In a night full of one sided fights, Strikeforce: Fedor vs Werdum main card was all finishes. That fact will not be the reason this event will be remembered for. This card’s main event will go down in the short history of this sport as one of the biggest upsets of all time. Fedor Emelianenko, the myth, the outlier, the invincible fighter who is virtually undefeated was submitted with a via triangle/armbar by Pride & UFC vet and bjj specialist Fabricio Werdum 1:09 into the first round.

And just like that, the impossible happens

From Cung Le avenging his only defeat from Scott Smith with a 2nd round mule kick to the gut. To Cris “Cyborg” Santos’s savage title defense against Jan Finney. The nights didn’t lack in excitement in the least bit. Josh Thompsons bout with Pat Healy was surprisingly competitive until the third round submission when a game Healy was put away by determined former champ in Thompson.

The night even had the official retirement announcement of former UFC and Strikeforce champion turned analyst Frank Shamrock.

But the stunning finish in the main event will be the talk of the mma world for weeks to come. With the UFC holding a title unification bout between Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin. The long and some will argue still viable notion of Fedor being the #1 heavyweight fighter in the world will come under heavy scrutiny depending on the outcome of the UFC 116 main event.

As a guy who got into this sport way after Pride folded, Fedor losing doesn’t hit me as hard as it would veteran aficionados and hardcore fans. The first live fight with The Last Emperor I saw was his bout against Arlovski. Since then I have borrowed and rented dvd’s, scoured youtube videos of actual fights and highlights and began to see what the big deal was. The only thing different in this fight from others was that Emelianenko got himself in harms way but didn’t get out of danger. Werdums surest chance to win was by sub and that’s what happened. Numerous fighters have jumped on opponents after they have fallen only to get submitted. Fans and detractors will make of this loss what they will and the GOAT discussions will try to distill more out of this fight than there is. No fighter is invincible, everyone loses and at the end of the day a 31-2 record is still among the best in the sport. And now to luck on forums and enjoy the fallout.

To say the last couple of weeks in MMA have been busy would be as silly as saying the disaster in the gulf of Mexico is a minor inconvenience. With the top 3 (or 4 if you split the Zuffa owned UFC and WEC promotions) mixed martial arts organizations all holding events withing the same 7 day period, you would think an mma blogger like myself would have a plethora, no a veritable smorgasbord of topics to discuss, picks to mull over, post event analysis to bump gums/keyboard over.

Along with the standard random news/developments and goings on I sadly had to bow out due to my main soap box/this website going on the fritz. More accurately, there seemed to be a problem with the site posting auto save drafts from what seemed to be every article I had ever written. Thanks to Brandon for addressing the issue and getting things back in order. Now it is time for me to find my riddum and head back into the fray that is the “mma blogesphere” while the getting is still good. There is still the weekly goodness from Bellator going down along with 3 of the top heavyweights in the world fighting in a 2 week period, first on the Strikeforce: Fedor vs Werdum card and next weeks UFC 116: Lesnar vs. Carwin which has already made headlines due to one of the co main event fighters, the legendary Wanderlei Silva being replaced due to injury by last weekds knockout of the night winner and fan favorite Chris The Crippler Leben.

I still wonder how this will look in hindsight months and years from now, these past couple of months have been the closest to constant weekly major org mma this young sport has ever seen. And if this is a sign of things to come, the future is bright in regards to human cockfighting.

Good news from MMA Junkie,

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that Strikeforce Challengers 9 could feature recently crowned Strikeforce women’s welterweight champion Sarah Kaufman (11-0 MMA, 3-0 SF) against fellow 135-pounder Roxanne Modafferi (15-5 MMA, 0-1 SF).

And before anyone freaks out over being 0-1 in the organization, lets put it in perspective.

Modafferi, meanwhile, would fight for Strikeforce for the second time. Serving as a late replacement for Erin Toughill, the Japanese-based American moved up a weight class and ultimately suffered a first-round submission loss to notable Marloes Coenen.

