Damon Martin of MMAWeekly reports that Strikeforce has finally settled on a date and three title bouts to headline its April event on CBS. The show will take place on April 17th and feature Dan Henderson vs. Jake Shields for 185lbs belt, in addition to Gegard Mousasi vs. King Mo Lawal for the 205lbs title and Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki for the 155lbs title.
Charismatic fighter Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal has signed on to fight for the Strikeforce light heavyweight title when he faces champion Gegard Mousasi on April 17 at the promotion’s next major CBS card.
The fight was confirmed to MMAWeekly.com by sources close to the situation on Monday.
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The bout between Mousasi and Lawal will serve as co-main event for the upcoming Strikeforce show in April, headlined by middleweight champ Jake Shields defending his title against Dan Henderson. MMAWeekly.com will have more news on this event in the coming days.
Additionally, it was also announced that Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion, Alistair Overeem, will take on Brett Rogers in a bout that will likely headline a Strikeforce on Showtime card in May.
It has been nearly two and a half years since Alistair Overeem won the inaugural Strikeforce heavyweight title. It now appears that he will finally return to the United States and fight for the promotion that minted his belt.
Overeem on Monday tweeted that he is likely to return at an as yet unannounced Strikeforce event on May 15 to face Brett Rogers.
He later told MMAJunkie.com that the fight would likely not be a title defense since Rogers lost to Fedor Emelianenko in his most recent outing. Still, it will serve as his return to mixed martial arts after a year where he focused heavily on K-1 kickboxing bouts.
“It’s been too long. Last year was a good year in K-1, but this year, I want to fight in MMA,” he told MMAJunkie. He added that a highly anticipated fight with Fedor wasn’t likely to happen anytime soon because he didn’t think Fedor wanted to fight him and that the top heavyweight might be looking to leave Strikeforce.
MMAWeekly.com sources confirmed that the bout between Overeem and Rogers is likely to happen and that a return to St. Louis and Showtime on May 15 is the expected target.
A split with the Russian powerhouse, however, doesn’t appear to be on the table; at least, not yet. As of the time of publication, our sources indicated that Fedor is still expected to face Fabricio Werdum on an undetermined future fight card.
Payout Perspective:
There have been rumors circulating in the last few weeks that Strikeforce and its co-promotional partner M-1 are having some difficulties in arranging the next Fedor fight, which had originally been planned for April on CBS. It’s really unfair to comment on those rumors at this time, but suffice it to say something hasn’t gone according to plan and Strikeforce has been forced to switch things up a little.
I’m not yet convinced that Strikeforce going with the triple title fight on CBS is necessarily a bad thing. In giving the spotlight to the six very talented fighters in Henderson, Shields, Mousasi, Lawal, Melendez, and Aoki, Strikeforce is hoping to put on a great event, build some brand recognition, and promote some of its other talented fighters.
Plus, there’s a risk to having Fedor headline every major event; something like what we saw EliteXC do in betting the farm on Kimbo Slice. If they’re looking to build their brand only through Fedor, they’re making a terrible mistake.
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However, there’s still some talk of Fedor fighting on the Showtime card in May, which might plan into the promotion’s hands given that Overeem will be facing Rogers on that same card. The feeling is that having both on the same card is the perfect set-up to a title showdown later in the year; possibly even on PPV.
Then again, what if Rogers wipes the floor with Overeem? It’s a non-title bout, and Strikeforce’s Heavyweight Champion now has a loss to the guy that Fedor floored last year. How will they sell that to anyone beyond the hardcore fan base?
I definitely agree with the idea to showcase other fighters, and these 3 fights have the potential to be very entertaining matches. I am looking forward to the promos CBS does during the NCAA tournament since they will have their target demo watching their station in very high numbers. Henderson was on UFC 100 and should be a good draw to the casual fans who weren’t familiar with his earlier career.
One thing I am a little surprised about is putting Overeem/Rogers on a Showtime card. I know they want to try and showcase Overeem to the U.S. market, but while the Showtime cards do very good ratings for Showtime, they still peaked at under 1m viewers (I believe the Cyborg/Gina fight), so it’s not like the casual eyes will be on that match like it would be on CBS.
Stan, good point about the Showtime proposition, however they are obliged to put on up to 8-10 cards a year with them. If all these rumors about Fedor are true, and there is no reason not to believe them, than we all know the Fedor experiment is over in the U.S. It would be well advised for Strikeforce to move on and try to acquire another Dan Henderson type of fighter to help headline the CBS events and not worry about M1 and the co-promotion farce.
Just a note, EXC did promote an event (Lawler) on CBS without Kimbo which failed which was the reason they decided to do everything in their power to ensure he would headline the future CBS event.
I also think it would be a wise move for Strikeforce to use Walker on the CBS event although I disagree with the event date. April 24th would have made much more sense as UFC could not counter program that night, but I guess there was some event on Showtime that prevented it.
i would greatly prefer to see a well rounded card of top fighters in good fights. fedor schmedor. too much hero worship for my taste.
Agreed Ken, Fedor is becoming exponentially irrelevant. I was a big fan, but now that I see how his management team works I could care less.
BTW, if Strikeforce ever tried to do a PPV the UFC would counter program in a big way.
Guru,
I definitely agree that Strikeforce needs to insulate itself from relying on Fedor and I really think they put together a good card of exciting fights to try and do that, especially headlining with Henderson, a guy who had a vicious KO on one of the biggest MMA PPVs of all time.
My gut feeling is if Strikeforce attempts a PPV the UFC would finally sign a network deal and coutnerprogram with that
No matter what the UFC counters Strikeforce with, all true mma fans will be watching Fedor, no question about it.