Cain Velasquez, Fedor Emelianenko and the Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament

yeah we wont wait for the final to see the reem vs fedor

You couldnt wait to be the first to talk crap in this thread either huh?

Kinda sucks that Fedor n OVereem r in the same side....rather see them in the opposite sides so they could fight in the finals...this way its kind anti-climatic

All I have to say is this; AWESOME,

@ninja

Strike force have put them on the same side to increase the chances that they fight each other and or worst case scenario they have one of them in the final. Also Fedor new deal with SHOWTIME has a 1 PPV fight in there so Overeem v Fedor will 100% be on PPV and chances are so will the final

are these matches confirmed? if so that kinda sucks, id rather see overemm and fedor in the final aswell. lets just hope werdum doesnt pull a triangle on overeem

I don't know how you could interpret that as trashtalk.

Calm yo tits.

u seem like an idiot sensitive overreactional fool

i wasnt talking crap u idiot

I did jump the gun not looking at the breakdown good ,but seeing you talking crap on the wall about Fedor set that one off

The guy has a picture of Fedor and you think he's badmouthing him?!

would it not have been better to put reem and fedor on opposite sides of the bracket? that way they could meet in an epic final!

That's how I feel too. My heart sank when I saw that bracket. Now I think it will come down to Barnett V Fedor OR Overeem. I see Fedor as more likely but as I posted elsewhere, I would not bet on that fight.

WTF on the same side Fedor and Overeem?

they should have been on opposite sides to make them the final!!



now one of the 2 will get eliminated on the semi finals!

and in wont be that epic!



Fedor vs Overeem in the Final would have been the biggest fight in MMA History!

I think they did it this way so that whoever wins between them has so much hype, then they still have to fight in the finals, and that will build it even further. Whereas if they meet in the finals and one of them win, its all over and they move on to the next chapter of the HW division

They've got all the real strength on one side of the bracket, which is ridiculous. The final could end up being a crappy fight. No offense to Barnett, but the left side of the bracket is where all the better talent is.

thought exactly the same thing ;)

maybe they thinking Barnett - Overeem for after the tournament?

I think it was a genious move, that way the first 2 rounds will caught everyone´s atention and second the chances of them facing each other increased instead of being on opossite sides, I am almos positive that the winner will come from that side of the board the only one that I would say has a chance in the other side is Barnett...

@ Cage



Not neccessarily, but I agree the left side does seem to have all the more well known fighters. but Segei Kharitonov is the only person to have a win over the reem at HW; he ko'd him... and he has a win over Werdum as well. I think he'll beat Arlovski, and then fight Barnett most likely.



Then again, Barnett might not have his license back by then... the left side of the bracket is a toss up though. I expect Fedor to beat Big Foot, but after that its anyone's guess.



I just hope Overeem meets Fedor in the semis and I think Kharitonov or Barnett will have the best chance, on the other side. One thing's for sure.. there'll be Epicness!!!

Agredd I wwas so excited for the bracket until I saw it. In what t ournament have u ever seen The top 4 seeds face each other first on one side and the 5-8 seeds face each other on the other bracket/ yes it may be good for strikeforce but definitely not good for the fans or the bracket. Why on earth would you have the 1 vs the 2 seed in the openening fight? I looked at as thee reem, werdum, fedor, barnet, big foot rogers, arlovski, kharitonov..even though I could see arlovski beating barnett...the 1-4 brackett are going to beat themselves to hell ro make the finals it just doesnt seem fair..but whatever they had to do to get fedor in the tourney im all for!

707 speaks the truth. I understand the arguement that Anton presented for having all the top guys (especially Fedor and Overeem) on the same side but it makes no sense if they want that star studded final. In no other sport does all the top seeds matchup on one side of a bracket but oh well. It's MMA! As long as I see Fedor vs Overeem, it will be all good!

yeah i've got fedor down to win the tourni. i'm interested to see how kharitonov does though.

