Strikeforce: Diaz vs Cyborg Recap

Excellent night of fights put on by Strikeforce tonight in San Jose, CA.  I know I didn’t get to post a preview of the card but I did go 2-0 tonight, bringing me up to 10-5 for the year.  All of you following me on twitter can attest that I posted my picks an hour before the fights kicked off.  Let’s get right into the fights:

Roger Gracie vs. Trevor Prangley – One of the twitter picks for you tonight with Gracie a -200 favorite.  Much improved striking skills from Gracie in this fight.  He looked relaxed and confident in his movements.  Apparently Gracie spent time training with Georges St. Pierre before this fight to work on setting up his takedown attempts through his striking and it paid dividends.  Roughly 90 seconds into the fight Gracie secured a clinch and used a nice trip to get Prangley to the mat and from there it was a pretty academic affair.  He controlled Prangley in top position and eventually took his back and tapped him out via a rear naked choke.  It was a smart match up to progress Gracie’s career in only his fourth fight.  Prangley, a veteran of 30 career fights, offers very little in striking except for some wild power and his grappling skills are nonexistent when compared to a world champion jiu jitsu practitioner like Gracie.  For Gracie to prove that he has the chance to be the real deal he had to finish a journeyman like Prangley in the 1^st round and that’s exactly what he did.  Impressive performance

Herschel Walker vs. Scott Carson – It’s amazing that Herschel Walker can physically look exactly the same at 48 that he did 20 years earlier when playing in the NFL.  The man is just an athletic specimen.  His 2^nd career fight saw him matched up with 40 year old Scott Carson (4-1) who ultimately offered little resistance.  Carson grazed Walker with a head kick in the opening seconds and that triggered an onslaught from Walker.  He dropped Carson with a solid right hand and quickly took a dominant top position.  Walker opted to maintain a control position from Carson’s back rather then attempt to sink his hooks in to gain a more dominant position.  This was probably a product of his comfort level with his jiu jitsu skills at this early stage in him MMA career and not wanting to risk making a mistake and potentially wind up fighting off his back.  Reminded me of the Brock Lesnar vs. Heath Herring fight when Lesnar was content to just use his wrestling and keep a control position when Herring repeatedly gave him his back and just land punches rather then attempt a submission.  That is exactly what Walker did for most of the round until Carson did manage to get back to his feet and was promptly flattened with a hard left hand leading to a TKO win for Walker.

Walker has certainly impressed in his two fights thus far even though his competition has been less then stellar.  He has so much raw athletic ability that it is frightening.  If he was 28 instead of 48 he could have developed into a top tier fighter but unfortunately he got such a late start that father time just isn’t on his side.

Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza vs. “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler – This was the second of my picks tonight with Souza being the favorite at -210.  Lawler came out to the ring rocking a Hillbilly Jim type beard for this middleweight title fight and unfortunately for him that beard and one flurry late in the 1^st round were just about all the highlights he had.  The 1^st round saw Souza dominate most of the action and do a great job of keeping his lead foot on the outside of Lawler’s which is key to controlling a southpaw.  Wasn’t long before Souza got a take down, moved to side control and looked like it could be a short night for Lawler.  However, Lawler got back to his feet and rocked Souza with a few hard kicks and knees and nearly finished the fight.  I gave that round 10-9 to Lawler.  The 2^nd and 3^rd rounds saw most of the action take place on the ground which spelled doom for Lawler.  Souza dominated him to win the 2^nd round 10-9 and nearly finish the fight with armbar attempts at the end of the round but Lawler did a tremendous job of fighting them off.  When he got Lawler to the ground again in the 3^rd he submitted him with a rear naked choke.  The best fighters to translate world class Brazilian Jiu Jitsu skills to MMA are: 1) Souza, 2) Damian Maia 3) Roger Gracie.  Souza’s striking looked improved in this fight and you can tell the training with Anderson Silva has certainly helped in that area.  Been fun to watch him get better with each successive fight and look forward to his next title defense.

Nick Diaz vs. Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos – The 1^st round was the round of the year so far.  It started with Cyborg pounding Diaz’s lead leg into hamburger with vicious inside leg kicks.  Diaz wasn’t even attempting to check them and he paid the price but as the fight wore on you could see him making a concerted effort to pick them off.  The last half of the round saw Diaz teeing off on Cyborg with jabs, straight lefts, and combinations to the head and body.  The bell sounded to a thunderous standing ovation from the crowd.  In a tight round I had it 10-9 for Diaz.  It seemed clear that part of Diaz’s strategy was to let Cyborg punch and kick himself out early in the rounds and take advantage of his notoriously low gas tank.  It worked well in that 1^st round but the 2^nd round saw Cyborg able to maintain a good pace and out strike Diaz for virtually the entire round.  However with 30 seconds left in the round, Cyborg took Diaz down with a trip and that turned out to be the worst thing he could have done.  We’ve all seen how dangerous Diaz is from his back and sure enough he rolled and locked up an armbar and forced Cyborg to tap with just 10 seconds left in the round.   I’m not a big fan of Nick Diaz, mainly for the way he acts towards his opponents and the lack of respect that shows to the sport, but I have to say he was unpretentious in his post fight interview.  Here is hoping that is a new trend for Nick but something tells me not to hold my breath.

By Jim McClelland.  Thank you for reading and you can reach with me feedback by sending me an email at jimmymac895@live.com.   You can also follow me on twitter @therealMMAguru.