Since that loss, Modafferi scored a submission win over Molly Helsel at a King of the Cage event, and on May 21, she edged female standout Tara LaRosa (18-1 at the time) via split decision in a heavily praised “Moosin: God of Martial Arts” pay-per-view bout. Modafferi has now won eight of her past nine fights.

It will suck for me personally being a fan of both fighters, but this fight has to happen. Roxy has been performing like a woman possesed and is a more than worthy challenger for Kaufmans title. But with a little over a month to prepare and this being Roxy’s 3rd fight of the year. I can’t help but wonder if this fight isn’t coming off a bit rushed.

Props to Middle Easy, for getting the scoop of scoops.

The regional political council of the party “United Russia” approved the list of candidates for internal party elections – the primaries. In the list of 58 candidates. No less than 10 000 United Russia vote will determine the best, and who will receive the first place in the party list in the upcoming October elections in the Belgorod Regional Duma.

The list of early voting have 24 newcomers who have never participated in elections to the legislature. One of the achievements was the inclusion in the list not only members of United Russia, but also simply to party supporters and even non-party candidates. This is for example the managing director Combine KMA Ruda Vladimir Tom and CEO JBK-1 Yuri Selivanov. They are not only members of the party, but also by working in obldume fourth convocation, not included in the United Russia Duma faction.

Among the most notable candidates, in addition to the deputies (Anatolia Zelikow, Victor Filatov, Vadim Cage, Valeria Skruga, Ivan Kulabuhova, Vladimir Kulikovsky) – a famous athlete Fedor Emelianenko, the new director of Belarusian State Technological University Sergey Glagolev (by the way, non-partisan), director of the Institute of Public and municipal government BSU Alexander Mamatov.

Now fighters and politics are far from a new phenomenon, with such notables like Manny Pacquiao, Matt Lindland and Chael Sonnen providing recent precedent. But its the possibility of this being the end of Fedors career that seems to almost dwarf the announcement of Emelianenko’s political endeavors.

Fedor will be running for a congress seat in Russia for the pro-Kremlin party ‘United Russia’. The party is dominant in the country and holds around 80% of the seats in the senate and Fedor will be representing his region. That’s a fact… Now the accompanied rumor is that after Fedor fulfills the last two fights in his Strikeforce contract, he will retire from MMA.

If this is true the Werdum and possible Overeem fights could be the end of the line for Fedors MMA career. While it will be a somewhat anticlimactic finish, since the possibility of Fedor and M-1 Global ever coming to agreeable terms with Zuffa. Maybe bowing out gracefully is the next best thing.

From MMA Junkie,

Strikeforce and M-1 Global’s co-promotion relationship won’t end with just Fedor Emelianenko.

M-1 Global officials announced late Wednesday night that six-time M-1 Challenge veteran Magomed Shikshabekov (6-0 MMA, 0-0 SF) will fight in the U.S. for the first time when he meets Ron Keslar (5-1 MMA, 0-0 SF) at “Strikeforce and M-1 Global: Fedor vs. Werdum.”

Nice to see something fruitful happen with M-1’s partnership with Strikeforce. As opposed to the standard renegotiation, stalling and general frustrations they are known for.

The bout is expected for the unaired preliminary portion of the card, though Strikeforce has yet to officially announce the matchup.

….

M-1 Global advertises a perfect 11-0 record for Shikshabekov, though some of his fights are currently unrecognized in major U.S. databases. A welterweight prospect with an aggressive submission attack and explosive striking, Shikshabekov is considered by many observers to be a top prospect in the 170-pound division.

This vid showcases the main event and the second biggest fight (Hansen vs Takaya) on the card. The footage of Diaz training also has him talking about Dream Lightweight champ Shinya Aoki and his time spent in the Ceasar Gracie camp after his lost to Strikeforce Lightweight champ Gil Melendez.

I hope Shinya will start a renaissance of Japanese fighters and trainers coming stateside to pick up modern training techniques and practices. It would be a shame to see Japanese mma to fall to the wayside completely due to outdated and inefficient training methods.

