Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament

overeem
fedor
werdum
barnett
silva
kharitonov
rogers
arlovski

i will be watching. hopefully, fedor and overeem can get by silva and werdum

if i had to pick the final, i'd probably go with overeem v. barnett, but barnett is a mystery, and it's hard to bet against fedor

Also, the winner doesn't become the champion which is retarded.

i don't have extremely strong feelings about any of that. though, i do think that fedor will beat bigfoot, especially after the mike kyle fight. also, i think that kharitonov would knock arlovski out right now.

in any event, it should be exciting.

Set up that way for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the likelihood that we see the fight everyone wants (Overeem v. Fedor). Second, it's essentially the matches they would make even if there wasn't a tourney format. Overeem is the champ and would have fought Werdum next absent the tourney. The Big Foot - Fedor fight was anticipated before the grand prix was even announced. Winner of those two fights meet up. Then, you put that guy against a challenger who has now won two big fights and would qualify as a contender. They're basically just making their matchmaking public. The tourney format makes it more exciting than it would have been otherwise.

I just wish that the belt would be on the line each time and that all fights were five rounds. Still, I'm not going to argue.

This whole tournament will turn into a complete clusterfudge.. I'm pretty sure by the time it ends the final will end up being Daniel Cormier vs Steve Jennum

quote:

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Set up that way for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the likelihood that we see the fight everyone wants (Overeem v. Fedor). Second, it's essentially the matches they would make even if there wasn't a tourney format. Overeem is the champ and would have fought Werdum next absent the tourney. The Big Foot - Fedor fight was anticipated before the grand prix was even announced. Winner of those two fights meet up. Then, you put that guy against a challenger who has now won two big fights and would qualify as a contender. They're basically just making their matchmaking public. The tourney format makes it more exciting than it would have been otherwise.

I just wish that the belt would be on the line each time and that all fights were five rounds. Still, I'm not going to argue.

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Yep. It is a good set-up IMO. It puts together the 1st round fights that were likely to happen if there was no tourney - Fedor/Silva and Overeem/Werdum and it makes a second round match of Fedor/Overeem more likely (though either could lose in the first round). Also, if Fedor was to get to the final's there is the possibility of Fedor/Barnett which was supposed to happen 2.5 years ago. I think Barnett will win his side and make it to the finals personally.

Then if someone besides Overeem wins, you gaurantee a big fight after the tourney for the belt.

Hasn't Werdum beaton both Fedor AND Overeem? Shouldn't he be considered one of the favorites?

Werdum caught Fedor in an arm bar after Fedor got over agressive after knocking him down. He thought Werdum was hurt (he wasn't) and went in too quickly on a guy too dangerous on the ground.

I doubt that will happen again if they meet again.

First round matchups take place this Sat and sometime next month.

I expect the second round to be sometime in April and the finals to be June/July.