Strikeforce offered a mediocre card of  mostly one sided fights on May 15. This was a builder card, dedicated to establishing future fights;  Strikeforce should try to spread that out so there's some building done in each card instead of forcing it all on one night. Alistair Oversteem’s victory sets up a match against Fedor, Jacare’s victory makes a fight against current Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Jake Shields a possibility - if Shields, now a free agent, chooses to stay with that promotion instead of moving on to the UFC. Antonio Silva is now a candidate to face either Fedor or Overeem, probably based on the availability of Fedor.  Rafael Calvacante is now en route to a showdown with Light Heavyweight Champion King Mo. And Roger Gracie, eh, adds to the illusion that the first family of the grappling world is still invested and interested in MMA.

Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
Alistair Overeem was in amazing shape last night, 245 lbs but ripped in contrast to Brett Rogers, who weighed in at 264 lbs with slight but certainly present man boobs. The Rogers who looked pretty solid against Fedor last November didn’t show up at all last night. In fact, Rogers looked scared of Overeem from almost the very beginning. Rogers never let his fists fly, holding back. He only threw seven punches and landed only one, spending most of the one round fight trying to protect himself from Overeem’s ground n’ pound. Overeem threw some nice leg kicks that went unchecked and showed incredible strength, seemingly shrugging off Roger’s attempt to clinch and then later tossing Roger to the ground with ease. 

Jacare De Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
Joey Villasenor has good striking skills and makes a good gatekeeper but throwing him to Jacare, a man with awesome ground skills as well as takedown ability, was basically providing Jacare with a showcase. Jacare dominated Villasenor on the ground but was unable to finish the fight due to Villasenor’s good ground defense. Jacare has some great takedowns although as the fight went on it became harder and harder for the grappler to get Villasenor on his back. But whenever he did, Jacare was able to easily maintain a dominant position. With one minute left in the third round the ref stood the fighters up despite the fact that Jacare was still active, one of the worst stand ups I’ve ever seen. Jacare almost immediately took the action back to the ground and maintained control until the end of the fight.

Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva

This was decent match even though Silva was never really close to being in any danger. At least Arlovski made him work for the win. Arlovski looked a little slower than we’re used to seeing him, or perhaps Silva was just a lot faster than he’s been in the past. Arlovski survived several heavy shots but and was able to land a few combos but mostly Silva maintained an edge throughout the fight. Judges awarded Arlovski one round, likely the second, which was close) but most people seem to have given that to Silva as well.

Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
This fight should have been on the undercard. A Gracie victory was never in doubt against the aging wrestler with a heavily bandaged knee, but Gracie was far from fluid in a match that was clearly designed to build his name and to give him some striking experience. Of course, this was only Gracie’s third MMA fight and his first in two years. Despite the Gracie pedigree and his impressive accomplishments on the grappling circuit, he’s still learning the MMA game, especially the stand-up aspects. He kept throwing his jab and his knee - finally landing that knee early in the second round to knock Randleman down before submitting him. As for Randleman, he’s now 17-15 but he’s 2-8 for his last ten fights; he either refuses to acknowledge that he’s past his prime or he needs money really, really bad.

Rafael “Feijao” Calvacante vs. Antwain Britt.
This one-round slugfest was the most interesting fight televised. Calvacante was rocked early in the fight but was able to survive by tying Britt up in the clinch. Both fighters exchange blows but Britt seems to have gotten the better of these exchanges. Calvacante lands a right that stuns Britt, allowing the Brazilian to deliver a flurry that ends the fight.

Strikeforce/Showtime:

The Strikeforce crew is pretty abysmal. There’s no synergy among the announcers and some of them obviously don’t know what they are talking about and the cheerleading was a little blatant. During the Jacare vs. Joey Villasenor fight, the commentary seemed to be based on some alternate universe where Villasenor actually had a chance. This was not the case.

And where were the prelims? Showtime had about thirty minutes left but didn’t air a single prelim - switching to NASCAR coverage instead. From the coverage at Sherdog.com and MMAWeekly, it sounds like the best fights went unaired.  Thanks, Showtime.

Lyle Beerbohm vs. Victor “Shaolin” Riberio wasn’t aired but ended in a split-decision victory for Beerbohm, who improves to 14-0. Shaolin is now 20-4. How can that be an undercard fight? Beerbohm had caused a ruckus by complaining about his contract publicly in the Underground forum before the fight but it’s not about the fighter, its about the fans - and we wanted to see that fight. The first round sounds boring, but the last two rounds offered a lot of excitement with Beerbohm barely evading submission in the second round then scoring multiple takedowns in the third according the Sherdog.com. There were also several one round fights that sounded good - I don’t care if these guys don’t have names - if it was a good fight and you have the time, show it to me.