Five for Fighting – Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine

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Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine is in the books, which I did the play by play for live and had a couple of follow up pieces on it which you can also read here and here. So now it’s time to play Sean Shelby and look at the five most intriguing fighters coming out of the event and play matchmaker.

King Mo vs. Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante – Mousasi makes sense in this spot but Cavalcante is the only loss on his record. Mo will want that fight more and with the title vacant it kind of makes sense in a way that Strikeforce match making makes sense. Make it for the title, or make it Mo/Feijao against the winner of Mousasi and Mike Kyle for the title. Mousasi/Kyle has been a fight they’ve been trying to make for a while, as well, so you kill two birds with one stone by setting this up as a mini-tournament to set up someone as a champion.

Luke Rockhold vs. Robbie Lawler – The lack of depth in the division is alarming in that Lawler is perhaps the best possible matchup available for Rockhold. Jacare needs at least another fight before a rematch and Lawler did get a devastating knockout. If anything it’ll be another interesting if really flawed matchup for Rockhold. Lawler is also capable of stopping a fight at any moment with those big punches of his, thus the game-planning for Rockhold against the former top level wrestler would be worth it as well.

Lorenz Larkin vs. Ovince St. Preux – Both of these fighters are coming off of tough losses and need a step down in competition after moving up against the best in the division. Against each other would be appropriate and follows the UFC style matchup of matching up winners and losers against one another. It would also make for an interesting style matchup, as well, and hopefully be a good fight.

Tyron Woodley vs. Jon Fitch – Tarec Saffiedine would be the matchup but he broke his arm earlier in the evening and as such we don’t know how long he’ll be out. It seems like Woodley would be the next in line for a title shot but his fight with Mein was the definition of lay and pray. It was easily the worst fight of the past 12 months with easily the worst refereeing of the past five years. Fitch needs a career reinvention at this point and a Woodley fight could be interesting. My guess I that they’ll wait until Tarec is healed up and ready to go but I could see someone like Fitch or Dan Hardy being ported over.

Chris Spang vs. Jorge Masvidal – A healed up Masvidal is never a dull fight, usually, and Spang was really exciting last night in defeat. Another loser vs. loser matchup, as well, and at a minimum you have a dark horse candidate for fight of the night as well in a fight between these two.