View Full Version : Strikeforce 40 / Heavyweight Grand Prix Final | Results **Spoiler**
Main Card
Daniel Cormier def. Josh Barnett via unanimous decision
Gilbert Melendez def. Josh Thomson via split decision
Rafael Cavalcante def. Mike Kyle via submission (guillotine)
Chris Spang def. Nah-Shon Burrell by TKO
Undercard
Isaac Vallie-Flagg def. Gesias Cavalcante by split decision
Guto Inocente def. Virgil Zwicker via unanimous decision
Gian Villante def. Derrick Mehmen via unanimous decision
Quinn Mulhern def. Yuri Villefort via split decision
Bobby Green def. James Terry via split decision
Chris Spang Knocks Out Nah-Shon Burrell
In a brutal 95 seconds of action, Chris Spang utilized a devastating left hook to knock Nah-Shon Burrell down, and then brutalized him from the clinch with knees and elbows in scoring a first-round knockout at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier.
The 24-year-old Swede rebounded from a unanimous decision loss in his last Strikeforce bout to improve to 5-1.
Burrell barely had a chance to get started before the fight was over.
He started the fight off well, with a mix of strikes as Spang circled from the outside. But the bout's complexion changed completely when Spang dropped him with the hook. Though Burrell quickly rebounded to his feet, Spang's accuracy never let him off the hook. According to stats aired by Showtime, Spang landed 44 of 56 strikes (79 percent).
Spang initiated a Muay Thai clinch and crushed him with a series of knees to the face. It appeared that ref Josh Rosenthal could have stopped the fight sooner, as Burrell looked out of it but somehow managed to stay on his feet. Finally, after elbows and uppercuts, Burrell fell down face-first, and Rosenthal waved the fight off.
Burrell fell to 8-2, suffering his first loss in seven fights.
Rafael 'Feijao' Cavalcante Submits Mike Kyle
Revenge was short, brutal and sweet for Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante.The Brazilian, who had lost to Mike Kyle in 2009, avenged the defeat with a swift submission win at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier.
Cavalcante rocked Kyle early in the fight with a knee to the head while Kyle was ducking low. Feijao swarmed for the finish on the ground, but Kyle managed to defend, and as he worked to his feet, Cavalcante snatched his neck and cinched in the guillotine choke.
Kyle held him up for a few seconds, but soon fell to the ground, and Cavalcante turned him over for the tighter, mounted guillotine. Kyle insta-tapped, giving Cavalcante the win.
The former Strikeforce light-heavyweight champ Cavalcante improved to 12-3, and it's possible he will move on to fight for the currently vacant belt.
"If Strikeforce gives me a chance, I want the belt," he said.
Kyle fell to 19-9-1 with 1 no contest.
It took him just 33 seconds.
Gilbert Melendez Scrapes by Josh Thomson In Split Decision
After 15 rounds of fighting between Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson, little is solved. Thomson won the first bout, Melendez won the rematch, and the trilogy fight at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier was nearly a tossup.
In the end, the judges scored it a split decision, with two judges scoring it 48-47 for Melendez and the third scoring it for Thomson 48-47. The fans seemed to believe Thomson deserved the nod, booing the decision.
Melendez had been considered a huge favorite to win handily, coming in as a 6-to-1 favorite.
He had to survive through several difficult situations to win. His most perilous moment came in the fourth, when Thomson scored a takedown, took his back and applied a rear naked choke. While he had his hands locked, he could never fully get his choking arm under Melendez's chin, and so Melendez eventually worked free.
The second half of the fight was definitely Thomson's, as he landed the heavier blows and marked up Melendez's face. The Strikeforce lightweight champ left with a badly swollen left eye after taking several uppercuts and a head kick in the final two frames.
Melendez couldn't really explain what went wrong late.
"I had control and started cupcaking it out there," he said. "It wasn't my best performance.
The early part of the fight belonged to Melendez.
