Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson Parting Shots

A busy week for our sport of choice ended last weekend with another solid Strikeforce show, this time headlined by a light heavyweight title fight between then-champion Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante and Dan Henderson. Of course, Henderson won, adding another shiny belt to his growing collection in the process. What about Feijao, though? And does the Strikeforce roster have enough depth at 205 lbs. to keep Hendo busy?

Will “Feijao” bounce back, and who should face Hendo next?

Feijao had just made his mark in a top-heavy Strikeforce light heavyweight division that he wasn’t a real strong factor in beforehand. After just two straight wins against Antwain Britt and Aaron Rosa, Feijao was given the opportunity to fight the talented (but green) “King Mo” Lawal. King Mo found Feijao to be a tough nut to crack, and Feijao left the fight with the belt and a greatly increased status within the sport.

I think Feijao will continue to be relevant in the division, but in a way, that’s less of a compliment to him and more of an indictment of Strikeforce’s division, which has some good talent at the top but a large gap between its top five fighters and the rest of its light heavyweights.

Honestly, I don’t agree with having Gegard Mousasi face Mike Kyle to see who gets the next crack at Henderson, anyway. When you only have a handful of legitimate contenders (Hendo, Mousasi, King Mo, Feijao and Renato “Babalu” Sobral) and many of them have faced one another already, you need to conserve some matchups while you build up some fresh contenders or even look outside of the organization for fresh talent (Keith Jardine may not be “fresh”, but he would at least be talent, right?).

Why not give Kyle the shot now? He hasn’t really earned it, but neither had Feijao. Kyle is unlikely to beat Mousasi, and just as unlikely to beat the other top light heavyweights in order to earn a shot in the future. I’d simply put on an entertaining slugfest between him and Henderson now, knowing that Mousasi will always be lingering in range of title contention, anyway.

Coenen shows heart, weaknesses in win

You have to wonder how Miesha Tate felt when she was watching Marloes Coenen and Liz Carmouche square off on Saturday night. Did she salivate a little bit at the weaknesses that Coenen showed during the fight; weaknesses that play right into how Tate likes to fight? Did she shake her head and curse her bad fortune, feeling that she could have finished what Carmouche started in the fight? I’m guessing it was probably a bit of both.

I was impressed with Coenen’s heart and determination in the fight. It’s rare to see someone mounted so often and for so long, only to secure an improbable comeback victory the way that she did. This is where a lesser writer would spout off something about the “heart of a champion” or something similarly barfy, by the way.

Unfortunately, Coenen also showed many weak areas that could be exploited by Tate or other future opponents. Coenen is a strange fighter, in a way. She sometimes looks razor sharp on the mat, especially when working for submissions from the guard. Other times, she looks woefully out of sorts, allowing opponents to improve their position and not being able to get out of bad spots herself. When Carmouche kept mounting Coenen extremely high, making herself vulnerable to be swept or to lose her advantageous position, I kept thinking, “Coenen doesn’t have any idea what to do here?!?” It seems strange that someone who has obviously spent so much time on the mat was reduced to squirming underneath Carmouche for much of the fight.

It will be interesting to see if her next opponent immediately takes her down to exploit some of the things we all saw in that fight, even though Coenen can also be extremely dangerous from her back, too. Either way, it will be interesting to see how Coenen comes back from her rather lackluster, though (pardon me for this) ballsy performance.

Kennedy-Manhoef plays out the only way that it could

With as unpredictable as MMA is, it’s almost comforting when a fight goes down exactly the way that you would imagine it would. How else could it happen, after all? Manhoef knew he had no chance if the fight hit the mat; his jiu-jitsu game is historically bad. They need to have a stat for submissions suffered per minute of fighting on the mat, I am 100% sure Manhoef would be the all-time leader. It’s not as if Kennedy is Jacare on the ground, and he sliced through Manhoef’s horrid defensive attempts with ease.

Of course, as bad as he looked on his back, Manhoef looked just as good standing up. I only wish he had taken a few more chances while the fight was vertical in order to give himself a shot at winning. I always feel that way when a standup fighter is overly cautious against a better grappler; I know you don’t want to get taken down, but you can’t let the fight end without ever having thrown some strikes? Manhoef eventually became active and showed better takedown defense than usual, but he was still too cautious in the early going for my taste.

Where are the prelims?

I’m continually confused by Strikeforce and/or Showtime’s decision not to air preliminary fights when time permits. There wasn’t a lot of leftover time on Saturday night, but there have been plenty of Strikeforce events that ended around an hour early and simply stopped rather than showing fans any preliminary fights.

Now, Strikeforce does tend to fill their undercards with local fighters or fighters that aren’t really notable for having accomplished much in the sport, but surely the organization could have shown UFC veteran Jorge Gurgel winning by guillotine choke in 44 seconds over Billy Vaughan. It’d be nice to see Strikeforce take advantage of the exposure that younger fighters could get by actually filling their cards with young talent or fighters they intend to keep instead of $2,000-to-fight local fighters…and then actually showing the fights when they can.

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Tags: Dan Henderson, Gegard Mousasi, Jorge Gurgel, Liz Carmouche, Marloes Coenen, Melvin Manhoef, Miesha Tate, Mike Kyle, Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante, Strikeforce, Strikeforce: Feijao vs. Henderson, Tim Kennedy