Strikeforce Heavy Artillery Preview
by Carlos Santana

Antwain ‘the Juggernaut’ Britt 11-3 vs Rafael ‘Feijao’ Cavalcante 8-2

Britt makes his second appearance in Strikeforce after dismantling Scott Lighty in his last match. Training with the Hybrid Academy of Martial Arts in Virginia Beach, VA, Britt was a contestant on TUF8 where he fought his way into the house but was forced to withdraw due to a broken hand. He has wins over Wayne Cole, Antonio Mendes, Carmelo Marrero, Richard Hale, and Lighty with losses to Bryan Vetell, Jamal Patterson, and Rodney Wallace. His win over Mendes lasted only 8 seconds and 9 of his 11 wins have come by way of TKO.

Feijao is a training partner of Anderson Silva, the Nogueira brothers, Lyoto Machida, Jose Aldo and the plethora of talented fighters at the Black House. A former IFL and EliteXC fighter, Feijao stringed together a 7-1 record including wins over Eduardo Maiorino, Devin Cole, Wayne Cole and Travis Galbraith was inked to challenge Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral for the Strikeforce LHW belt until Babalu had to withdraw. Feijao suffered an upset loss to his new opponent, Mike Kyle, which derailed his title aspirations momentarily. A dominant performance in which he displayed strong ground skills to match his lethal striking abilities against Aaron Rosa put him back in the win column after his last match

This may be the most difficult match to pick a winner in. Both guys have KO power, Britt from afar with his hands and Feijao from inside with his knees. It will be either a very fun or exciting match to watch or a very boring one in which too much respect is given to mount much offence. Britt’s powerful hands will keep Feijao using feints and head movement to try to create an opportunity to get into clinching range and ultimately to the ground, where Feijao would have a grappling advantage and improve positioning en route to a TKO GNP win.

Roger Gracie 2-0 vs Kevin ‘the Monster’ Randleman 17-14

The Monster is a 2-time NCAA D-1 wrestling champion as well as the former UFC HW champion. Having fought a who’s who of MMArtists throughout his career in the UFC and PRIDE, Kevin is making his Strikeforce debut and his return to the cage after over a year, as a matter of fact; this will be his 3rd straight fight with more than one year of inactivity between fights. Losses have come to many legends of the sport such as bas Rutten, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson, Sakuraba, Fedor Emelianenko, CroCop, and Shogun while Randleman has been victorious over the likes of Maurice Smith, Pedro Rizzo, Babalu Sobral, Ninja Rua, and his biggest victory, a KO over CroCop. Randleman is obviously an excellent wrestler. As a former member of the Hammer House, he wrestled with the likes of Mark Coleman and Phil Baroni, but never evolved to be much more than a top controlling opportunist. His claim to fame may actually be for the surprising hook that took CroCop down and the infamous Randle-plex in which he suplexed Fedor onto the top of his head, in what looked like the most devastating MMA move ever, only to be promptly swept and submitted via kimura. Randleman has also battled various injuries throughout his career, ranging from shoulder injuries to a serious staph infection and severe kidney illnesses. Following his fight with Shogun, he was suspended by the NSAC for submitting fake, hormone-less urine samples, because the painkillers and antibiotics in his system following these illnesses would have prevented him from fighting. The Monster is coming back after suffering back-to-back losses against Mike Whitehead and Stanislov Nedkov.

Roger Gracie is a 2nd degree BJJ black belt with the most impressive BJJ pedigree in the game. In 2005 he became the first person to submit all 8 opponents on his way to claiming the ADCC Submission World Championship in both his weight division and open-weight. He is also an 8 time Mundial's champion, winning his weight class 6 times and open-weight twice. At 6’4”, and 220 lbs, Gracie the Gracie’s great heavy hope. He holds MMA wins over Ron Waterman and Yuki Kondo and will be making his promotional debut.

It’s no secret that Randleman would probably rather battle another ridiculous case of staph than hit the mat with Gracie, so don’t expect to see any of Randleman’s former wrestling glory in this fight. Kevin will likely just try to land bombs from the outside. Gracie will just have to stay on his toes and wait for Kevin to load one up before picking an ankle and scoring a takedown. Expect Roger to slice through Randleman’s guard like a hot knife through butter on his way to mount before trying to end with some GNP, causing Kevin to leave a flailing limb exposed and manipulated into anything Gracie wishes.

Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza 11-2 1NC vs Joey ‘Smokin Joe’ Villasenor 27-6

Jacare is a BJJ wizard, with some pretty hefty accomplishments in the grappling world. He is the 2005 ADCC 77-87 KG division winner, the 2004 and 2005 Openweight World Jiu-Jitsu champ, and the 2005 ADCC Absolute runner-up, losing to Roger Gracie who outweighed Souza by at least 25 lbs. After losing his first MMA match by KO to Jorge Patino, Souza rebounded with a 10 fight win streak, including wins over Alexander Schlemenko, Ian Murphy, Mayhem Miller, and Zelg Galesic which earned him a spot in the DREAM MW Grand Prix finals, where an up kick Gegard Mousasi scrambled Jacare’s senses and left him the runner-up. A rematch with Mayhem followed for Jacare, who out-grappled the preposterous pugilist in their first match. With Miller winning the standing portions of the fight and Jacare able secure good takedowns, the fight ended abruptly when Miller blasted Souza with a soccer kick and opened up a gash on the head of the BJJ specialist. Following a stalemate grappling match with MMA legend, Randy Couture, Souza was invited to join the team at Xtreme Couture. Souza took advantage of what he learned with Couture to strengthen his stand up and wrestling skills before migrating to Saulo and Xande Ribeiro in San Diego and eventually making his way to the Black House in L.A. with the Brazilian dream team of Anderson Silva, Jose Aldo, the Nogueira brothers and Lyoto Machida amongst others. Jacare showed his grappling skills in the cage last with a 1st round arm triangle submission win over Matt Lindland.

Joey is a very well respected veteran of the sport that doesn’t get as much fame and recognition as he should. Smokin Joe has and defeated Tim Credeur, Todd Carneys, Jorge Santiago, Kyacey Uscola, David Loiseau, Ryan Jensen, Phil Baroni, and most recently scored a tough win over Evangelista Santos. He has losses to David Terrell, Ryo Chonan, Robbie Lawler, and Ninja Rua (in the EliteXC MW championship) Using very good boxing and BJJ training out of Jackson’s Camp in New Mexico, Joey has amasses 12 TKO wins and 10 submission wins. He was the King of the Cage MW champ and calls Holly Holm, probably the world’s best female welterweight boxer, his girlfriend.

Jacare’s two losses have come by way of KO; once to punches and once by a well placed upkick from Mousasi. He is amazing on the ground and has great takedowns from the clinch. Joey will need to use his jabs and movement to keep Jacare off balance and look for the right angles to land solid shots off Souza’s head before Souza takes him down. It will probably start slow with a feeling out process, but expect Jacare to close the distance once he gets Joey’s timing down and grab a clinch takedown. Once the fight hits the mat, it’s like fighting an alligator in the swamp, only as matter of time before you hear the snap. Jacare by submission in 2 sets up a potential title fight, if Shields sticks around.

Andrei ‘the Pitbull’ Arlovski 15-7 vs Antonio ‘Bigfoot’ Silva 13-2

Arlovski started Sambo as a requirement for his police training in Belarus, he was so skilled that he became a Master of Sport, as well as winning a silver medal in both the World Sambo Championships and the Sambo World Cup. He has very dynamic speed for his size and is an explosive striker. Andrei has teamed up with legendary boxing trainer Freddie Roach, who has trained fighters such as Tyson, De La Hoya, Pacquiao, and Hopkins, to work on his boxing. Andrei, a former UFC HW champion, has defeated a host of notable HW’s in his career, such as Roman Zentsov, Ian Freeman, Vladimir Matyushenko, Cabbage Correira, Tim Sylvia, Paul Buentello, Fabricio Werdum, Ben Rothwell, and former IFL HW champ Roy Nelson. In a fight with the late Justin Eilers, Eilers left the cage after fighting Andrei with 2 broken hands, a broken nose, and a complete ACL tear. Arlovski’s career had taken a turn after losing consecutive fights to Tim Sylvia where his aggressiveness and explosiveness seemed to give way to a more tentative style. However, he has shown a return to that form in his next three fights, a triumphant manhandling of Ben Rothwell, another over Roy Nelson, and probably the best performance anybody has turned in against Fedor yet. In the Fedor fight, Arlovski was winning the standing exchanges with the near mythical Russian, thinking Fedor was hurt, Arlovski leapt in for a flying knee, only to be met by a near coma-inducing overhand right. Arlovski’s next fight saw him face Brett Rogers and lasted only 22 seconds as Rogers walked through AA and earned an astonishing TKO win.