After a slow-paced first round, he began to assert himself in the second. Much of the action came in sudden, violent bursts after periods of respectful distance. Melendez seemed to inch closer in the second round after figuring out the distance, and had the round's best sequence with a flurry, takedown, and strikes against the cage just after Thomson returned to his feet.
Melendez turned up his pace in the third, moving forward and putting Thomson on his heels. Thomson did get a brief takedown, but Melendez popped up to his feet in a flash and responded with a series of uppercuts. Melendez was the volume puncher, but Thomson did land a few power strikes, and by the end of the round, Melendez's right eye began to swell.
One note to the fight was that Thomson suffered multiple eye pokes, but the referee never deducted a point from Melendez. If he had, the scores would have made the fight a majority draw.
That could have led to yet another matchup between the two, a possibility Thomson seemed like he wouldn't dismiss.
"Who wants to see a fourth fight?" he asked afterward.
Melendez improved to 21-2 following his seventh straight win. Thomson fell to 19-5 with 1 no contest.
Daniel Cormier Smashes Josh Barnett, Wins Heavyweight Grand Prix
The Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix winner wasn't even in the field when the tournament began.
Daniel Cormier, considered a prospect in need of more seasoning when the tourney began, announced himself as a rising power on the world scene, smashing through Josh Barnett in cruising to a five-round decision win. Two judges scored it 50-45 while the third scored it 49-46.
By the end of the one-sided fight, Barnett's face was covered in his own blood, and his right eye was black and blue.
I just want to focus on the fact I just beat Josh Barnett," an emotional Cormier said afterward. "One year ago, that's not something I thought I could do."Cormier got out of the blocks quickly, confidently unleashing his striking while targeting multiple spots on Barnett. He easily out-struck Barnett, with the veteran's only shining moment of the opening frame coming with a straight right in the closing seconds.
Unfortunately for Barnett, he hurt his left hand in the same round, saying he broke it while landing a left hook.
"It was killing me but there was no way I was going to stop fighting," said Barnett, who fell to 31-6 after having his eight-fight win streak snapped. "I was going make him earn this."
He did. Cormier rarely found himself in trouble, with the only moment of doubt coming in the fourth, when he had to escape a heel hook attempt. Aside from that it was practically all Cormier, who had a pair of highlight reel slams to go with his striking diversity and power.
In both the second and third rounds, Cormier had Barnett in major trouble after battering him with strikes. Barnett survived each round, but could do little else.
Cormier is now a perfect 10-0 in his young career. He will have to fight one more time in Strikeforce before moving over to the UFC. Providing he wins that bout in the interim, he should become an instant contender.
Barnett faces a murkier future, but given his game performance and a thawed relationship with UFC president Dana White, he's likely to be brought over as well.
Before Saturday night, the longtime veteran Barnett had only lost bouts to a prime Pedro Rizzo, a prime Mirko Cro Cop, and a near-prime Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira. Add Cormier to that list now, as he became the surprise Grand Prix champ.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=bsW7ru1O1Go
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_BIChhnetN8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=w6IM6iJMVrE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=AiRJbvNJte4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7TelE8b0cC4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzjYoS82GOs&feature=player_detailpage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pNSQL1YeL8&feature=player_detailpage
als cormier nog 1 gevecht bij strikeforce heeft, tegen wie zou hij dan moeten vechten? volgens mij hebben ze alle noemenswaardige vechters doorgesluisd naar ufc
En zo ging het toernooi uit als een nachtkaars. En het begon zo mooi.
Ik vond dit toernooi helemaal niet meer interessant nadat AO en Fedor eruit gingen. Maar ik vond dat Daniel Cormier het geweldig heeft gedaan en vond de finale echt een leuke partij! Ik hoop dat Daniel Cormier naar de UFC gaat.
