Alistair Overeem & the Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament
By Ben Bieker
Sometimes matchmaking makes more sense than others. Recently we saw Gray Maynard getting another shot at Frankie Edgar, after they fought to a draw, over the proposed match-up of Anthony Pettis versus the winner of the original bout. That is why I am confounded as to why Strikeforce would make up the matches they did for there proposed Heavyweight tournament.
This decision to hold a tournament also makes the point that the belt in Strikeforce’s Heavyweight division means even less since the champion is a combatant in the tournament and not waiting at the end to defend his belt. So, if his bout is not a title defense, and he loses, then does he still hold the belt? That is something that confounds me, but something I will not get into because “officially” this tournament has not been announced, and hopefully someone high up in the organization has figured out this problem already.
Some people will point out that I may just be bashing the organization as the UFC had a mini-tournament of sorts back when Brock Lesnar was able to grab the title. Unfortunately, that came out of a champion unwilling to fight, and promises made to two other fighters that had to be upheld. I am not in the place of power to make the decision that Strikeforce’s matchmaker, Rich Chou, makes, but I am a fan with a word processor and a keyboard, and I can clearly see that there are a lot of faults with the tournament set to start on February 12th. Also, the company has a viable champion and plenty of contenders, so it begs the question of why was this idea brought about.
The fights set to take place in the 8-man tournament are as follows; Andrei Arlovski vs. Sergei Kharitonov, Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva, Fabricio Werdum vs. Alistair Overeem, and Josh Barnett vs. Brett Rogers. At a glance all of these fights seem viable and fun to watch, but you also have to wonder about how the winners of all these fights match-up.
As a fan I am glad to see Fedor fighting more actively because if he wins all his bouts he will potentially be fighting 3 times alone in 2011, which is something I wanted in my New Year’s Resolution for MMA. In addition, his fight makes sense when he is taking on someone who is a threat, but not top level competition, since he is coming off a loss. The Overeem and Werdum fight also makes sense in that Overeem has proved himself to be a dominate force no matter what combat sport he fights in, and Werdum beat the number one fighter in the world when he submitted Fedor last year, but why is this fight no just for the belt. Werdum obviously deserves the right to fight for the company’s top prize after his performance last year, but now he will have to fight another two people to get to it, if he is able to get past Overeem, who is the champion.
Whoever wins out of these two fights can create intriguing bouts with the other winners, and with the opponents at hand anyone could win on any given day, whether it is Overeem eventually getting a match up with Fedor, or taking on another young contender in Silva. Or we get the rematch with Werdum taking on Fedor to see if it was just a fluke when he won, or we get to see him fight someone who most likely resembles his style in Silva.
Then besides those two match-ups on the other end of the spectrum we have Arlovski taking on Kharitonov, and Barnett taking on Rogers. Out of these fighters none of them really have a reason to be in the ring with the other four fighters. Arlovski has already lost to Rogers, Fedor, and Silva all convincing losses either by knockout or decision. His chin has failed him before, so I doubt he would make it out of the first round when fighting Overeem either.
Then you have Kharitonov who was beat by Overeem before, back when he was not as big of threat as he is now and days. He had beat Werdum, but that was before he hit his stride. He himself has been battled with injuries and has been taking a beating in the K-1 ring, but who knows how long he can stay healthy in an extended format like a tournament. Rogers has already been manhandled by Fedor and Overeem and nothing in his last fight would show that those fights would go differently if he fought them again.
That brings us to Josh Barnett the only one worth while out of these four fighters. He has been embroiled in personal issues as of late being popped for steroids for the 3rd time when he was about to fight Fedor. He has come back and fought a few times since the incident, but none of the opponents are of too big of name to mention. The end result is that he has fallen off of most top 10 lists, where he was a clear number two in the sport for a while. The question is what will happen when he has to fight Fedor? He has seemed to dodge him for so long, and fate has stepped in with injuries and such, but in a tournament there is no running if he is matched up with him, so will the ugly PED’s monster rear its head again if he is faced with some actual competition. I hope not, but you never know
The result of this tournament is that we get some good scraps in the first round that have somewhat predictable outcomes with fighters going to face each other in the second round that have even more predictable outcomes. I proposed the idea before that Strikeforce’s matchmaker may not know what he is doing, and to not sound pompous I will put out some matches that I would have put together if I was gifted with the job of being the matchmaker for this tourney.
I was ok with the first two match-ups of Fedor vs. Silva and Werdum taking on Overeem, but even those I would like to change. The thing Strikeforce has to realize is that they are relying too much on entities that have too much association with other organizations. All of these fighters have found their fame in other promotions and that is why Strikeforce will continue to struggle because they do not have any homegrown talent. That is why some of the match-ups may seem out of place, but they will possible make for a star that SF can call their own.
In the first round, I would have Josh Barnett take on Fedor in a match that has been wanted by most fans for years. It makes sense because if Josh has a pre-fight exam and is popped for steroids than they could have another fighter on back burner to take his spot, and that would happen in the first round instead of alter after he had beaten some people. Also, this fight gives Fedor a reason to train because Josh has talked a lot of shit about Fedor in years past, and it may give Fedor the motivation to come in prepared for Josh.
The next matchup would be Overeem against Daniel Cormier. While it seems weird to have someone as lightly regarded as Cormier taking on Overeem it will answer the one big question about Overeem everyone has had: His ground game. Cormier comes into the fight with the pedigree to put Alistair on his ass, and if Daniel can’t get the fight their then it will answer pundits questions and prove Alistair’s ever evolving MMA game.
Antonio should still be in this competition, but he should be taking on someone the likes of Lavar Johnson. In his last fight, Antonio almost got finished by Light-heavyweight fighter Mike Kyle, who has big hands and a will to win, but is entirely too small for Heavyweight. Luckily Antonio survived and was able to finish his opponent. In a fight against Fedor he would not have made it out of that situation, since Fedor would have submitted him, something Kyle may have been unable to do. In Lavar we get a legit Heavyweight weighing around 251 pounds, and he has knocked out his last 7 opponents. So, if anyone has questions about Antonio’s chin he can answer it here before taking on bigger competition.
In the last matchup, I would have Werdum taking on Kharitonov. While I did not speak highly of him earlier the truth is he has a win over Werdum, even if by split decisions, and Werdum should get something almost better than a title shot. He gets a shot to avenge a loss on his record, something all fighters want to do, and it eases his temperament I am sure he has over not getting what he deserves: A shot at the title.
In the end, all this does is make maybe a less exciting first round, but it will give us a more exciting semifinal round and a very intriguing final. Could you imagine if two fighters like Lavar and Cormier were able to dispatch of the world class talent in this tournament? They would be instant superstars and have the recognition of the MMA community, and have a legit top five standing in their weight division. They would also give the promotion the one thing they lack, a fighter whose fame was birthed from the fights they took in Strikeforce.
Furthermore, this fighter would be exclusive to the organization. I man not saying that they would win the tourney, but if they did they it would be nuts because all draws in the fighting world are built by climbing off the backs of another era’s superstar.