Wow pretty crazy week for MMA with all the UFC news going on it seems like some people have almost forgotten about the stacked Strikeforce card coming up. Saturday September 10th is the Semi-finals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Josh Barnett will be facing Sergei Kharitonov while Antonio Big Foot Silva is going against Daneil Cormier (and alternate for Alistair Overeem). Along with the heavy weight tournament as the main attraction, the undercard fights with Ronaldo Souza vs. Luke Rockhold for the Middleweight belt and Mo Lawal vs. Roger Gracie will surely not disappoint. This fight card is absolutely one of the best free MMA cards of the year and it blows UFC Fight Night Sheilds vs. Ellenberger out of the water!
Mo Lawal vs. Roger Gracie
This fight will really depend on Gracie's ability to take it to the ground and Lawal's willingness to go there. Lawal is a Division 1 wrestler so I imagine they won't be going to the ground unless he decides to and that is why I think he will take this fight. Lawal will almost definitely choose stand with Gracie. While this is taking away Gracie's most dangerous weapon, his jiu jitsu it also puts Lawal in a position of power because most of his wins (5 0ut of 7) are via knockout. Gracie's key to victory in this fight is to overwelm Lawal while standing with quantity not quality and make Lawal take him down. His Jiu Jitsu is good enough that he won't need much time to sink in the sub and the victory. Lawal will need to trust that his stand up is good enough and stick and move while standing to avoid grappling at all costs. My final pick for this fight is Mo Lawal TKO R2
Ronaldo Souza vs. Luke Rockhold
This bout is for the Strikeforce Middleweight Championship and I see it as a fairly one sided fight. Usually in Championship fights the contender poses a big threat to the Champ (GSP and Anderson excluded) but in this fight I see Souza keeping his belt fairly easily. Luke Rockhold hasn't compete in over a year so he will have some serious ring rust going on and while most of his wins are by submission, he is only a brown belt in Jiu Jitsu. Now I'm not sayin that just because he's a brown belt in jiu jitsu he's not good at it. He very obviously is a good Jiu Jitsu practitioner but the Champion is one of the best BJJ practitioners alive today who trains with Anderson Silva and the Noguiera brothers some of best BJJ fighters in the world. Iron sharpens iron in the Blackhouse gym. This is a grappling match that Rockhold is not prepared for he has good training partners but not great ones, he has a brown belt but not a black belt, he has beaten good competition but Souza has beaten some of the best in the business. Rockhold is just simply outmatched and on saturday night he will be outclassed. My final pick is Souza Sub R1-2 and then I also think he'll get picked up by the UFC.
Antonio Silva vs. Daniel Cormier
Heavyweight matches are the hardest ones to predict for the simple fact that any one can knock anyone else out much easier than in the lower weight classes. This matchup in particular is very interesting to me for a couple of reasons. One the size difference between the fighters is noticeable to say the least Cormier is 5'11 247lbs and Silva is 6'4 265lbs. The other thing that intrigues me for this fight is the elite skill level of grappling possessed by both fighters while Silva has won most of his bouts by KO he possesses a black belt in both judo and jiu jitsu making him a posable threat on the ground. Cormier is a former Olympic wrestler who has never lost an MMA bout. The determining factor for this fight is wether or not Cormier's olympian level wrestling can topple his much bigger foe and prevent himself from being submitted. I do give the grappling edge to Cormier because while Silva is a black belt he hasn't done anything to speak of with said black belt. I think he will have to use his size to overwhelm Cormier and look to use his judo to get on top of him and ground n pound his way to victory. Cormier however should look to keep his distance and quickly set up takedowns to grind out a decision victory. I'm going to go against my gut on this one and say that Cormier can pull it off and that Silva's bottom game and size will be nullified by good o'l fashion American wrestling.
Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov
Im really excited to see how Sergei does in this matchup, it's only his third fight in America and only his second in Strikeforce and I would like to see him make a good transition against top competition. Barnett is certainly top competition having beaten 3 former UFC champions and currently riding a 7 fight win streak. Those factors combined make this a very tough fight for Sergei. While being relatively unknown Sergei has beaten some big names himself inluding Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, and Andre Arlovski. Sergei just hasn't fought in the U.S. enough to be well known. He'll be a little more famous after this fight as I believe he will win it. He is the more well rounded of the two fighters with 8 submission wins and 9 knockouts. He has some great Sambo and Olympic level boxing. While Barnett isn't as versatile his jiu jitsu is extremely dangerous and he does have the ability to submit Sergei if he gets a hold of him. I think the key in this fight will be whether or not Barnett can take down Sergei and keep him there long enough for him to make a mistake because if he can't Sergei will knock him out. Sergei's sambo backround will most likely keep him out of any real danger on the ground and allow him to work back to his feet and use some of his excellent boxing on the BJJ black belt. My final pick for this fight is Sergei Kharitonov KO R2
No comments:
Post a Comment