T15Boxing
20-05-2012, 15:13
Ja de 2 favorieten eruit en het duurde allemaal te lang. Maar tenminste hebben we nu nog een top HW erbij die bij JDS-Cain-Overeem club hoort.
wil Barnett z'n gezicht wel eens zien.....
dat zag er na drie rondes al niet uit
Boelly92
21-05-2012, 00:13
wauw na cormier vs silva vondk em al echt een held maar na deze partij ben ik serieus een fan geworden big ups voor cormier heb echt in lange tijd niet zo een fijn gevecht gezien ik heb echt genoten voelde een beetje alsof ik fedor vs big nog aan het kijken was echt vet!
met alle respect tot barnett vond ik dat hij zijn handen aardig laag hield en beetje nonchalant erbij liep..
ik zou het nooit gedaan hebben met iemand die zo hard ken meppen.. maar goed daarom staat hij misschien ook daar en ik hier achter me pc:)
TOP van een wedstrijd!
Hand Surgery Is Next on Daniel Cormier's Agenda
What's next for Daniel Cormier?
That was the question on everyone's mind after he manhandled veteran Josh Barnett to win the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix tournament on Saturday night at the HP Pavilion.
Will he go straight to the UFC, where he'd clearly fit in among the division's elite, or will he fight again in Strikeforce?
The answer, for now: Neither. A visit to the surgeon is on deck before anything else goes down in Cormier's career.
Cormier broke his right hand in the opening stanza of his five-round battle with the former UFC heavyweight champion. It was the same hand he broke when he knocked out Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva in September in the tournament semifinals.
The former Olympic wrestler decided against surgery the first time around, which made for an eight-month stretch between his fights. This time, he wants to let it properly heal.
"I think this time I'm going to take a different approach," Cormier said. "I think I'm going to have surgery on it and get it fixed, because I don't want it to be recurring and then end up costing me later and later on down the line."
Cormier never bothered telling his corner that he thought his hand was broken. Instead, the early injury forced him to improvise.
"You're in a fight, you have to use all your weapons," said Cormier. "That's why I was kicking, I was punching, I was kneeing him in there. Josh is too good to fight handicapped. I don't think my coaches picked up on [the injury] because I didn't tell them. I just kept fighting."
That approach led to an epiphany for the undefeated American Kickboxing Academy star during the second round, which led to the fight turning to his favor for good.
"The biggest surprise was when I took him down in the second round and just kind of stayed here," Cormier said. "It was very surprising to me how easy it was to stay in his guard, he's such a good leg lock guy that I thought maybe he would let me pass through his half-guard or something.
"I made an adjustment in the fight when I realized he was going to allow me to control him on the bottom. It was a little easier with my strikes when I realized he was going to respect my takedowns. It changed things a little bit."
Still, Cormier was impressed with the toughness displayed by his opponent, who wasn't at the post-fight press conference.
"Josh did a great job," Cormier said. "He fought tough, he fought hard, he was in there in my face the whole time. I couldn't believe some of the shots that I landed in there, especially the two head kicks. I couldn't believe that he stayed up."
Cormier has one fight left on his Strikeforce contract. He hopes to fight again in 2012. No one would speculate as to whom Cormier would meet. After all, who knows what Strikeforce will look like six months down the road? Cormier simply wishes to focus on getting healthy.
"Normally when you get surgery you get it to heal faster," he said. "It's not as bad as it was the first time, because the first time, I could hardly I even move it."
And besides, Cormier has been through far worse predicaments in life than a broken hand, both in competition, where he came up short in several international wrestling meets, and more importantly, in his personal life, where he has coped with quite a bit of tragedy. The heavyweight, who was emotional in the cage after the win, waxed philosophical during the press conference.
"When you think about everyone's trials and tribulations, for me, getting knocked down and getting back up, it made me a stronger person," Cormier said. "Everything's turned back around. Not only is my career going great, but I have two young kids, a great girlfriend, it's just everything is on the up and up right now."
"Now matter how bad things get, eventually the sun is going to shine. "If you just keep it at, pursuing your goals, eventually good things happen to decent people. For a person who is set on his goals, good things happen. Everyone deals with adversity. It's how you bounce back from it."
Josh Thomson Felt He Was a 49-47 Winner Over Gilbert Melendez
The majority opinion in the HP Pavilion press room after Saturday night's Strikeforce event was Gilbert Melendez won the first three rounds of his lightweight championship fight against Josh Thomson, with the challenger taking the last two rounds.
