Fight of the Night: Henderson vs Fedor. There is no question here. All one round of that fight was great. Now normally there might be some trepidation at putting a one round fight as fight of the night, but not tonight. The rest of the card was pathetic. Even the recap was exceptionally boring. As for the fight itself, both Fedor and Henderson rocked each other. Neither had ever been knocked out, but Fedor's chin surprisingly gave way first before the 40 year old Henderson's.
KO of the Night: There was only one tonight and Henderson's KO of Fedor was the one. It was a spectacular one hitting Fedor flush with a shot going under the arm from the side after a scramble. Not many Ko's will ever be seen like that.
Submission of the Night: Miesha Tate submits Marloes Coenen with an arm-triangle. I have to say this was surprising. Coenen, while having no takedown defense is a very good submission artist with strong defense. Her getting submitted by a simple arm-triangle, even against an accomplished grappler like Tate, is shocking.
Worst of the Night: Everything else. Where do I start? Let's just do this in list form. It will be easier to follow.
Scott Smith is a shot fighter. At 32 years old. His movement looked like he was 52 and he did nothing in the fight until his opponent went to the Kalib Starnes running man defense the last 30 seconds.
Tarec Saffedine has no power whatsoever. Anyone with any power at all would have knocked out Smith tonight. Considering he is, by his original trade, a kickboxer, Saffedine is never going to finish anyone. On top of that, he ran scared to secure his decision victory for the last minute.
Tyron Woodley is someone who I have no interest in ever watching fight again. His performance, while effective, was a pathetic display of everything wrong with the rules that currently favor wrestlers by prioritizing positional control. Woodley went for takedowns, threw strikes only from safe positions, and held Daley down. He even won the first round without completing a takedown after holding Daley against the cage because he nullified Daley's offense (I would argue it might should have been a 10-10 round). This was just miserable.
As for Daley, he looked like he forgot you need to throw punches to win until it was far too late. Even from the bottom when he was there, Daley did nothing. He threw no strikes and made no attempts at anything until late in the 3rd round other than trying to stay on his feet. Too bad too as Henderson showed what can happen if someone with power connects, even from an awkward striking position.
Afterward, Woodley bored us once again in his interview. We did get some unintentional entertainment from his mother screaming at cageside about thanking God for the decision victory. It was amusing and totally out of place. It also showed all the ways people don't like having faith shoved down their throats and brought up in certain situations. Even as a Christian myself, I though her screaming about it was over the top, especially since she could be heard in the cage during her son's interview.
Next up, we had Robbie Lawler fighting with no urgency against Tim Kennedy. Of course, we already knew that would happen given that Lawler fell asleep during the press conference to hype the fight on Thursday.
As for Kennedy, he fought well, then gave an uncomforatable interview about how bleeding and cuts don't matter and then playing to his military rooots to get a big pop from the crowd, pro wrestling style. Ugh.
In the midst of all of this, the announcing crew of Gus Johnson, Mauro Ranallo and Frank Shamrock was worse than they have ever been. Maybe this was because I was paying attention more to them with the cards, but they were miserable tonight. Shamrock, not every round is close. Gus, you don't have to get excited like the end of an NCAA Tournament game for simple grappling positions in undercard fights. Mauro, normally I would be annoyed with your bad puns and catchphrases, but tonight it wasn't so bad. The catchphrases gave us on twitter much to laugh about, the only good thing we had during the first three fights on this card.
Final thoughts: The Tate-Coenen title fight was decent and the main event was stellar. That said, it still doesn't wash the taste of the first three fights out of my mouth. I honestly have no interest in seeing any of the first three winners fight ever again. That is a problem for Strikeforce going forward because I know I'm not the only one and these guys are the likely contenders for Strikeforce belts in the future.
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