Strikeforce Challengers Series on Showtime report

Strikeforce Challengers Series on Showtime, Savemart Center, Fresno, CA 05/15/2009
By Crimson Mask

Mauro and Quadros on the call. Quadros looks like there has been a shortage of fresh human blood lately. Oh wait here's Milletich too. Save America, Pat.

Ben Holscher vs. Cody Canterbury, Ousmane Thomas Diagne vs. Kaleo Kwan, Fabricio Camoes vs. Torrance Taylor, and Spencer Herns vs. Chad Sutton are dark matches.

Bao Quach (15-9-1, 145.8) vs. Tito Jones (6-2, 145.6) opens the telecast.

Tito lefty. Urijah in his corner. Not much action early. Quach circling and banging the occasional low kick. Natives restless. Jones gets his hands working a little. Jones charges and they clinch and trade knees till the bell. Quach 10-9.

Quach keeps circling and banging the low kicks. Jones getting frustrated. Quach high kick misses. Jones lands an occasional counter. The low kick is the whole story here. Quach 10-9.

Jones lands a right lead and charges and scores a KD with another. Jones goes for a choke and misses. Quach up and on his bike, still looks rocky. Jones scores another KD with a lead right hook. Quach up, Jones stalking and bangs the liver but he's throwing singles. He's letting Quach off the hook. Quach starting to get his kicks off. Misses one badly and slips but Jones doesn't capitalize. Fight reverts to the original pattern. Jones catches a kick and lands a long left. Jones misses a flying knee at the end. I call that Jones 10-8 and have this a 28-28 draw.

Scores... 29-28 X 3 Quach. Gotta call bullshit here. No way that last round was a 10-9. 10-7 if anything other than 10-8. Crowd calling bullshit also, with great force. Shift in tide made it an interesting fight. I notice in the postfight that Quadros is going bald and attempting a combover, as if he didn't look creepy enough already.

Anthony Ruiz (21-12, 205.2) vs. Aaron Rosa (11-2, 205.4)

Crowd still booing as they set up Ruiz vs. Rosa. I think Ruiz sucks and he's boring. They should use his fight vs. Southworth at Guantanamo. I'd rather be waterboarded any day than have to watch that again. Rosa's kinda fun to watch. 6 years younger and taller but giving up reach. He should be able to take Ruiz. Let's hope so.

Rightys. Trading early. Ruiz shoots, clinches, knees the legs. Rosa throws the occasional knee and uppercut but has more power. Both tee off again. Ruiz lands a forearm and Rosa bangs back with an upper. Ruiz shoots again and Rosa stuffs it again. Knees the body. Ruiz pushes him against the fence. Zzzz. Rosa tries a Cornish Hype off a whizzer, nada. Rosa shoots and slams Ruiz. Mount. Ruiz gives his back. Rosa pounds. Ruiz turns back and forth and gives up his back again and defends but Rosa locks in the body triangle and the RNC and Ruiz starts doing the chicken and goes nighty night.

Lavar 'Big' Johnson (11-3, 246.4) vs. Carl Seumanutafa (4-2, 250.5)

Jeez they're doing Quadros' scripted setups again like they did on Elite, and boy do they suck. He's the Larry Merchant of MMA. These guys are both big bangers with almost all wins by KO and this figures to be short but fun while it lasts. Johnson is older, taller and has the reach with weight about even.

Rightys. Both look in great shape for big guys. Carl shoots and Lavar sidesteps and nails him coming in with the right uppercut up under the arm and that's all she wrote. He's OUT. One Punch KO. This cat can HIT. Time: 18 seconds.

Mauro interviews Scott Smith. Good interview. Asks a couple tough questions (ie 'Your style does not lend itself to longevity, are you comfortable with that?'). Setting up the fight with Nick Diaz which should be a lot of fun to watch.

Sarah Kaufman (8-0, 135) vs. Meisha Tate (6-1, 135.4)

Kaufman's 8-0 = 8 KOs. Stats are very close. Kaufman subbing for Kim Couture who I suspect we've seen the last of (since Randy is divorcing her) and no great loss.

Rightys. Kaufman showing more punching power and accuracy and nullifying Tate's grappling. Tate gets a double leg TD at the end of the round. Kaufman 10-9.

Kaufman sharpshoots and Tate takes her down into HG and pins the arm and pounds. Kaufman gains FG and keeps close. Tate gets her back near the end of the round. Tate 10-9.

Kaufman sharpshoots and stuffs the TD twice. Three times. Tate switches momentarily. Four times. Five times. Kaufman sitting on her banging away. Kaufman finishes strong. 10-9. Should be 29-28 straight across and is. Decent fight.

Billy Evangelista (9-0, 157.5) vs. Mike Aina (11-6-1, 157.2)

K here's the main. This is at catchweight by agreement 'after' both missed weight by a couple pounds. Aina got robbed against Diaz and has an edge in reach with everything else very close.

Rightys. Trading low kicks. Punches coming up short. Evangelista shoots, nada. Clinch. Trading knees and body shots. Break and trade punches, Evangelista shoots and gets the double but Aina pops right back up. Clinch. Trading knees. Evangelista lands an elbow. He's busier. His knee goes low but at the bell and no major damage. Evangelista 10-9.

Trading at mid range. Aina stuffs a shot. Evangelista getting the low kicks in. Clinch. Nada. Trading jabs. Evangleista gets the TD. Aina tries to fence walk and gets hammered back down. FG. Evangelista hammering him. Raises up and stands, pounding down. Aina tries to scramble up and Evangelista nails him with an illegal knee to the head while he's still grounded. Aina is down hard. Doctor is in. Looks like a possible broken jaw. Doctor calls it. Guess this will be an NC? Nope. It's a DQ. Aina wins..

Quadros tells Evangelista 'You remain undefeated.' Uhhh, no, Drac. A DQ loss is a loss. Replay shows the knee may have hit the arm and rammed it into the jaw, which would make it a legal shot.

Okay card. Anticlimactic endings in the main and questionable decisions always drag a card down. Mauro + Quadros = overkill. Quadros by himself = overkill for that matter, he adds nothing and somebody please tell him to stop smiling into the camera, he looks like he's about to give Little Jenny some candy. Mauro who is at least entertaining did a good job emceeing and dividing the time up evenly, but the problem with that is Milletich should be doing at least 50% of the talking by himself. The presentation especially the scripted, rehearsed (and fooling nobody) prefight setups is a little too close to Elite which we would all like to forget.