As a quick aside, I just saw a headline that read “Glover Teixeira not backing down from Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.” Well I hope not, since he’s fighting him and all. It’d be weird if they got in the cage and Glover just threw up his hands and left like Scott Burrell during the Yokozuna Bodyslam Challenge.

——-

Strikeforce had a live broadcast on Showtime last Saturday. As usual, very few people watched, but it was an entertaining card none the less.

Full results:

• Jason High def. Nate Moore via submission (R1 0:26)
• Jordan Mein def. Tyler Stinson via Unanimous Decision  (30-27 x 3)
• Jorge Masvidal def. Justin Wilcox via Split Decision (28-29, 29-28, 30-27)
• Ryan Couture def. Joe Duarte via Split Decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
• Pat Healy def. Mizuto Hirota via Unanimous Decision  (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
• Lorenz Larkin def. Robbie Lawler via Unanimous Decision  (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
• Roger Gracie def. Keith Jardine via Unanimous Decision (29-27, 30-27, 30-26)
• Nate Marquardt def. Tyron Woodley via KO (R4 1:39)
• Luke Rockhold def. Tim Kennedy via Unanimous Decision (49-46, 49-46, 49-46)

I’ve no idea why a guy like Jason High isn’t on television, let alone in the first preliminary fight. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Especially since he’s probably next in line (after Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza) to challenge for Rockhold’s Middleweight title. Showtime and Scott Coker have nobody but themselves to blame for the failure of Strikeforce to establish itself as a competing entity.

Larkin and Lawler was entertaining enough, but man, it’s just not fun seeing Robbie Lawler lose anymore. I’m loathe to suggest a guy retire at just thirty years of age, but I will say that he needs to re-evaluate his approach because whatever he’s doing now isn’t cutting it. This makes for his fifth loss in eight fights, which is a damn shame for a guy with that kind of heart.

Roger Gracie was successful in his Middleweight debut, but I wasn’t exactly bowled over with his performance. He was in there against a guy who at his best was a gatekeeper, and those days are long gone for him now. And his stand-up looked really awkward. He was okay once he got to the ground, but if he’s serious about making a go of it at Middleweight and eventually winding up in the UFC, he’s going to get a very unpleasant wake-up call unless he gets serious about expanding his game. You can’t win on BJJ alone. That’s not meant as a knock on BJJ at all; MMA is just a different discipline. We’ve seen fighters with NCAA titles on their resume get out-grappled by guys who didn’t even know wrestling until they were well into their MMA careers (Koscheck and GSP). You can bring aspects of a discipline into MMA as long as you’re conscious of the fact that MMA is a discipline unto itself. You can’t half-ass it, split your time between that and other pursuits, or just expect that doing what you’d do in Abu Dhabi will work against the upper echelon of a weight division.

Nate Marquardt, on the other hand? I’ll be the first to cut into my plate of crow on this one. I didn’t give him much of a chance coming off a sixteen month lay-off and fighting for the first time at 170, especially since he was fairly big for 185. But man, he looked slimmer and more disciplined than we’ve seen him in a long time. If he really is off the TRT and the UFC can put their issues behind them, he might be a legit challenge to GSP.

Not much to say about the main event except that Rockhold’s for real, and I think he’d do fine in the UFC and is probably a top five fighter at Middleweight. Of course, we won’t know until he’s in there against better competition. Which is not to knock Tim Kennedy, who I also think would benefit from a step up in competition.

In short: these cards are fun and all, but we can they just put a fucking bullet in Strikeforce’s head already and absorb these fighters into the UFC? Even the fighters themselves would be better off. And Hell, the UFC has all these slots constantly opening up with injuries and what seems like twenty shows a month. Why not?