Strikeforce/M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Werdum

[jmt225]

Main card

• Heavyweight bout: Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum
• Women's Featherweight Championship bout: Cristiane Santos(c) vs. Jan Finney
• Middleweight bout: Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
• Lightweight bout: Josh Thomson vs. Pat Healy

Preliminary Card

• Light Heavyweight bout: Yancy Medeiros vs. Gareth Joseph
• Lightweight bout: Bobby Stack vs. Derrick Burnsed
• Welterweight bout: Brett Bergmark vs. Vagner Rocha
• Middleweight bout: Ron Keslar vs. Chris Cope

......................................................................................​

No preliminary fights have been officially booked yet (even though the show's a week away, lol), but I'll make sure to update the thread once they are.

Anyways, I must admit that's is a pretty damn good main card.

Of course, it's always an event to see Fedor Emelianenko fight. The guy just has an aura about him, and it's impossible not to get excited to watch him do what he does better than anyone else in the World, which is of course: Fight. His opponent, Fabricio Werdum... he's definitely the best Jiu-Jitsu fighter in the Heavyweight Division. The dude is simply incredible on the ground. He's also a very, very nice guy, and I do like him; however, he doesn't stand a chance in this one. As good as Werdum's Jiu-Jitsu is, his striking and takedowns are horrible. And even if by some miracle Werdum was able to get the fight to the ground, he would spent the whole time down there on the flat of his back, taking Fedor's brutal ground and pound. He will not catch Fedor in a submission, no way. Instead, this will just be another win for the best MMArtist in history, and hopefully the first step to Strikeforce setting up Fedor vs. Overeem for the SF Heavyweight Championship.

Cyborg of course is just being fed another can..... who gives a shit at this point? I sure as hell don't. I miss Gina Carano.

Cung Le vs. Scott Smith.... sigh, the last fight between these two, while it was entertaining, it was still perhaps the most pathetic fight in MMA history. First of all, Smith just took a senseless beating for two and a half rounds, not even attempting to stop Cung's striking. And every time Le had a chance to put Smith away, he'd step back and let the guy up; it made no sense whatsoever. Then, a gassed Cung Le basically gave up in the middle of the third round and let Smith beat him. Hopefully, Le actually comes to fight Smith in this one and puts the guy away early on, like he has the capability of doing. However, he needs to attack hard, not hit him with those kicks and then just sit back and let Smith recover. And if the fight does end up going to the later rounds, then Le better have a much better gas tank then he did in the other fight, otherwise no one is ever going to take him seriously again.

And Josh Thomson vs. Pat Healy should be a great fight to start the show. I don't know too much about Pat Healy other than he has a lot of fights under his belt (37, to be exact), but Josh Thomson always puts on an entertaining display, and there's no reason to believe this will be any different.

EDIT: Preliminary Card is now added.

 

[Buffalo Dave]

Finally the return of Fedor! We have all waited long enough for him to get back in the cage. The only thing is I'm not sure much people care about this fight with Werdum. But it is Fedor fighting, just look at the numbers Strikeforce pulled during his fight with Rodgers on CBS. When Fedor dominates and wins versus Werdum hopefully this will setup the fight with Overeem. The only thing I fear with this going down is another delay with M1 and Strikeforce coming to terms for the fight. So who knows how long it will actually take to go down. The only thing that sucks if the Overeem fight does go down is, what's next for Fedor after that? It's much like in boxing how we all want Mayweather vs. Pac-Man but once that happens where do they go from there. The UFC seems like such a long shot for Fedor, so what will be left with after a Overeem fight?

Cris Cyborg gets another fight, problem is her opponent has a 8 and 7 record or something real close to that and fights in a lighter division. What's that tell us? Easy Cyborg is gonna kick her ass! She is the GSP or Silva to her division. She might just have to start fighting some guys just to get some competition. Scary thing is she would probably do alright!

Cung Le vs. Scott Smith, what a shocker in the first fight. I'm pretty sure next to no one had Smith winning that one. Smith was just able to survive those first two rounds of kick after kick. Then Le comes out out to the third and continues to do the same thing untill Smith catches Le and then puts a series of punches together that ends it for him because Le was just to gased from everything he threw at Smith. So with the rematch lets hope Le worked on his stamina or else we can see the same results, both Le and Smith know that Smith can take Le's kicks and punches, so now its up to Le to be able to finish the fight or last to the end to get a decision.

The Thomson/Healy fight seems like it is a great tuneup for Thomson to get him back on track after he lost his lightweight belt to Melendez. It definitely should be a good fight, after looking at Healy's record cause I never heard of him he has fought some good competition. Has wins against Dan Hardy, Paul "Suckerpunch" Daley, and Carlos Condit.

 

[INDYjon22]

Fedor vs. Werdum doesn't really excite me but at the same time it will be very nice to see Fedor back in the cage. M-1 Global is really fucking with Strikeforce, the fans and Fedor by making him wait to fight so long. However, I think he will return in glory. Werdum doesn't really strike me as a tough enough fight for Fedor, in honesty it seems like it will be a walk in the park. Nothing Werdum does is better then Fedor and Fedor will prove that with a stoppage.

