The big question coming into “Strikeforce: Rockhold vs. Jardine” was about Luke Rockhold’s ability to fight at a high level. An upset win over Ronaldo Souza secured him the Strikeforce middleweight title and seemed to prove that all the hype behind him before a massive injury layoff was for real. Souza was ranked by many as a top five fighter in the division and was supposed to walk through Rockhold. Rockhold would take it to the champion and take away his belt after five hard rounds. It was a worthy victory but left him in a precarious position. With Souza out of his sights for a rematch in the immediate future, who was next? And with a win over UFC washout Keith Jardine, who seemingly “earned” his title fight with a draw against former light heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi, one thing still remains unsettled about Rockhold.
Is he as good as his win over Souza seemed to make him?
It’s similar to what Gilbert Melendez went through after dominating Jorge Masvidal a short while ago. Rockhold got a quality victory over an opponent with a name, but not much of a record recently, but it doesn’t mean a whole lot. Why? Because Jardine is a washed up fighter well beyond his peak days of beating former UFC light heavyweight champions Chuck Liddell and Forrest Griffin. And at this point Rockhold’s challenges are still an organization away in the UFC instead of in Strikeforce.
Rockhold stopped Jardine, something that’s not an easy task to accomplish, but it was a fairly competitive round. Rockhold was winning but you could make a case for Jardine to have taken the ground up until the flurry that stopped the “Ultimate Fighter” cast member. It’s a nice feather in his cap and plenty of fans who had never heard of Rockhold who tuned in during Showtime’s free weekend because of Jardine did get introduced to a potential star, but it didn’t show us anything special. Rockhold didn’t look like the Top Five middleweight his teammates had been hyping him as during the week.
He looks like a very talented prospect, one who could challenge for the UFC middleweight title in a couple years and half dozen plus fights in the eventual post Anderson Silva era for the division. The fight did nothing for him career wise and instead showcased how little depth there is to Strikeforce in general at this point. It’s a nice win but we’re still at the same point we were beforehand.
At this point Jardine officially looks washed up, entering the Jens Pulver type era of his career where he ought to be looking closer towards retiring instead of angling for one last chance at getting to the top. Defeating that guy doesn’t do much for someone like Rockhold. He showed nothing in this fight that says he could match up with the elite of the middleweight division in the UFC right now. Michael Bisping, Yushin Okami, Vitor Belfort and Chael Sonnen would take his lunch money right now based on what he showed against Jardine. There’s no one he could be favored against from the top of the UFC right now, either, based on what he showed Saturday night. It would be hard to favor him against Hector Lombard of Bellator, either.
