Strikeforce Results Recap: Cormier and Melendez victorious in San Jose
Posted on May 19, 2012, 11:24 PM by Mike Drahota
Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Cormier is in the books, and we saw some great action tonight, especially in the two main bouts. In the World Heavyweight Grand Prix Final, Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier spent the first round in striking exchanges with Cormier coming out on top. Barnett hurt Cormier with a knee towards the end of the first. In the second, Cormier landed some good strikes before scoring a single leg takedown on Barnett. He followed with some ground-and-pound and Barnett was unsuccessful with a few submission attempts. Cormier scored a huge slam in the third, landing in side control. He rocked Barnett with a head kick and followed with more strikes, opening up a cut on Barnett. Cormier used more headkicks, and Barnett went for some leglocks in the fourth but was unsuccessful. Cormier secured another takedown in the fifth to lock up the unanimous decision victory and the Grand Prix belt.
Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson came out kickboxing, and Melendez scored a nice double-leg. The first round ended with Melendez grounding Thomson once again and scoring a good punch, but it was close overall. The two fighters traded strikes in the second, and Thomson got poked in the eye with around two minutes left in the round. Melendez got another couple of takedowns, and secured the round with some late strikes against the cage. The two opened up in the third with some heating boxing exchanges. The champ landed some elbows and uppercuts and sprawled a takedown effectively as the round came to a close. The fourth was action-packed as Melendez scored an early takedown, but was later felled by a Thomson trip and spent the rest of the round defending rear-naked choke atttempts. Thomson won the round convincingly. We saw a back-and-forth final round, with Thomson gaining momentum, both in the striking department and with another trip. In the end, Gilbert Melendez won a close split decision in one of the best fights of the year.
Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante came out smoking in a rematch with AKA fighter Mike Kyle, catching him with a vicious knee of his own. From there, he smelled blood in the water, choking Kyle out with a guillotine in only 33 seconds. For Feijao, it is an emphatic victory that avenges a previous loss, and should gain him a shot at the Light Heavyweight title he once held.
Chris Spang looked sharp in a Welterweight bout against Nah-Shon Burrell, landing some very effective Muay Thai knees. He scored with them over and over, and referee Josh Rosenthal had seen enough in the first round. Burrell had a six-fight win streak snapped with the knockout. Spang improves to 5-1 overall, having landed 79 percent of his strikes during this bout.
Isaac Vallie Flagg edged out Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante in a split decision. Vallie-Flagg stuffed Cavalcante's takedown attempts and held a slight advantage in the striking department to come out on top.
Overall, a great night of fights with an unbelievable war to end the trilogy of Gilbert Melendez-Josh Thomson, and an impressive effort put forth by rising Heavyweight contender Daniel Cormier. Cormier showed he is a force in the Heavyweight division with excellent wrestling and striking.
Main Card Results:
Daniel Cormier def. Josh Barnett via Unanimous Decision
Gilbert Melendez def. Josh Thomson via Split Decision
Rafael Cavalcante def. Mike Kyle via Submission – R1 (Guillotine choke)
Chris Spang def. Nah-Shon Burrell via Knockout – R1
Preliminary Card Results:
Isaac Vallie Flagg def. Gesias Cavalcante via Split Decision
Guto Inocente def. Virgil Zwicker via Unanimous Decision
Gian Villante def. Derrick Mehmen via Unanimous Decision
Quinn Mulhern def. Yuri Villefort via Split Decision
Bobby Green def. James Terry via Split Decision
Comments
Great win for Cormier.
Cormier could give JDS or any Top heavyweight fighter a good run for his money. The guy has outstanding wrestling and striking skills and freakish strength and stamina...The sky is the limit when you're of this caliber...
The Grand Prix was a joke....
Pretty much. Cormier did well and Josh sucked. You would think Josh might use those tree legs quite a bit more than what he did. Cormier deserved that win no doubt.
BS win for Melendez.
Boooo
Melendez won rounds 1-3. Thompson won 4-5. Thompson finished stronger and came closer to a finish but this is a sport not real combat and Melendez had more points. Gilbert won.
I know its a sport and Thomson did win on points. He won 3 rounds.
Gil was overrated but he is still top 10 LW. Hopefully he fights in the UFC soon and my opinion can be shown as valid.
No he didn't. Not from the judges. Not by online reaction. Not by media PBP. A lot of people thought Thompson won. However, many more thought Melendez did enough to win rounds 1 - 3.
So, on points Melendez correctly won.
Nope
I hear a lot more people saying Thomson won than Melendez. You are hanging out with newbies to MMA is why. You should fix that.
Also media PBP's arent the go to for decisions. You are basing your point on other people's opinions.
I on the other hand know for sure Thomson whooped on Melendez in the last half of their fight.
I can't wait to see how DC does in the UFC! This cat is talented, tough, fast on his feet for a HW, and is hard to take down! Looks like the total package to me.
It looked like total package against Josh Barnett. I wonder if you put him against upper echelon fighter will he be as fast and as dominating? In the near future we will find out
Barnett was upper echelon, probably a top 7.
Im not so sure about that Keith. His performance last night was terrible for a man his size and weight. I and I'm sure many expected quite a bit more from him.