In part 3 of Alistair Overeems online documentary, he defends his Strikeforce Heavyweight title against Brett Rodgers. We are offered new angles to appreciate Overeems destruction of The Grimm. Now the even longer wait for Overeems next opponent: the winner of Fedor vs Werdum, begins.

The most interesting section of this episode in my opinion was seeing Big John McCarthy give Overeem and his camp his interpretation of intelligent defense. After years of hearing “We went over the rules in the locker room” here you actually get to see what is actually said and described. It reinforced my already rock solid belief that Big John is one of the finest referees this sport has ever had if not the best.

Good news for female fighters, from MMA Junkie

Strikeforce women’s welterweight champion Sarah Kaufman is expected to make a return in late July – in a likely non-title fight – while a 135-pound women’s tournament determines a No. 1 contender for the undefeated title-holder.

That’s according to Scott Coker, who shared the plans with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) over the weekend.

Kaufman topped Takayo Hashi in February for Strikeforce’s first-ever women’s 135-pound title, and the 24-year-old Canadian now owns a perfect 11-0 record.

“We’re going to throw that tournament at 135 (pounds), probably (on) July 24 or maybe 31,” Coker said. “We will probably have her fighting on that card, and then we want her to fight the winner of that tournament.”

Nice to see actions being taken from the bad news of last week. I am still new to this blogging thing, but I do believe if your going to shame an org for doing wrong by its fighters you should be just as vocal when they try to rectify or clarify their motives and actions. So props to Strikeforce for getting female mma moving forward again.

Strikeforce is also setting up a title bout with their other female champion with Champ Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos vs Jan “Cuddles” Finney. While the challenger in Finney may not have the most impressive of records (8-7). It has more to do with the sparse and miss-match laden nature of booking female fights, Finneys got the Sokoudjou/Brett Rodgers treatment with some of her earliest fights against the elites of female mma like Shayna Baszler, Meisha Tate and Erin Toughill. Hopefully with more exposure and fighters coming into the sport such fights will soon be a thing of the past.

Thanks to Sherdog for the pic.

From MMA Junkie

A potential fight between two of the world’s top 155-pound fighters outside of the Ultimate Fighting Championship is one step closer to fruition.

Just hours after officials from Bellator Fighting Championships distributed a press release campaigning for a fight between their lightweight champ, Eddie Alvarez, and Strikeforce lightweight title-holder Gilbert Melenedez, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said he’s open to co-promoting the champion-vs.-champion bout.

“If the stars align and we can work out all the terms and conditions and timing, we’d do it,” Coker told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Of course we would. Why wouldn’t we? Let’s go do this.”

With the likes of Frankie Edgar, B.J. Penn, Kenny Florian, Gray Maynard, Jim Miller and Diego Sanchez, the UFC has a stronghold on the world’s best 155-pound talent. That, of course, has long been the case and given the promotion just about every major lightweight fight of late.

But Alvarez vs. Melendez would pit two of the world’s top-10 lightweights against each other. And with the UFC’s upcoming Edgar vs. Penn II and Florian vs. Maynard bouts, it couldn’t come at a better time.

The long running idea of “Co-promotion aka The Scourge of Boxing” being bad for MMA is starting to ring hollow with possible super fights like this being in the works. The sheer objectivity obliterating nature of having the best fight the best regardless of promotional allegiance while not entirely new to mma, it is still rarely seen. Hopefully both organizations can come to an agreement and make this mma fanboys dream a reality.

Thanks to Bloody Elbow for the pic.

While I did start to take a shine to the guy in the first installment, the Wu Tang intro of the second vid has won me over. At the end of the day, isn’t that the intended result of these slick edited fighter propaganda pieces. If it works for boxing with their 24/7 series and UFC’s Primetime shows for their super star main events, why wouldn’t you try to emulate their proven method of success.

This episode focuses on Alistairs last workout/sparring session before his weigh ins for his first title defense at Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery.