Featured TV on DVD Review: Strikeforce

October 29, 2010

Strikeforce - Buy from Amazon

Strikeforce is one of several Mixed Martial Arts leagues around, and while it hasn't been able to match UFC in terms of ratings, yet, it does have a serious advantage in terms of playing on Showtime. This is their first DVD release, which is a two-disc, three-event collection featuring six hours of entertainment. The first of these was...

Heavy Artillery

St. Louis - May 15th, 2010

The Main Card features...

  • Antwain Britt vs. Rafael Feijao
    Not much to comment on as the pre-fight hype lasted longer than the fight itself. At least it was mostly a stand-up fight.
  • Roger Gracie vs. Kevin Randleman
  • The big pre-fight hype here centered around Randleman trying to make a comeback from injuries, while Gracie being part of "Royalty" in the sport. The word I would use to described the fight is "tentative" as for much of the fight it felt like the two combatants wanted to be elsewhere. It lasted longer than the previous fight, but had less action.
  • Jacare Souza vs. Joey Villasenor
    I'm not an expert at MMA, but this fight seems both quite one-sided and evenly-matched at the same time. By that I mean one guy seemed to be on the offense throughout the match, but had trouble really building an advantage. However, when one guy is always on offense, even if he's not doing a lot of damage, he's building up a clear lead on the scorecard.
  • Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva
    Both these men are heavy strikers, so I was hoping for a lot of solid hits. There were some good solid blow landed mostly by Silva, but overall there wasn't as much action as I was expecting.
  • Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers
    In a word, anti-climatic.
The undercard featured a match with Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm, whose name sounds a lot like Beer Bong, which kind of made it a bit surreal. That said, it was actually a better match than most of the main card fights were. Other extras for this event includes post-fight interviews, the weigh-in, and an image gallery.

Strikeforce LIVE

Los Angeles - June 16th, 2010

  • KJ Noons vs. Conor Heun
    In too many fights, the fighters are really tentative at the beginning, that's not the case here. Also, as the fighters tired later in the fight, they clearly wanted win with a knockout, so they just kept throwing more and more strikes. Best fight of the DVD so far, even if I disagree with the decision.
  • Tim Kennedy vs. Trevor Prangley
    Good energy in this fight, but that's partially because it didn't last long enough for the fighters to get tired.
  • Evangelista Cyborg vs. Marius Zaromskis
    Another match with a lot of energy (and with a similar result). The big difference here is most of this fight took place standing up. My kind of fight.
  • Robbie Lawler vs. Babalu Sobral
    Unlike in the last event, the main fight here was actually very balanced with neither fighter really dominating. In the end it goes the distance and its hard to argue with the judge's decision.
The undercard fight has two fighters whose names I didn't catch. There's no sound here. You can here the crowd noises, but there's no commentators. Strange. Other extras include the weigh-in, post-fight interviews, and image gallery.

Fedor vs. Werdum

San Jose - June 26th, 2010

  • Josh Thomson vs. Pat Healy
    More grappling than striking, which is not a style of fighting I like. On the other hand, there was quite a bit of action throughout.
  • Cris Cyborg vs. Jan Finney
    Women's Middleweight Championship bout. I believe this is the first time I've reviewed a woman's MMA fight, but it was not a good fight, as it was totally one-sided and should have been stopped much earlier than it was.
  • Cung Le vs. Scott Smith
    Another fight where the action started immediately. In fact, it looks like one of the fighters was expecting a slower start than that. There was quite a lot of energy throughout the fight and it is one of the better matches on the DVD.
  • Fedor Emelianenko vs. Fabricio Werdum
    ... Don't say to yourself, 'The opening bell just went. I'll pause the fight to grab a drink.' Because the fight will be over before you find the remote.
Extras again include an undercard fight with no real sound, weigh-ins, post-fight interviews, and image gallery.

The Verdict

This DVD marks the first time Strikeforce has been released on the home market, and while I'm not expert on the sport, I would rate the overall entertainment value as good, but not great. There were a couple of fights that were too one-sided to be entertaining. There were a couple fights that finished way too fast. But for the most part we didn't see a whole lot of ground and pound, which is the part of the sport I like the least.


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