I have to agree Overhand

dammit this is way to excited. Cant wait to see fedor fight again although I must say big foooot is really though, I really hope big foot is gonna lose but it sure as hell is not going to be easy for the emperor. On the other side overeem got it easy with werdum so its gonna be overeem vs fedor/big foot (big fat smile on my face) thats gonna be soooooooo goooooooooood

Werdum only has it easy if he can keep it standing. On the ground Werdum could arguably be said to have it easy.

.....So reem has the advantage on the ground with a BJJ blackbelt who submitted him before? Nice...i expect to see him in his cape this time.

I meant Overeem has it easy standing. Oops

Not sure how that would place any of them in the number one. I mean just because they fight each other it doesn't erase what Cain has done or anything...interesting logic seeing as how they rarely fight and their positions rarely change on peoples lists.



This is more of an event to lessen the distance between the UFC and Strikeforce overall however. Great way to take advantage of something that i definitely don't see the UFC doing, VERY smart business move.

-Defeat OVERHYPED Brok Lesnar (who was No.2 HW at the time, but not deserve that place anyways...), big deal.....

-If you use some logic Fabrizio Werdum should be No.1 HW because he defeat No.1 HW at that time

-Don't get me wrong, I like Cain and JDS as a fighters very much but they go through the rankings way to fast because of D.W. and UFC hyping their opponents and fights.And besides of that they don't have worthy opponents in UFC except fighting each other.



-I still don't understand how can defeating of Brock Lesnar(who convert himself into a turtle when get hit, not to mention being outwrestled by Randy with huge weight disandvantage ) be consideret such a great achievement?????????



-If you ask me the only two UFC HW fighters in top 10 will be Cain and JDS, rest of the top 10 list is fighting in this Strikeforce tournament.



-Hate on it!!!



:DDDDDDD

I think the point is to find the best in Strikeforce you UFC groupie

your rankins are horrible especially HW, your a noob

I agree with a lot of what you said but the UFC has more than two HWs in the top ten. Frank Mir, Big Nog and Shane Carwin are all arguably top ten fighters as well. On my list I actually have 5 StrikeForce and 5 UFC fighters in the top 10 of the HW division.

I just looked at Gilles rankings and he still has crocop in the top 10 heavyweights. Yea....im going to start looking at peoples rankings before i talk to them now, especially if they say something like he just said.



*shakes head*

And I'm looking in your rankings and all fighters in your p4p list are from UFC...

-Rashad Evans?? ppffffffffff

-And best HW Lesnar. hahaha, and second best Carwin(what a suprise)

-My rankings are irrelevant, I rank fighters from UFC lower because they are alredy Hyped enough



-"Zuffazombie"- by Bloodstainlane

Oh ok looking at his ranking erases the fact your a dumbass? I think not

Why not rashad? he's only been beaten once....what's your justification for Fedor..unless you're a hypocrite like i said. I don't even take the HW division seriously at all, that ranking is obviously old but if you're butthurt you can still use it.



How do you justify crocop being in the top 10 again? I mean you actually take this division seriously so...

No

-I rank fighters outside UFC, and don't know who to put on 10th place, and I'm from Croatia soooooo....... ring a bell??????

-And for your concern I'm very aware that he is not nowhere near top 10 right now.

You have a good point, but :

-Big Nog is nowhere near as he was in PRIDE days(and I'm very sad about this because he's in my book one of the greatest ever, right next to Fedor),

- Frank Mir sucks lately against Cro Cop and Lesnar(2x)-he win first one but still sucks in fight

-Shane Carwin is in my opinion maybe the best fighter in UFC but he don't have endurance



-My "top ten" list(no particular order)

Barnett, Overeem, Emelianenko, Werdum, Bigfoot, Velasquez,JDS

-I think that this is current HW elite, and any of them can beat each other in any given day.

-You can putt there Lesnar, Big Nog, Mir, Kongo,Carwin..., but it is not fair because in my opinion they are not better fighters in this time (I'm referring about Minotauro) than Kharitonov, Shane del Rosario, Rogers, Arlovski...

Pffft almost all of the hype cain gets comes from the people making the rankings here really. I don't understand what bigfoot has done thats so impressive either...and before overeem fought rogers everyone here was attacking him for being on steroids.



