Shields, Rogers Bring Surprises at Strikeforce

While the Jake Shields-Robbie Lawler fight was more of a “pick-‘em”, I’m sure I’m far from the only one whose predictions were obliterated by Brett Rogers’ swarm of power punches that floored one-time top heavyweight Andrei Arlovski.  As always, the lesson with MMA: you can try to predict what may happen, but you need to know that anything can happen.

That’s not to say that Rogers had no business beating Arlovski.  Though I stand behind my opinion that Arlovski is a much more polished striker, Rogers definitely has the power to put away just about any heavyweight, especially one who has showed a somewhat suspect chin on occasion throughout his career. 

As Josh Barnett so aptly observed, Arlovski made a huge mistake by moving straight back when Rogers came rushing forward, and paid the price for it. 

Meanwhile, Jake Shields made surprisingly quick work of Robbie Lawler, tapping him out early in the first round with a guillotine choke, even though Lawler had an arm in to help him defend it.  Still, this early victory showed Shields’ jiu-jitsu and ability to finish when he gets in a good position to do so.  That was the perfect time for such a submission: Lawler was anxious to get swinging and may have put himself in a bad spot as a result, and neither fighter had gotten sweaty and slippery yet.  Kudos to Shields, and hopefully Lawler will return stronger than ever.

Here are some other thoughts on the action from last night’s event:

–Nick Diaz gave me the biggest laugh of the night, as in his pre-fight promo he addressed his belief that he’s miscast in the role of “bad guy” by fans of the sport and the media.  Then, he proceeded to shove Scott Smith away at the conclusion of each round, and even smack away Smith’s hand when he went to touch gloves out of sportsmanship before the beginning of round three.  Hey, Diaz takes each fight like a war, instead of as a sport.  That’s fine; that’s how he gets into the zone he needs to be in to fight.  But don’t play dumb and act as if you aren’t playing the “bad guy” role to perfection in the process.

–As far as Smith goes, I have no idea why he decided to block about 100 of Nick’s punches with his face during the bout, without even bothering to get his hands up, but shouldn’t we start talking about how well Diaz’s style works against opponents, just like we do with Lyoto Machida?  We’ve seen Nick stand and trade with fighters as diverse as Robbie Lawler, Scott Smith, Frank Shamrock and Takanori Gomi, and somehow, no one seems to have an answer for the frequency and style of his punches.  His style may not be as poetic as that of Machida, but it is intriguing that so many good stand-up fighters have no answer to it.

–It sure seems as if Kevin Randleman’s career is about done, at least as far as being a major player in the sport goes.  I’m not as concerned with Randleman’s gas tank as I was with his lack of explosiveness, which has always been his most valuable asset.  Randleman took some half-hearted shots at takedowns that he didn’t fully commit to, and at times appeared to be very lethargic and even a bit slow.  As far as Mike Whitehead goes, it is hard to gauge someone against a fighter like Randleman who didn’t bring a lot to the table for the fight, but it was a bit troubling that Whitehead let him back in the game late in the fight.

–Joe Riggs may have unintentionally given us a profound look at the real life of a pro fighter after his win over Phil Baroni last night.  After myself and others watched, wondering aloud why Riggs kept backing off of Baroni in the third round after landing solid shots (rather than finishing him), Riggs revealed that he had broken both of his hands in the fight.  Immediately, it was clear that he was thinking about how long he would be unable to compete (and thus, make money), taking away much of the joy from his victory.  You have to wonder how many times fighters step into the cage or ring even when they are physically far from where they should be, just because they need to make some money to support their families.

–Phil Baroni?  He looked pretty good at welterweight, and Riggs was just better.  I don’t think Phil gassed as much as he had just gotten beaten up early in the fight, which is why I suspect you saw his hands dropping and his punches slow down.

–Lastly, let me tell you how excited I was to not only see Mauro Ranallo, but also the ever-charming Frank Shamrock on broadcast duties.  You never really appreciate Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan enough until you’ve had to hear Ranallo and Shamrock for two and a half hours.  As I noted while watching the fights, they don’t teeter towards “hilariously bad” enough to be enjoyable for unintentional comedy reasons, instead they lean towards “frustratingly bad”.  It almost makes you wish for some more of those completely ridiculous skeletal depictions of basic fighting techniques, instead…well, almost.

by Jon Hartley for Fightmania.com

Tags: Andrei Arlovski, Brett Rogers, Frank Shamrock, Jake Shields, Josh Barnett, Lyoto Machida, Nick Diaz, Robbie Lawler, Strikeforce