-- First of all, I didn't catch the prelims, so I'm not sure how entertaining they were. Go to sherdog to look at the play-by-play if you're interested. They should still have it up on their site.
-- Werdum and Silva was a good, competitive fight. Werdum caught Silva with some hard shots, but Silva has an enormous chin that withstood those shots. Silva gave it Werdum as well, and I knew it would be a close one, I thought a split decision, rather than a unanimous one, for Werdum. What's next for him? Well, I'd say maybe he gets Rogers, because I think Overeem and Fedor will fight next, maybe in the spring? Don't know why, but big fights take a while to put together it seems.
-- I was surprised at Sokoudjou. I didn't think he would last that long against Mousasi. I think maybe Mousasi underestimated Soko and his improved ground game. It just seems that standing Soko is nervous, very jittery, like he's afraid to get hit, and that's definitely understandable.
-- Mayhem vs. Shields was a tremendous fight. Whoever said it would steal the show was ... nearly right. Mayhem had his grand entrance and fought with great heart, negating a lot of Shields' ground game. Mayhem was the better striker, but couldn't withstand Shields' takedowns, so he would only get a shot or two in, then get taken down and have to defend. From what I saw, Shields never had Mayhem in a legitimate submission, but Mayhem secured an RNC and had it sunk at the end of one of the rounds, but Shields was saved by the bell. Still, Shields showed dominance on the ground with his positioning, so I can understand why the judges awarded him the UD.
-- All the talk and all the hype was put to rest with one shot by Fedor in the center of the cage, straight to the jaw of Brett Rogers. It was a great test for Fedor, but he prevailed in the end, with a punch very similar to the one with which he laid out Andrei Arlovski. I thought was over just seconds in when Fedor had Rogers on the ground and was looking the sub. But it appeared that Rogers had done some groundwork, as he scrambled back to his feet.
Although I had never seen Fedor train in a cage, he seemed at home there, no PRIDE-cage curse, a la Shogun, etc. He did look to be in some trouble when Rogers had some ground and pound going, although maybe not, because we knew an armbar attempt was coming, didn't we? The fight's finish was unexpected, and that's why I love MMA. Rogers didn't fall to a sub, but to an overhand Russian right. We'll see him again, Rogers that is, as he'll try to string together some wins and get a re-match. As for Fedor, the massive Dutch kickboxer. Alistair Overeem, apparently looms in the near future.
Overall, I was very impressed, and like I said in the video Tom and I did earlier this week, this was in fact a watershed event for Strikeforce. I guess we'll have to see how the TV ratings did, especially versus the UFC's counter-programming. There was top-notch announcing from Frank Shamrock and Mauro Ranallo, and the production was superb - it doesn't hurt if you have a tried-and-true network juggernaut like CBS handling things.
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