LOL@hypocrisy as usual though, it's like people think they will get paid for it.

You need some better comebacks, your hypocrisy crap is getting old

remember JDS KTFO werdum in a devastating fashion.. :-D

and werdum is never the no 1 HW thats for sure!



@IChokePeople agree with you this time..

JDS KTFO of werdum

good comment gille but beside what cain has done or not done i see him as#1-3 fedor >reem>cain or fedor cain reem

I aboslutly agree with you Gilles. They don't have the talent that Strikeforce has.

overeem vs werdum = overeem by ko 1st round!!



got to give him credit even if i was critic about him in the past!!

steroids or not he improved alot since he was smaler and lost

to chuck, rua, werdum etc..

Hasn't really had alot of tough fights since that time so i wonder what we're going by if we say that reem has drstically improved. In size and strength maybe..but if he wasn't flexible enough to avoid being submitted that way by werdum before, it'll be even worse now.

yes that right to he had no tough fights sice then..

but i cant immagine someone takeing the reem

that easy before getting KOed...

anyway.. lets see the tournament..

it MMA everything can happen..

Lets just say for the sake of argument that Reem were to take all three fights. He would have had three fights with all pretty good contenders. Now on the other side you have Cain that would maybe have one fight and lets assume he will win. Just with the amount of competing and and the competition, Reem should slip into the the number 1 spot. Cain would not have fought enough and he hasn't had that tough of past competition. This is why you can't rate Fedor the best HW right now. He doesn't stay active. If people want to rate him the best of all time, that is something more expectable with the record he has.

yes i believe that if fedor or reem win this then they are the number one in the world. they'll have to keep these fights coming regularly though to keep the top spot if cain keeps defending his belt

But equally if fedor wins this tourny all the haters can shut the **** up. reem has looked like a wrecking machine lately though so fedor got his work cut out, and Bigfoot is no joke so nothings certain.

I worked in a electronic store about 4 years ago and I saw silva. I was just walking in back from my lunch break and I saw this giant guy in my department. I remember thinking "what the **ck is that. I got back and stood next to him. He has one of the biggest heads I have ever seen. I thought to my self how could this guy lose. He did. It was when he fought with Bodog. Kind of reminded me of a cave man.

Cain foght Lesnar to be n1.To me beating Lesnar dosent mean anything and Overeem foght two guys who lost wia KO in tere last fights.Fedor lost only one figt in his life time he is stil n1 HW in the world

You're pretty much the only person with any consistancy here which is sad. People talk about cain like he's done nothing in here then they go and put him on the top 10 p4p and top HW rankings.



So very intelligent...good thing there are no shortage of names i've never seen before and somehow all the people responsible for those ridiculous rankings are nowhere to be found in the thread.

I can only speak for myself. I have Cain ranked #2 AND I admit that he hasn't done that much within the division compared with some of the guys I have him ranked above like Barnett. My reasoning is thus. First, he is the champion of his division in a top organization. Second, he is one of the most complete fighters around. He KOd Big Nog, who I have at 9 on my top ten. He was able to withstand some brutal stand up from Kongo and take him down for total domination. He out wrestled Lesner and destroyed him. Lesner may not be a top wrestler skill wise but he is good and HUGE so for Cain to shrug off his wrestling and impose his superior stand up/gnp was an accomplishment. Lastly, I think that he stacks up well against all of the other top ten HWs and would likely beat most of them. So considering he is the champ, has beaten a legit top ten opponent (and a guy most people considered top ten), is versatile enough to compete with any style, and has the skill to beat most other top ten guys, I consider 2nd place to be a legitimate ranking for him. On the other hand I think it is ridiculous to put him in the P4P rankings and he has a lot to accomplish. I think a lot of people feel the same way and I do not see a contradiction there.

A lot of people rank fighters on what they think they can do as well. We have not seen all of them fight each other so there is no way to have a true ranking. Plus I'm bias.

That wasn't the ONLY criteria I used. LOL

I know you are bias too ICP.... haha! Nah I know what you meant though.

