Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva” took place this past weekend and there were some interesting storylines that came out of that event.  I just wanted to take a glance at those and add some commentary:

-The largest headline coming out of the event was Antonio Silva’s destruction of Fedor Emelianenko.  Silva was a huge underdog coming into the fight, and Strikeforce (and the fighters) were hoping that Fedor would make it to the finals of the tournament.

However, that wasn’t the case, and Strikeforce will have to live with those results.  Silva is very skilled and appeared to be very humble in victory, and is certainly someone Strikeforce could promote if he’s able to win the tournament.

Gina Carano will return to Strikeforce to fight.  The only thing about that is it seems Strikeforce is treating her like she’s their women’s champion, when she got destroyed by the current champion Cris “Cyborg” Santos.

I wrote long ago that Strikeforce had dropped the ball with their women’s division. It’s the one thing they have where they can truly separate themselves from the UFC and they don’t utilize it efficiently.

They don’t do enough to promote the potential challengers for the women’s champion.  Putting potential title challengers on preliminary fights that no one gets to see won’t help build a women’s division.

Nevertheless, Carano may be a major part in Strikeforce getting back on CBS with Fedor’s demise, so it’ll be interesting to see how they work her back into the fold.

Andrei Arlovski suffered his fourth straight loss (three via TKO, although the Strikeforce commentary team said it was his fourth straight loss via TKO; just one fail of many for them on the night).  He simply cannot take a lot of punishment against heavyweights (all of them hit hard).  I’m not saying he should retire … but really I am.

Sergei Kharitonov can replace Andrei Arlovski in the Strikeforce heavyweight fold.  He might be the dark-horse of the tournament, but I wouldn’t bet on him myself.  He’s 30 years of age but vastly experienced and certainly adds some depth to that division, holding a key win over current Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem and original Fedor conqueror Fabricio Werdum.

-The Strikeforce heavyweight division gained instant credibility when they signed Fedor Emelianenko last year.  Now that he’s on a two fight losing streak and contemplating retirement, some feel as though it may be a detriment for the promotion.

It could be in the short-term business view, but now the division has been giving more credibility with two fighters owning wins over the greatest heavyweight of our time.  It’s just the nature of the beast in that the old lion must give way to the young lion at some point.  That time has come for Strikeforce, and luckily it came at a time when Fedor was not damaged goods.

Otherwise, we couldn’t have the conversation of the winner of this Strikeforce tournament arguably being the #1 heavyweight in the world.

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