The first and only EliteXC HW champ, Silva has wins over Ruben Villareal, Tom Erikson, Cabbage Correira, Ricco Rodriguez, Justin Eilers, Kiss Nakao, and most recently Jim York. The 6’4” American Top Team fighter got his nickname because he suffers from a condition known as Acromegaly, which enlarges his face and body features due to a tumor growing in his pituitary gland. Primarily a Muay Thai striker, Silva also has 9 wins by TKO and has great hands. He had a very close decision loss in his last match against Fabricio Werdum

With Arlovski’s suspect chin and history of mental lapses, one good strike can end the night abruptly. AA took that and sought out a sports psychiatrist, and also traveled to the Jackson camp and American Kickboxing for a few weeks at a time to hone his skills. Save for AA’s pro debut, his history always has him losing 2 in a row before rebounding with a solid win. His time training with Jackson’s team should have helped him mentally prepare and recover from his losses. Silva on the other hand is coming off of his 2nd career loss and despite having performed very well against Werdum, has never stepped in with top talent. Arlovski has been said to move like a middleweight and may have put on one of the best performances anybody could have against the HW king, Fedor. I believe his time off after his last two losses really helped him realize his potential and he will bounce back in a big way with a decision win over Silva.

HW Champion ‘Ubereem’ Alistair ‘the Demolition Man’ Overeem 32-11 1NC vs Brett ‘the Grim’ Rogers 10-1

Overeem is a monster of a man. 6’5” and just under the HW limit of 265 of pure, solid horse meat enhanced musculature (amongst over supplements) with a great K-1 striking background. He has 6-4 K-1 record with wins over Ewerton Teixeira, Peter Aerts, and Badr Hari. He holds MMA wins over the likes of Rodney Faverus, Vitor Belfort x2, Igor Vovchanchyn, Sergei Kharitonov, Paul Buentello, Mark Hunt, Gary Goodridge, James Thompson, and Kazuyuki Fujita. He has an impressive grappling game to go with his phenomenal striking game, evidenced by his 19 wins by submission and 12 TKO wins. Alistair has also been on the losing end against some of the sport’s best fighters such as, Chuck Liddell, Little Nogx2, Shogun Ruax2, Fabricio Werdum, Ricardo Arona, Kharitonov, and was on his way to a win over Mirko CroCop until a few misplaced knees scrambled CroCop’s baby-batter and a NC was called.

Rogers, a Team Bison/Ambition fighter out of Minnesota, has wins over Jon Murphy, James Thompson, Ralph Kelly, Abongo Humphries, and the most recent feather in his cap is his surprising 22 second KO of former UFC champ, Andrei Arlovski. He has earned 9 of his 10 wins by TKO with one submission win due to strikes. Rogers has the distinct privilege of a part of the first MMA fight shown on primetime TV on CBS in his quick win over Murphy. He has also been offered fights that have fallen through against top heavyweights Paul Buentello and Josh Barnett. Rogers is a brawler that pushes the weight limit of 265 and has only ventured past the first round 3 times. His last match saw him take on Fedor Emelianenko and perform very well, until he was separated from his senses by a nasty overhand right.

Rogers will not have the normal size advantage he usually does in this battle of behemoths. He will have a disadvantage in nearly every facet of the game against Ubereem, but with guys this size anything can happen (as we saw in the AA fight) Overeem can end this fight from every position in the book. Brett will be coming straight forward and trying to rush Ubereem early, only to be met with solid counter strikes and clinches. Alistair will bring the pain to Roger’s body with kicks and knees before finding himself taking Rogers down and submitting him in the 1st round.

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