I was very impressed with DC. I thought Josh was going to run through him. DC proved me wrong. Although for a moment when Josh had his leg i thought it was over. Good win. This kinda sucks for Josh, he's in no mans land. I would love to see him in the UFC. If he won and passed the drug test, he would have been there, but now it's all up in the air. He's got a couple more fights left in him.
Agreed. This is the fight that made me a DC believer. It will be interesting to see who they match him up with for the final fight. There really isn't anyone left in SF for him. I hope that makes a fight with Fedor more likely. Fedor is just recently off of a severe slide and only made a comeback against lower level opponents but I still see him as having a good chance against DC.
Oh, and that slam was beautiful. Not to often you see a 6'3" 250 pounder flying through the air.
like i said before the fight, barnett will be exposed. cant believe some sites actually had him a top 5 HW
How was he exposed? He was in the fight the entire time and was the closest to finishing with that leg lock. He got out boxed and out wrestled but he was never hurt and had some shining moments himself. He got edged out in a decision not "exposed".
He didn't get edged out. He got dominated, and was rocked multiple times by a guy who broke his hand in the first round. He showed great heart though.
That was not domination. The word domination gets thrown around WAY too much these days. Domination is when a fighter has no answer for another fighter. There were no 10-8 rounds. I had Cormier ahead in every round but there was no point in that fight where I thought that Barnett had no hope of a win. Barnett also never looked rocked. Tired, maybe but not rocked
I'd personally look it up, but it's not really that important. Barnett got rocked I believe in the second, and third rounds (especially by a big head kick daniel landed). Barnett's only hope of a win was by hail mary submission, or random big shot on the feet. Daniel was the better striker, better wrestler, and better grappler. Josh was dominated in every facet of the game. The only point in the fight that saw Josh any where near a victory was a leg lock late in the fight, and that wasn't even really that close.
I agree that Daniel was ahead in every aspect but not by that much. He won two thirds (roughly) of the exchanges and Barnett won one third. It's a clear win for Cormier but not a domination. Domination is what Barnett did to Brett Rogers or what Overeem did to Lesner. Last night was more like what John Jones did to Rashad Evens but a little LESS dominant. You are right though, it isn't that important and we agree on the main points. As for looking it up, I have a good grasp of the word.
I didn't meant you look up the word or I look up the word. I was talking about looking up the exact points of the fight when Cormier in fact "rocked" barnett which you did not see.
Cormier was just as ahead of Barnett as Jones was, if not more. As Barnett won way less than a third of the exchanges.
It was a dominant decision victory that Barnett had next to no chance of winning. The only hope he had was a hail mary submission or strike.
Barnett got dominated
Comier vs JDS and Mir winer to find out who is the best HW
Cormier looked great tonight but he out boxed a guy who has decent stand up but is know for his sub game. I would like to see Cormier vs. maybe someone like Carwin to see where he really is,but he is easily a top 10 and probably top 6.
Agreed. A rematch with Silva would be cool too. The last fight was over too quickly to really tell much.
Got him right at #5 Keith. Looked amazing.
Hahaha, no need to fight Silva again. Silva doesn't need to get the crap kicked out of him again for no reason.
yea agree, Silva may have okay striking but surprisingly has no metaphorical chin
The weird thing is that Silva brings different chins to different fights. Silva V Cormier is a good fight. The last time he just brought the wrong chin.
What makes it a good fight? The last fight was clear cut. No fluke shot landed, no random sub, no lay n pray victory. Daniel tore him apart on the feet, and finished him quickly.
He rocked him too early to tell. You could have made the same argument you are now making after Serra destroyed GSP. Look how the second fight went. Any time a fight ends that quickly there are questions left unanswered.
No, that's a terrible comparison. GSP was caught right on the back/top of the head by a looping punch. It was a fluke shot. He had never been rocked before that, and hasn't since.
Daniel Cormier landed numerous clean punches on a very slow Big Foot Silva. He finished him after an accumulation of clean shots. GSP was stopped because he got caught and his equilibrium went away, and Serra swarmed.
Two much different scenarios.
It was not a fluke shot. How can you say it was a fluke shot when that punch is Serra's bread and butter in the stand up side of the game? GSP should have been ready for that punch after watching all the video.
He was. If he would have ducked literally half an inch more it would have missed completely. The shot hit him the crown of the head, and because of the direction it came screwed up his balance.
The punch didn't land clean at all.
Almost forgot about Feijao... damn did he look good. He ran through Kyle (not surprisingly) and proved again he is one of the most dangerous LHWs out there.
I definitely have him in the top 10, probbaly bide Bader at 7 or 8. Would love to see that match up
Agreed again. Feijao is HIGHLY underrated.
Barnett was unbeaten longer than JDS.UFC HW devision sucks right now that is the reason Mir is fighting for the belt becose no other option .Mir got KO'd to Lesnar,Carwin,and TKO loss to someone like Brandon Vera.Mir is a can and always was.
Mir would destroy you Mokokokoko, guess you're a "can" eh?
Nice one Daniel! Im guessing the only 2 HW that won't make it to the UFC from SF are Barnett and Kharnitonov,although I'd love to see Sergei there...Dana please fire Mauro Ranallo,THANKSSSSSSS!!!!!
Dana has a grudge against Barnett but I can see Kharitonov getting in. There are worse in the UFC now.
I personally like Mauro. Not a fan of Goldberg though.