CBS Strikeforce Saturday Night Fights 4/17 Preview

CBS Strikeforce Saturday Night Fights
Saturday, April 17
Nashville, Tennessee

I was looking at my DVR this week and was shocked at just how much MMA is scheduled for this week. On Wednesday Spike TV has the latest episode of The Ultimate Fighter and a new Pride show, on Thursday Bellator is on Fox Sports (or one of those channels in the 640s of my DirecTV), on Friday HDNet brings us the latest King of the Cage with Ray Mercer and Jeremy Horn and on Saturday is the big Strikeforce show on CBS. The last time Strikeforce was on CBS was the Fedor/Brett Rogers show and Fedor went over big and even had ESPN anchors name dropping him when discussing football highlights. It will be interesting to see how they do this time without Fedor or a non-traditional draw like a Herschel Walker or Bobby Lashley that were both rumored for this card at one point or another. Strikeforce has an all-star card for the hardcore MMA fans with Dan Henderson/Jake Shields, Gegard Mousasi/King Mo Lawal, and Gilbert Melendez/Shinya Aoki. Jason “Mayhem” Miller of MTVs Bully Beatdown has been added to the under card in a fight that should be shown on the show but with 3 title fights scheduled for five five minute rounds you never know how much time they will have left on the broadcast. I think the best thing about this card is that I can look at the top 3 fights and I can see all 6 fighters winning and I’m truly interested in seeing all 3 of these fights. It should be a really good night of fights. Let’s take a look at the top 3 fights on this card.

Strikeforce Lightweight Championship: Gilbert Melendez (17-2) vs. Shinya Aoki (23-4)

Shinya Aoki is the challenger in this fight and in my book he has to be considered the favorite. Aoki has developed over the last few years into someone I thought of as a boring fighter to someone who starting snapping opponents arms and not thinking twice about it. Aoki has always been a gifted jiu jitsu practitioner but now that he has the attitude to go with it he is going to be trouble for anybody he’s fighting. Aoki has won his last 3 fights since he tried moving up in weight and got destroyed by Hayato Sakari at DREAM 8. Over the last two years Aoki has beaten a who’s who of MMA lightweights in Eddie Alvarez, Gesias Calvalcante, Joachim Hansen, Vitor Ribeiro, Caol Uno and Mizuto Hirota. Aoki has finished 5 of his last 6 wins and 4 of those have been by submission. Aoki has a 60% submission rate in his wins.

Gilbert Melendez started his career by winning 13 straight fights including wins over Clay Guida and Tasuya Kawajiri. Melendez then dropped 2 of his next 3 fights as he fell to Mitsuhiro Ishida and Josh Thomson. Melendez’s last two victories have been over the only two men who have defeated him. Now that’s impressive, not many MMA fighters can boast that they have came back and re-claimed victories against the only men who defeated them. Without inside knowledge of Melendez it looked like he just got unfocused for a while and after watching his last 3 fights it seems like he is re-focused and back on track.

Melendez has a huge advantage in the stand-up game and Melendez also has a strong wrestling base. Aoki’s only shot in this fight is to get this fight to the ground and take over with his superior jiu jitsu or come up with some amazing flying submission. Based on that I have to go with Melendez on this fight. I see Melendez keeping this fight standing and finishing Aoki by TKO. Although I must admit that it feels funny typing that I’m confident that Melendez is going to finish the #1 Lightweight in the world (Aoki was pretty much thought of as #2 to B.J. Penn and now that Penn has been beaten due to controversial decision I have to think Aoki jumps up to the #1 spot). Styles make fights and this one figures to be a chess match. Melendez desperate to keep the fight standing and Aoki desperate to get into positions to use his jiu jitsu.

Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Championship: Gegard Mousasi (c) (28-2-1) vs. Mo Lawal (6-0)

Mousasi introduced himself to Strikeforce fans by decimating their champion Renato “Babalu” Sobral in just one minute. Fans of the DREAM promotion in Japan were not surprised at all as they had already seen Mousasi beat Denis Kang, Melvin Manhoef and Jacare Souza. Mousasi is on a 15 fight win streak and has not lost since 2006 (submitted by Akihiro Gono via arm bar in Pride). Mousasi’s strength is his standup and lightning quick hands but he also is decent on the ground and has a good bottom game (just ask Jacare about that!).

King Mo Lawal is one of the most charismatic fighters in MMA and he’s a guy that I think could really help put Strikeforce on the map as he’s much more marketable than Mousasi and guys like Dan Henderson and Jake Shields. Mo has a decorated past in wrestling. Just check Wikipedia, he was a stud. Mo is still very young in the MMA game. He’s beat guys like Travis Wiuff, Mike Whitehead and Mark Kerr. So he’s faced some veterans but he’s been relatively untested and has certainly not faced anyone with the type of skill that Mousasi has. Mo has finished 5 of his 6 wins by TKO.

Mousasi has the advantage standing in this fight but Mo is a superior wrestler and I think that’s the weak spot in Mousasi’s game if he has one. I really like both of these young fighters so I’m going to be cheering for a great competitive fight but I just think that Mousasi has too much skill right now for Mo to handle. Mo’s biggest opportunity to win this fight is to get Mousasi to the ground and ground him out but I see Mousasi being able to catch Mo and land a barrage of his quick strikes to seal the deal in this one. Give Lawal another year or two and he’ll be too much for Mousasi to handle. Really good match-up as I put these two guys up there with Jon “Bones” Jones of the UFC as Light Heavyweights that will be making their mark in this sport for a long time.

Strikeforce Middleweight Championship: Jake Shields (c) (24-4-1) vs. Dan Henderson (25-7)

Former Pride champion Dan Henderson is the man that CBS and Strikeforce are marketing this night of fights around as he’s the most experienced and well known fighter fighting on this card. That being said, I really don’t see Dan as being very marketable. I like Dan Henderson as much as the next guy but his highest profile win in the last 2 years was against Michael Bisping (yes he beat Rich Franklin but that was a split decision and nobody remembers it). If Dan Henderson was that marketable the UFC would have kept him. That being said, Dan Henderson is still a very good fighter with his biggest strength being his wrestling as well as his punching power (at least that’s what Michael Bisping tells me).

Jake Shields is a skilled jiu jitsu fighter who has an uncanny ability to control his opponents. He frustrated Mayhem Miller on his way to a decision victory at the last CBS show. Shields is on a 13 fight winning streak that includes Mayhem, Robbie Lawler, Paul Daley, Yushin Okami, Toby Imada and Carlos Condit but Dan Henderson is clearly the top fighter that Shields has faced.

In 5 of his last 7 wins Henderson has won by decision. Shields has finished 8 of his last 9 fights but they’ve all been against fighters of a lesser caliber than Henderson. Henderson has the better boxing in this match-up (but Robbie Lawler had the advantage here against Shields and that didn’t help him) and has the better wrestling so he should have the ability to stop Shields take downs. If I was a betting man I would go with Henderson here by decision but would not be surprised to see Shields pull this one out.