God Bless America—US Fighters Sweep Strikeforce: Nashville

All I can say right now is this: God Bless America!

The fight card for today's Strikeforce: Nashville boasted three title fights. It's a great way to build a stacked card. 

The problem was that for each of the three title fights, the winner was just too obvious.

Dutch-Armenian superstar Gegard Mousasi would easily destroy Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal . The Japanese legend Shinya Aoki was going to take home Gilbert Melendez ’ belt along with one of his limbs. Dan Henderson 's right hand was going to break every bone in Jake Shields ' face and knock him out for good measure.

Well…things didn’t go as planned. 

Not at all. 

King Mo spent five rounds taking down and beating up Gegard Mousasi, completely outclassing the “The Dreamcatcher” and taking the Light Heavyweight crown in convincing fashion.

Gilbert Melendez was more than ready for Shinya Aoki’s submissions attacks. This was our first chance ever to see how good Shinya Aoki’s grappling game is without his crazy-bright neon pants—and most importantly, all the extra traction that they provide.

Apparently, Aoki ain’t all that great without his fancy pants. Melendez may have been over-cautious—probably not a bad idea when you face a guy with as many submission victories as Shinya Aoki—and the fight was kind of boring as a result.

In the end, Gilbert “El Niño” Melendez dominated the fight from start to finish and earned his first title defense as Strikeforce Lightweight champion.

With two upsets in a row, nobody should have been all that surprised to see a third one. 

Dan Henderson was looking pretty good for one whole round. Then Jake Shields took control and didn't give it back.  Four rounds straight of Shields out-grappling Hendo. Not the most exciting fight, but I've got to say, Jake Shields seriously impressed me today!

The brawl after Jake Shields' victory was appalling. Jason Miller won in impressive fashion today, but what on earth was he thinking trying to steal Shields thunder right after the main event? 

If I'm Scott Coker, I think I'm issuing a warning: "If anything like that happens again, I'm cutting you from Strikeforce." 

I could swear we heard Dana White say something a lot like that within the last week.

At the end of the evening of fights, we saw three upsets against stacked odds.  US fighters won all three title fights.  It hearkens back to "The Miracle on Ice" in 1980 where the US Hockey team won when everyone said it was impossible. 

Melendez, Shields and Lawal all won where almost nobody believed they could.