PORTLAND, Ore. – Team Quest co-founder and Olympic silver medalist Matt “The Law” Lindland (22-7) used his superb wrestling abilities to repeatedly take down, control, and batter “King” Kevin Casey(3-2) into a third round TKO victory live on Showtime in the “Strikeforce: Challengers 8” main event Saturday night.
Casey, a protégé of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu legend Rickson Gracie, has taken a lot of heat from the MMA community because of the way he has portrayed himself and his alignment with “The Hills” star Spencer Pratt.
A mini-documentary of Casey which was supposed to show a “day in the life” of he and his crew was released last year. The video showed Casey rapping while Pratt and friends posed and showed off several high-powered firearms, no doubt meant to promote the “gangster lifestyle” that is so popular within today’s rap music.
A large portion of the MMA and BJJ community found this very offensive and consider it a destructive element which has no place in professional sports.
In addition to the “gangster” image, Casey also received major criticism from the BJJ community when reports came out he had promoted himself to black belt in jiu-jitsu. After tremendous backlash which caused his BJJ teachers to “disown” him, Casey repented, admitted it was a mistake, and has gone back to brown belt.
In spite of the fact Casey only had four MMA fights going into Saturday’s bout with Lindland, he seemed quite confident he was going to walk through the former Olympian. He did at one point take Lindland’s back and was working toward a rear-naked choke, but Lindland escaped and dominated the remainder of the fight until finally stopping the aspiring rapper in the third round with ground and pound.
Lindland who just turned 40 and is in the twilight of his career, had lost his last two fights and was in desperate need of a win. He commented after the fight about getting this victory in front of his friends and family,
“Thank you, Portland, for coming out and showing me this support. That guy’s got a head like piece of rock. I hit that guy with some shots… He didn’t really do anything to me to cause any damage. I feel good about the fight. It’s hard to evaluate how you did because there’s a lot going on in your head. But I’ll watch it.”
“I had a smile on my face the entire day. These are my friends and family. I just love the state of Oregon.”
In spite of his celebrity friends, all his guns, rap videos, bottles of Cristal, and Rickson Gracie’s coat-tails, “King” Kevin Casey now has to live with the fact an over-the-hill, bald, white, 40-year-old Republican just beat the shit out of him. Now that’s gangster!
For details on all the night’s fights, check out ProMMAnow.com’s “Strikeforce: Challengers 8” results and play-by-play.
[All photos courtesy of Esther Lin / Strikeforce]
