MMA's 3R’s 11.09.09: Strikeforce Challengers IV

Posted by Larry Csonka on 11.09.2009

From Shane Del Rosario’s awesome omoplata victory and Luke Rockhold taking out JT money to the poor commentary of Al Bernstein and idiots missing weight, 411’s Larry Csonka breaks it all down in the latest edition of the 3R’s of MMA!



* The Column Concept *
For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of the column, here it is. The column will look at events and or happenings in the world of MMA. They will be broken down into the three categories, the Right, the wRong and the Ridiculous. The Right will be the good and great fights or positive news items of the week. Perhaps even big fight announcements. The wRong will be bad fights, bad booking decisions and the like. Finally, the Ridiculous are the things that were just the worst of the world of MMA. They get grouped in their categories, and for a show, they will get a score from 1-10, based on the 411 ratings scale.


* And now, the 3R's of…



STRIKEFORCE CHALLENGERS IV*

THE RIGHT:

Luke Rockhold (5-1) vs. Jesse Taylor (13-4): Luke Rockhold is a guy that has been getting some buzz in the Strikeforce scene. His impressive submission victories have gotten him that attention, but now he was stepping into the cage with a more experienced fighter. Taylor, JT Money to his friends, stated that he would make this a stand up war, and I bet that he wishes he had. He almost immediately went for the takedown, and while he had some momentary success, Rockhold's superior submission skills came into play, and he eventually figure foured the body and locked in the RNC for the seemingly easy win. Rockhold is fun to watch, and is in a division with some good talent: Shields, Miller, Jacre, Villasenor, Kennedy, Lawler, Le, Shamrock, Smith. Hopefully he gets to move up in competition, I would say Villasenor for now, so see how he can do there. I won't call him the next coming, but thus far, he has been very impressive.

Brandon Cash (5-0) vs. Shane Del Rosario (8-0): I am a big fan of Shane Del Rosario. When I was doing the news column, he was one of the subjects of the "why aren't they in the UFC" deals I would do. He has been away from the US MMA scene for a bit, but is now back with Strikeforce, which is a good thing. But he was facing undefeated Brandon Cash MONEY, a dude who had buzz for his strength and punching power. Well, Del Rosario felt the power as he was DROPPED quickly, Cash hit the button and the ass whooping was on. Cash did about everything he could to finish it, and at one point the ref was about to stop it. But much to his credit, Del Rosario stayed composed and got the fight under control. Cash would get him to the ground again, and Del Rosario began trying for triangles and arm bars, but Cash had too much power still and was able to escape. Unfortunately for him, he didn't see the slick ass OMOPLATA from Del Rosario coming, and he would tap out. These are the fights that prove the guys with potential to the flashes in the pan. Del Rosario survived a huge onslaught and was able to come back and win in impressive fashion, WAR SHANE. Cash has size and potential, but needs work on the ground.

Billy Evangelista (9-0-1ND) vs. Jorge Gurgel (13-5): I was looking forward to the main event of the show. Gurgel is always up for a wild scrap, abandons his ground game and doesn't seem to care if he loses. Not smart, but fun. He wants to put on a wild fight, and that tends to lead to fun, ala his last fight. Billy Evangelista has a lot of potential as a lightweight, and it has been fun to watch him develop. I thought that they had a great fight, much closer than the scores led you to believe. Gurgel fought hard, and honestly, was just too late with some of his action. He busted Evangelista badly near the end of the fight, and if that would have happened earlier in the fight, who knows if Evangelista survived that cut and blood loss. I thought Gurgel did enough to take the fight, albeit it was very close, but the judges saw it for Evangelista. This was not a bad decision at all, it was very close, and could have gone either way no problem. Evangelista is an up and comer, but I feel he needs a few more fights before we can trumpet him as a top contender for the title. Speaking of that, the only thing I really didn't like about the fight was Miletich and his constant claims that the winner of the fight was a clear-cut lightweight title contender. That would be true if they were fighting at lightweight, as originally scheduled. But somewhere along the way it got changed to a 160-pound catchweight bout. Wins are important, but making weight and winning in the weight class you are supposedly a contender in is more important, in my eyes.

puRgartoRy:

Thomas Diagne (1-0) vs. Merritt Warren (4-2): The lightweight bout between Thomas Diagne vs. Merritt Warren wasn't a bad fight, but just didn't seem as exciting as the previously discussed bouts. Diagne came out strong, got the big slam and seemed in control, until he Lesdar'd himself and got caught in a heel hook and had to tap. It was a good recovery from Warren, but overall I have to admit that nothing impressed me here. This wasn't bad by any means, but also not that great.