Thomson, who lost the bout on a split decision (Melendez took two of three 48-47 scores), didn't see it that way.
At the post-fight press conference, Thomson said that if he was the one filling out a scorecard, it would have gone 49-47 in his favor. In his view, the first five minutes were a draw, Melendez won round two, and Thomson won the final three rounds.
"I fight like the first round was a 10-10 round," said Thomson. "I should have went out and got it. It's my fault I left it in the judges hands. The third was a close round too, I thought I won that one, and then the fourth and the fifth. But, you know, whatever."
Thomson's best shot at winning came during the fourth round, when he got Melendez in several rear-naked chokes. But he wasn't able to get the job done, as Melendez fended off the submission attempts as time ran out in the round.
"The first one was probably close," said Thomson. "The rest of them, I was just trying to reach his chin. He's hard to submit. I trained with him for two-and-a-half years, I maybe subbed him two times that entire time. He's a tough man, he's almost impossible to finish. ... He's one of the greatest mentally strong fighters out there, that's what makes him so great."
Thus ends a trilogy that began with Thomson taking Melendez's title in a 2008 upset and continued the following year with Melendez winning the rematch. As far as Strikeforce's Scott Coker is concerned, Melendez-Thomson belongs among the great fight trilogies.
"I personally can watch this fight every month," Coker said. "It's going to go down in history as one of the great [trilogies] in the history of mixed martial arts. It reminds me of one of those great battles, let's say ‘Sugar' Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns or Frankie Edgar vs. Gray Maynard. These guys have the chemistry to bring it. They both brought their A game tonight, it was an amazing fight, I'm proud of both of them."
While Thomson wasn't happy with the judges' scoring, the American Kickboxing Academy fighter still saw the bright side of fighting in front of his home fans.
"I started fighting in '98 for, like, $100," said Thomson. "With what I'm getting paid now, I mean of course I love it. I don't want to get a real job ever."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=P_qpgEQPRoA
jezus.. die kop van barnett net een mijnenveld o.0
Ja Barnett is er NOG lelijker uitgekomen dan dattie erin ging!
Josh Barnett, Glibert Melendez Lead Payroll for Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier
Former UFC heavyweight champion Josh Barnett come up on the losing end of his battle with Daniel Cormier in the finals of the heavyweight grand prix Saturday, but he's also the highest paid athlete on the fight card according to commission-reported salaries.
Barnett took home $200,000 for his efforts. Right behind him is Strikeforce lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, who pocketed $175,000 after besting Josh Thomson by split decision at Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier. Despite winning, the commission did not report Melendez took home a win bonus for his efforts.
At the bottom end of the financial ladder, Yuri Villefort only managed to earn $2,500 in his loss to grappling-centric Quin Mulhern. Virgil Zwicker, Derrick Mehman both took home $3,000 while Guto Inocente earned $4,000 after earning a $2,000 win bonus.
Please note that salaries reported by Strikeforce to the commission do not necessarily reflect a fighter's actual earnings, once other possible bonuses and sponsorship money is factored in.
The list of full payouts from Saturday's event listed below:
James Terry $9,000
Bobby Green $12,00 ($6,000, $6,000 bonus)
Quinn Mulhern $12,00 ($6,000, $6,000 bonus)
Yuri Villefort $2,500
Gian Villante $24,000 ($12,000, $12,000 bonus)
Derrick Mehman $3,000
Virgil Zwicker $3,000
Guto Inocente $4,000 ($ 2,000, $2,000 bonus)
Gesias Cavalcante $18,000
Isaac Vallie-Flagg $6,000 ($3,000, $3,000 bonus)
Nah-Shon Burrell $7,000
Christopher Spang $12,000 ($6,000, $6,000 bonus)
Mike Kyle $25,000
Rafael Cavalcante $66,000 ($33,000, $33,000 bonus)
Josh Thomson $90,000
Gilbert Melendez $175,000
Josh Barnett $200,000
Daniel Cormier $100,000 ($50,000, $50,000 bonus)
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