Josh Thompson is one of the most exciting fighters I have ever seen. The guy just knows how to fight and it blows my mind that Sherdog doesn't give him the credit that he deserves. I think Thompson will pick Healy apart in this fight in route to a victory.

I called Scott Smith winning against Cung Le last time. I have never bought into the whole Cung Le hype train and still don't but I do think he will soundly defeat Smith this time. He knows that Smith is a tough bastard and won't play around with him this time. Le should win this one convincingly.

Cyborg vs. Finney will be interesting. Not that it is all that exciting of a fight but to see if anyone can crack the female Fedors code. I don't know much about Finney but I do know she is fighting the very best female fighter in the world today and possibly of all time. Finney will really need to up her game if she expects to win.

All in all I am very excited for this card. The fights all seem to be entertaining and worth while.

 

[jmt225]

Great show, with the ending making it historic.

Josh Thomson vs. Pat Healy was easily Fight of the Night. Healy came out and used his weight advantage as best he could to bully Thomson around, keep him against the cage, and put Thomson's behind on the mat and keep him there. To Thomson's credit, instead of just letting Healy lay on top of him, he was constantly looking for submissions, and he came close in both rounds 1 and 2 at catching Healy. Fitch opponents take note.... the best defense on the ground is offense, and Thomson proved that last night, because the more submissions he worked for, the more Healy had to work, so by the third round... Healy was completely GASSED. And Thomson, to his credit, took full advantage of it and defeated him with the RNC. It was beautiful.

I'm really, really liking Josh Thomson right now. Last night he showed a TON of heart and persistence; I was beyond impressed with him. I hope he can one day find himself in the UFC, because I think he would do great there.

Jan Finney... wow, she earned all my respect last night. She took a beating like no other and was still able to get out of that first round. I was amazed. That lady deserves all the credit in the World. And Cyborg... well, it was no surprise. Another dominating win, and I think we'll see many more from her in the future.

Cung Le vs. Scott Smith... I was impressed Smith came out with guns a blazin', but he should have kept that pace up. It was the only way he had a shot at winning last night... but, he didn't have the gas tank to even go two minutes full force. Le, to his credit, took advantage and did to Smith what he should have done in the last fight... which was put him away when Smith got hurt. Props to Le learning from his past mistake; however, I don't think we'll see anything special from the guy in the MW Tournament. Cung cannot compete against most of those names and he's going to get his ass kicked.

And Fedor vs. Werdum, I mean... what can I say? It was perhaps the biggest upset in MMA history. I was completely shocked.

The fight at first went exactly how I and everyone else expected... Fedor dominating the stand-up and dropping Werdum right away. But, fuck... Fedor made the biggest mistake of his career. When Werdum first hit the ground, I can understand why Fedor would want to pounce on him, but once Werdum went for that first armbar and almost caught Fedor with that, that should have told Fedor that Werdum was perfectly fine. Once Fedor got out of the first armbar attempt, he should have stood right back up, but instead.... he kept throwing punches as if Werdum was still dazed. What the fuck was he thinking? Because of that, Werdum was able to work a beautiful Triangle with an armlock attached to it, and Fedor had no choice to tap or have his arm broken while also getting put to sleep.

Props to Werdum. He's a great guy and a part of me is happy for him, but make no mistake about it... Fedor lost this fight because of Fedor. Fedor can EASILY beat Werdum if he uses his brain. Hopefully we'll get a rematch in the future so we can find out if I'm correct or not.

 

[INDYjon22]

Josh Thompson is one of my favorite fighters and a guy I feel as though doesn't really get the kind of love he deserves. He always puts on entertaining fights that the fans remember. I for one am still a huge fan of his fight against Yves Edwards in which he got caught with a spinning back kick, but I digress. The fight last night with Pat Healy was very solid. Not a FOTY candidate but still fun. Thompson and Healy really went toe to toe and Thompson had to pull out all of the stops, which he did and won the fight. I hope to see him get a crack at Melendez one more time in the near future.

Cyborg is fucking ridiculous. There is no woman on the planet who can hang with her right now and probably not for the next few years. JMT made a comparison to her being a female version of the old Wanderlei Silva and I couldn't agree more. She is just tearing through her opponents right now and looks unstoppable.

I like Scott Smith and hate Cung Le. As confident as I was in the first fight that Smith would win I was equally confident that Le would take this one. Why? Because he wouldn't take it lightly like he did last time. I don't like Le but he does fit really hard and can beat a lot of guys. Smith is great at countering and catching people but only when they don't expect it. Le knew exactly what to expect and that is why he dominated Smith.

Fabricio Werdum shocked the world and made his place in MMA history last night. Regardless of how the rest of his career goes he will forever be known as the man who made Fedor tap out. I am a Fedor fan like everybody else, but what Werdum did last night impressed the hell out of me. I really hope Strikeforce does the right thing and gives Werdum the next shot at Overeem. It makes the most sense and Werdum earned it. On the flip side, Fedor will be fine. Everybody loses eventually and it wasn't that crushing of a defeat. I believe he will be back even better in his next fight and as a fan I really hope this loss opens his eyes so that he can return to being the best of the best.