like Fabricio Werdum, who is just as much of a star in jiu jitsu as Fedor is in Sambo. Fabricio shook Fedor's hand and spoke about how much respect he has for Fedor.

The M1 team however do exactly the opposite. All they talk about is Fedor, Fedor, Fedor. That is a genius, a professor, the best fighter in the world, unbeatable and on and on and on. Not only do they not show any of the other fights in Russia but they don't even talk about Fabricio Werdum when he enters the arena.

I'm not even sure whether they actually know anything about Werdum. All they seemed to talk about when Werdum was entering the arena was that how little cheering there was.

Fedor, I think the guy is great but with all this crap around him and some of the crap that he believes in, he is wrong about some things. He got arrogant I think in this fight and gave too little respect for Werdum.

At the same time the problem is that these guys believe that Sambo gives you all the ground game that you need. BJJ on the ground is superior however and this has been proven. When did we ever see someone good from Sambo win the ADCC. Sambo is great for throws, but on the ground, it is simply not a complete art.

Now I am not saying Fedor can't win fights without jiu jitsu, but what I am saying is that if Fedor was as wise as his people say, he would train in proper facilities where he would benefit from being exposed to elite BJJ guys, elite Wrestlers etc. You can't just sit there in Stary Oskol and practice Sambo and Boxing all day long thinking this is all I have to know.

Guys from Greg Jackson's gym and many other top gyms in the US these days have a much better training programme then what Fedor could have.

Honestly how can one train for an ADCC champion without at least a BJJ specialist as a training partner. He should have gone to Roger Gracie's academy in London and practiced. He has no one to test him back in Stariy Oskol. I just hope Fedor steps down from whatever throne Finkelstein put him on and starts thinking about how to get better.

Of course he should listen to his coaches, but shit, they should have told him this ten years ago. They have the money, just not the will. They paid for it this time.

Fedor vs Werdum on 26 June

Many believe that Werdum does not have a chance against Fedor in this fight but having red some different perspectives, I have to agree with Fedor and Couture in saying that indeed Fabricio Werdum could be a dangerous opponent for Fedor, especially on the ground.

While I don't believe Vai Cavailo will be able to do anything to Fedor from the guard. Werdum needs to take Fedor down and pass his guard which I believe he will not have much of a problem doing.

The key will be to keep Fedor on the ground and go from submission to submission. I believe Werdum could try to either submit him from side control. After all we have seen Mark Hunt lock in that americana. Another possibility would be to take Fedor's back and try to submit him from there.

While many believe that Fedors ground fighting is incredible, I would have to disagree. Fedor is a great armbar specialist but talking about his positional ground game, I think it is nowhere near top-jiu jitsu level. Fedor had trouble passing Cro Cop's guard and Ricardo Arona showed that Fedor can be dominated on the ground with elite BJJ.

While it is a difficult to task to beat Fedor, I agree with Arona that this is the key for Werdum, to escape the danger standing and go for the takedowns. Fedor's KO power of course makes him exceptionally dangerous and I think no one can really predict what will happen.

I thing for sure though, Fedor is extremely quick and Werdum will have to be as quick in this fight to control and take advantage of his strengths.

Watched the Arona fight just now. I think this one really shows how many different holes Fedor has in the ground game. He does not really have a guard, could not stop Arona from passing it at all, trying to do this guillotine choke which clearly was not doing anything. He gave his back and got mounted so many times and if Arona could strike to the head from the mount, Fedor would have been in a lot of trouble here.

Arona's takedown's are probably on part with Werdum's so Werdum should use this strategy to gain a dominant position and work from there. This is a dangerous opponent for Fedor, maybe even as dangerous is Lesnar. I think people don't realise that Werdum cannot be submitted and the only way Fedor can win this I think is by keeping it standing and trying to KO Fabricio. Very excited about this fight.

Strikeforce signs Kharitonov and Overeem

Big news for Strikeforce that has come to my attention. I think I managed to miss this one last week. According to MMA Junkie, on the 17 June, Scott Coker announced that Valentijn Overeem and Sergei Kharitonov, two great Pride heavyweights have signed with Strikeforce.

I am thrilled about this of course, to see more competition in the Strikeforce Heavyweight division and more Russian representation at the top.

Sergei especially has been long considered one of the top heavyweights until recently and actually I have been surprised that it took so long. Now all they need is convince Ricardo Arona to return and this organization would be doing great.

Of course the key would be to focus on raising new talent of course but now they at least have a chance to test themselves against the top guys in the sport. With Fedor retiring, a new generation of fighters needs to come to Strikeforce in the heavyweight division.

Personally I would love to see several fights in this category now including Kharitonov vs Brett Rogers or Valentijn Overeem vs Bobby Lashley. It would be a great show if we got to see some of these big guys face each other.

As a jiu jitsu fan however for me it is always exciting to see some jiu jitsu talent in action and that is why I would love to see Jeff Monson and especially Ricardo Arona in the mix at Strikeforce. This is the place where they should be competing right now. For Arona, there are a few interesting matches at LHW including guys like Gegard Mousasi.

Kharitonov has a strong Sambo background though and his punching power is on par with Aleks Emelianenko, so I think its going to be interesting how he does in his first fight.

Strikeforce HW division I feel now has a lot of technical and powerful strikers and it would be great if apart from Fabricio Werdum there could be some more wrestlers/jiu jitsu players. I don't really count Bobby Lashley as I think he needs a few big career fights to prove he has what it takes to transition to MMA.

Training Regularly - Difficult to Do When You Don't Feel So Good

Training regularly is the only way to achieve results in jiu jitsu and that is why I make every effort to come to training on time unless there is something extremely important that needs attending.