I hate ranking injured athletes. Cains having shoulder surgery and probably wont fight for another 9 months. considering that I think its to speculative to rank him. But thats just my opinion.



Might i had I feel that way about many sports and athletes. Ive just seen it to many times, after a serious injury its hard to be 100% sure some come back but some dont. And I dont wanna bet on it.

Well, Cain also KO´d Nogueira and destroyed every other fighter put in front of him.

Im' sooo ****ing excited with this news!!! A tournament full of great fighters and Legends!!! It reminds me of the good old Pride days, the only think missing is Japan :-p



I wish Fedor wins that too....although the Reem is on fire at the moment... Still it would a great final match if it goes that way!

yea boy. this is the first thing that strikeforce have put together to get me really excited. if only it was cross promoted with ufc and had cain, jds, cro cop, nogueira, mir, brock, carwin and idk maybe schaub. that would settle any doubters about who has the best heavyweights. too bad chuck got ko'd by rampage in the pride tourney. dana promised himself that would never happen again didnt he.

This is cool, I can't wait.



I think we should thank Dana White for moving things along. I think when he makes these public pronouncements that Strikeforce can't get its fighters to fight, he actually helps speed negotiations along.



What heavyweight fights can we expect from the UFC this year? Cain, Shane, Brock, JDS? Not really sure when and if.



At least there is Schaub and Cro-cop to look forward to.

yeah cain shane andbrock all have question marks over there heads

Big ups to Coker & SF for taking an idea Dana is totally against & bringing some excitement, to not only SF, but MMA as a whole.

Just a quick correction Anton, Pride had an open-weight GP in 2006, which was won by Crocop who beat Barnett in the final. The heavyweight GP won by Fedor was in 2004.

This is becoming crazy. I have a statistics curse on me.

this is one of the most exciting thing no the most exciting thing to happen to mix martial arts. i cant wait i might have to freeze my self

Haha that's excitement.

mum told me off for hiding in the fridge, looks like im going to have to wait :(

Bueno.

This will be huge for Strikeforce as a business. This may actually catapult them into being real competitors with UFC. We will see.



Fedor or Barnett are my favorites to win. Don't count out anyone in this tournament, though.

It's a great idea, but the way the bracket is set up is stupid and typical of SF's A**backwards way of doing things, as usual.

i take you mean that the fighters on the left side seem to be of a higher caliber than the fighters right. on a good note finaly strikeforce is doing something right on a bad note its kinda sad when a eight man tournement includes your entire heavy weight div

strikeforce may be considered a 2nd Tier organization, But im actually excited to se how this will go down. I think that Barnett will of course make it to the finals, but the fact that we're gunna see the rematch of overeem and werdum along with the possibility of fedor fighting either one of those guys is just awsome

This is bringing strike force to tier 1. maybe theyre not tier one everyday. But this is a multi million dollar card

I cant wait for this its gonna be awesome!

Werdum and Overeem should be placed opposite to Fedor and Silva though, the preliminaries are gonna be way better than the finals.

but what strikeforce have done is made sure the quarters+semis are gonna be amazing, and have the attraction of the finals simply be that it's the finals and everyone will want to see who wins anyway.



much smarter than risking putting them on the opposite brackets where an upset could occur and spoil all the dreamfights this promises.

good point

So he's just going to carry his belt through and fight 5 rounders every time? And if he loses to Werdum, Fabricio will take the belt to the semis and fight a five-rounder against the winner of Fedor-Silva? I guess that's doable but that seems to make a bit too much sense to be the path that SF will take. I just smell another Japan-style thing where the Champion can win, at his normal weight and in his normal promotion, and still somehow maintain championship status. Like Wand losing to Arona, Gomi losing to Aurellio and then again Diaz, Aoki just getting his head kneed off the other day, etc.

dude, strikeforce's heavyweights are actually going to fight each other after like 3 years. who gives a **** about who wears the shiny belt at the end of the day?

I dont wanna jinx it... this is gonna be epic

Arlovski's lost to half these guys!

But he's still my sleeper pick.... seriously!