Zoila Frausto (3-0) vs. Elisha Helspur (0-1): As a fan of women's MMA, I was glad to see a ladies fight on the card. But while some new names got to shine, it was far from great. Don't get me wrong, the fight was NOT bad, but it was unfortunately about what you would expect from fighters with these records. They were extremely tentative for much of the fight, not wanting to engage and commit. Frausto would take the decision victory, which featured a sweet high kick to the face of Helspur, which cut her open. Frausto has a lot of potential. A crisp and diverse striking game was starting to show through, but she will need to work the ground game if she wants to become a contender anytime soon. It wasn't a bad opening to the show, but they just seemed too scared at times to engage, Frausto was the hometown girl and that did help from a crowd perspective. Also, the poor officiating with the bullshit standup did not help the fight, and hurt any chances that Helspur had.

THE wRong:

Al Bernstein, Stephen Quadros and Pat Miletich: There are not many times where I will discuss the commentary of an event, I mean, it has to be pretty damn bad for me to want to single it out and discuss it, but that is what we have here. Mauro and Shamrock were in Chicago prepping for the big Saturday show, which left Stephen Quadros and Pat Miletich without a lead announcer. They would cal on boxing guru Al Bernstein to fill the void. With all due respect to Al Bernstein, and I do mean that because I am a fan of his work in boxing, but he is simply NOT a good MMA announcer. He stumbled over himself repeatedly, and basically did NOT lead the commentary team well. Say what you will about Mauro, because I know a lot of people do not like him, but he leads and holds the team together. Quadros didn't play off of him well, and Miletich was more concerned with his opinion and never really added much to the fights. The commentary was disjointed and honestly quite annoying most of the time, and took away from some of the action.

CUTTING THINGS SHORT: The one thing that tends to piss me off about shows is when they end early, not 10-15 minutes early, but something like, 30-minutes early like the Strikeforce event did. There is no excuse to end the show that early WHEN you have fights that you can air. Now while this wasn't a PPV I do consider it a rip off when that happens. In the prelim bouts, there were TWO fights that ended in the first round at around the two-minute mark that they could have aired.

* Cole Escovedo def. Maurice Eazel via TKO (strikes) - Round 1, 1:47
* Casy Olson def. Chris Culley via TKO (strikes) - Round 1, 2:32

The company seems to have this stance on not airing prelims, which I think is a shame, because when you have the time afforded to you, you should realty try and fill it.

THE Ridiculous:

PEOPLE MISSING WEIGHT!: I know that people will say that they are sick of hearing this from me, but I AM SICK of guys missing weight. Chris Culley, an undercard fighter looking to make an impression and possibly earn a contract showed up nearly five pounds overweight. He was only able to cut a few, and would go into his fight at 148.5 for a 145-pound fight. Sure he was fined 20% of his purse, but it was simply bullshit. I really hate when guys miss weight, do your damn job. Let's get some more serious punishments in here for missing weight, can we please? Once again, I beg that we have either same day weigh-ins, or a second day weigh-in to where you cannot re-hydrate more than 10-pounds. I am sick about hearing about the "science of cutting weight", guys need to fight closer to their walk around weight, because weight cutting is very dangerous. Ask Daniel Cormier.

* The 411 *

Overall the latest edition of Challengers was a pretty good night of fights. A solid women's bout, Merrit Warren wins with a heel hook, Luke Rockhold proves that he is for real as he easily handles JT Money and got yet another submission via RNC. Cash vs. Del Rosario was balls to the wall with Del Rosario surviving the storm to come out with a sweet omolata victory, just great. Finally, while not as great as they tried to make it out to be, Evangelista vs. Gurgel was a damn fine main event that never slowed down. In the end, the show was good, not great, but the Challengers series continues to be fun addition to Strikeforce.

SHOW RATING: 6.75

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KYRA says goodbye…