Sadly I caught the flu or some nasty infection that keeps reoccurring which is a real shame. Although I do everything possible it is just sad to miss training.

Well, at least Fedor vs Werdum Strikeforce event is coming up this weekend which always promises to be an exciting night. Since Fedor is fighting, the event will be on pay-per-view in Russia, something that never happens here since MMA is misunderstood by the majority of the public. BJJ vs Combat Sambo here we go, great fighters, poor commentary, I am looking forward to it!

Fedor vs Werdum

ground. The guy has really improved his striking since fighting Nogueira and on the ground I think he could really control the fight.

People keep saying that noone can submit Fedor and that Fedor can submit anyone, but really who has he submitted that was so amazing? Randelman, Coleman, Hong Man Choi, Sylvia ... all guys who are blue belts at best in BJJ.

Fedor is good on the ground, but when you have a guy on par with the skills of Ricardo Arona, you will see Werdum taking Fedor's back, taking mount and in these situations Fedor is going to use all his skills.

The other thing is that if you look at the photos, Fedor is not in the best shape of his life. He visibly is slower then three years ago and I think the Brett Rogers fight showed a lot of wholes where Werdum could play.

Fabricio is also taller and a very well conditioned fighter. He can go the full three rounds and unless Fedor pulls out another KO which I think would be hard to do, then the fight is going to the ground.

For Werdum, I can see him working on putting Fedor on his back and from there it could get really interesting.

There is so much media attention out ther about Fedor not fighting the top competition and they are right. Fighting Werdum is really a waste. If Fedor wants to fight two time a year, he has to fight only the best.

However looking at Fedor's conditioning and at Werdum's skill on the ground, I believe people are in for a surprise. I am going to really enjoy Fabricio both in striking and on the

Fedor is not really a guard player and I have always noticed that his ground game is very judo-like. He has excellent submissions but his positional game is not good. Fedor passes the guard mainly using his effective ground and pound but you could see that he has trouble taking the mount. (look at Cro Cop or Mark Hunt fights).

I think it is still a decent fight, just not for a fighter who is ranked #1 thats all. I think the poll supports my view.

Perhaps the Most Exciting Event of 2009

Last weekend we witnessed one of the most exciting line-ups in mixed martial arts better known as MMA. Strikeforce have managed to do a good job here and despite watching an edited Russian version of the tournament, I have to say the fights were brilliant.

Here are some of my comments on the fights and then on the show itself.

Gegard Mousasi vs. Thierry Sokoudjou - nice fight where Gegard's standing skills were just too much for his opponent. It frankly looked like Sokoudjou was having a really tough time throwing any kind of punch against the talented striker and in the end the result was predictable, TKO, as expected, should have put some money on Gegard here.

Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Silva - Fabricio is a very talented jiu jitsu fighter and was able to show his skills in the match but was unable to submit "Big Foot" Silva who has a black belt in jiu jitsu himself. The first round was certainly Silva's, who showed some superior striking ability and counter punching but the second and third rounds were Fabricio's. I especially enjoyed some of his muay thai knees to the head Fabricio tried to deliver. A very close decision win for Werdum in my opinion that does nothing to justify him fighting Fedor in his next bout at least.

Jake Shields vs. Jason "Mayhem" Miller - both guys are actually great on the ground and although shields was given such great odds, I think we all saw that at some point Miller nearly executed a nice rear naked choke on Shields (who was saved by the end of the round). His title fight for the middleweight Strikeforce belt was basically a submission grappling match and it was sad to see Miller not being able to execute his stand up kick boxing skills. In the end, after five exhausting rounds in the cage, Shields dominated with takedowns and grappling and that earned him the decision in the end.

Brett Rogers vs. Fedor Emelianenko - every fight with Fedor is exciting to watch whether it is a grappling or stand up battle. No one can really predict what will happen. Everyone was saying that Fedor would win by submission but there you go.

Brett Rogers looked relatively solid with his big punches, ground and pound and defending himself on the ground from submissions. I think it was also visible that Rogers was able to use his size advantage but Fedor's ability to overcome that was also obvious. The first round was tough on Fedor. Rodgers managed to cut and possibly break Fedor's nose in the opening punch. Blood was everywhere which prevented Fedor from breathing through his nose (no good if you are fighting in an MMA tournament no doubt). In the second, Fedor was able to evade some nasty ground and pound (while to be fair getting hit as well) and with a nice overhand right took Rodgers down and followed up with further strikes to the head of a grounded opponent. TKO for Fedor after a powerful punch to Rodgers who was expecting a takedown from the Sambo legend.

Fedor Emelianenko keeps his perfect record and has added further to his legend. Despite injuring his hand and getting his nose broken, he was able to show that he is still the number 1heavy weight in the world.

The production, at least the Russian edited one was horrible though. I have not seen the CBS version, but the version I saw should be rated as less than poor. (it was Pay Per View and live, not some cheap recording)

You probably would not even know that Strikeforce was organizing nearly the entire thing if you saw it. A ton of M1-Challenge flashbacks from Feb 2009 where no name fighters met were shown throughout the tournament. Instead of letting us hear about the fighters that we are going to see, they showed us over and over no-name fighters from M1. It was ridiculous. The under card was completely ignored. Did not get to see the entrances (apart from Miller's and that was criticized but idiot commentators), did not hear any comments about their past accomplishments. The Russian commentator at some point actually said that he has never seen Jason "Mayhem" Miller fight and does not know anything about him. Terrible! I would just love it if Fedor ditched that Finkelstein and his M1 cronies.

Great fights but poor promotion. Would love to hear some comments about what the CBS show was like.