If he comes in psychologically sound he can do anything.

@ japanegro23



I'd pick him to go to sleep too. LOL

Haha that's jacked up MAMBA! ICP knows. I think a lot of us that saw him back in the day still have that faith in him. He is a very well rounded fighter and if he stays patient and uses his boxing, he can win a few matches in that tourny. He had Fedor really but he got impatient. And trust me I love Fedor.

I know what you're saying & i feel the same way. I'm a AA fan but i don't see that same vicious look in his eyes.

Seems like that shot Fedor hit him with changed him.

Really wish the old AA would return.

YES!! YESS!! YES!! Cart Wheels** I love you STRIKEFORCE!

This is something you would never see the UFC do, a tournament. The fact that we see all these big names in it ensures that they are committed to fighting in the foreseeable future!

@Anton



We need to have a contest where we fill out brackets like March Madness! I know you aren't from the states but someone can fill you in...... PLEASE! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

@Anton



We need to have a contest where we fill out brackets like March Madness! I know you aren't from the states but someone can fill you in...... PLEASE! THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

I like

Are Quarters, Semis and Finals taking place on 3 different nights? I ask because it was compared to the 2004 Pride Grand Prix which had the semis and finals on the same night

This is so incredibly smart, we will potentially have 3 more Fedor fights in Strikeforce where if he wins all of them he still isn't a champion and considering that Fedor isn't really under Strikeforce but M1 it really gives them a lot of freedom.

If Fedor won the tourni, wouldn't that make him the SF champion?

I was telling the world how smart this tourney was by Strikeforce, but a BIG mistake by Scott Coker, by putting the Reem and Fedor on the same side of the tourney. It will still be an amazing thing, it just kind of sucks the two faces of Strikeforce's Heavyweight division won't fight in the final, imagine marketing that? Maybe he was just scared Overeem and Fedor wouldn't get to the final, I really don't know, I'm just stating what I see.

I reeeeally hope Fedor and Overeem win their first round matches. I CAN"T WAIT to see what excuse Fedor (and his gang) will come up with to avoid Overeem. Will it be injury? Contractual? That fight will never happen.

Hope I'm wrong just basing that off of what I've seen the past 2-3 yrs

people doesnt seem to who know kharitonov is? do your home work, he was the last men to defeat overeem (overeem was big already, maybe not as big like now but certanly not the skinny guy fighter he was once) and he did it by KO!!. he also won decision over werdum and defeated semmy schilt, with semmy weighting 110lbs more !!!!. he so tuff youll be surprised! :-)

I can't wait to see Fedor vs Barnett.

isnt 2004 a lil more than 4 years ago?

I say take out Arlovski, and put in Shane del Rosario. If anybody happens to dislike that idea, I'll give you MULTIPLE reasons why Shane del Rosario will be better fit in this tournament, rather then Arlovski.

Fedor by submission in R2 over Bigfoot

Overeem by KO in R1 over Werdum

Kharitonov by KO in R1 over Arlovski

Barnett by submission in R1 over Rogers



Overeem over Fedor by decision

Barnett by R2 TKO over Kharitonov



Overeem by R1 TKO over Barnett

I'd be very surprised if fedor reem gets past the first round. assuming they meet of course.

You really think Fedor is going to sub Big Foot? I find that unlikely. I think he wins via unanimous decision or TKO. As for Overeem V Fedor I think that if Fedor gets past the first round he will win.

Fedor is a Sambo fighter and most of his wins are by submission. He has been KOing guys lately, but Big Foot has a hell of a chin and pretty good standup. I think Fedor will drop him and then finish with a submission on the ground.

Fedor has proven he can take a beating, and I think that is what Reem is going to give him. I just don't see him coming back from it this time. That's why I'm picking a decision.

So, does the winner get the belt?

Overeem has the belt, so I'm guessing that theoretically there could be a different guy with it after each round of the tournament.



I think Reem will hold on to it though.

Overeem has the belt until the tournament is finished. He was supposed to fight the winner of the tournament but wanted to be in the tournament itself.