Live From Strikeforce: L.A. Round-By-Round Results From Nokia Theatre

The following events took place between 7-10 p.m. at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles, host to Strikeforce: Los Angeles event. 

6:54 - People are beginning to pour into an increasingly active Nokia Theatre.  I don’t plan on holding my breath waiting for this place to fill up. 

Not because the previously scheduled main event was axed, but because we’re in Los Angeles, folks.  The main bout starts at 8. Expect the house to be filled by 9:30 p.m. 

7:02 - The evening’s festivities are slated to begin with the preliminary fights.  The media kit stated that the fights were to begin at approximately 7.  They’re right on schedule. 

Hugo Sandoval (1-2) from Riverside, Calif., is introduced followed by Marcus Kowal (2-0).  Marcus hails from Los Angeles, is undefeated and is walking out to “Let Me Clear My Throat” by DJ Kool. 

What’s not to love? 

I don’t need to read any more of the comprehensive scouting reports given to members of the media prior to the fight.  For the previously mentioned reasons, I’m taking Kowal. 

7:08 -  The fight stats.  Our hero Marcus Kowal took some leg kicks early but quickly gained control.  Sandoval is on his back.  Kowal is looking to pass guard, but Sandoval is hanging tough and working hard from the guard position.

After an attempted Rampage Jackson-like slam, Kowal was hurt by an illegal upkick to the eye.  Referee Herb Dean penalized Sandoval one point after having a few choice words for the Riverside native. 

7:14 -  End of round one.  Nothing spectacular, however Sandoval’s desperation has picked up after being penalized as he unleashed an onslaught of leg kicks and punching combinations before the fight went to the ground for the second time. 

7:15 - Sandoval scores with an impressive knee to the head to start the second round.  Sandoval delivers a nasty left hook to the chin.  Fight over.

Winner- Hugo Sandoval, at :43 of round two.  I think we’ve all learned a valuable lesson about picking fights based on theme music have we not? 

7:19 - The first of what should be many live commercials airs for EA’s MMA.  That game looks terrible.  Think Street Fighter EX in an octagon.  The saving grace will be a cool marketing slogan.  How about:  EA Sports…It’s in the Pain! 

7:21 - Jeremy Umphries, from Los Angeles, is announced (4-1).  The always inconspicuous Dan Hardy is cageside and in Umphries' corner. 

Not quite sure what he contributes to the camp, but there are some “wrestling coach” jokes going around the press section.  Umphries is followed by RJ Clifford (3-1), also from Los Angeles. 

Never mind what music they walked out to. 

Clifford is wearing a Lakers foam finger in tribute to the anxious Laker faithful who are on pins and needles less than 24 hours from game seven.  Cute.

7:30 - End of round one.  A lot of grappling in this round.  T.J spent the majority of the round on the defensive.  After struggling through clinches and mounts at the hands of Umphries, Clifford scored a late takedown and got a few punches in on the ground before the round came to a close. 

7:31 - Umphries comes out aggressively just as he did in round one and scores an early takedown.  Umphries’ gameplan seems to be to hold on for dear life and squeeze the decision out of Clifford. 

When they stand, Umphries uses the cage to clinch.  When the fight goes to the ground, Umphries is able to mount the opposition. 

Umphries manages to float over into a rear-naked choke while on the ground, getting Clifford to submit.

Winner - Jeremy Umphries at 2:27 in round two.   

7:54- After slowly combing through an inexplicably enormous line at the concessions stand (The main card is in ten minutes!), I quickly retreat back to my seat.  Upon getting acclimated to the live scene, I noticed a couple things.

Thing One.  Not a lot of women watch MMA.

Thing Two.  The ones who do are insanely hot. 

The highlight of this failed attempt to get a water had to be a comment from a blond accessory in a black dress who impatiently asked when halftime was?

8:00 -  The obnoxiously loud house music signals the start of the evening’s main card festivities.

8:06 -  Mauro Ranallo appears on the big screen to preview the fight along with Pat Miletech and Steven Quadros, who looks more and more like Kevin Bacon every day.

8:08 - Connor Heun (8-3) is introduced followed by KJ Noons (8-2).  Heuns’ wrestling is nothing to play with and is more than enough of a reason to put this fight on upset alert. 

As the fight is set to begin, I can’t help but notice Bill Goldberg on the floor with Herschel Walker.  Goldberg is almost having too good of a time. 

8:19-  End of a fantastic round one.  The two started out by standing and trading.  Just as I began to question Heuns’ apparent game plan of of standing with Noons despite a superior ground game, Heun took KJ down and dominated.  KJ slipped out and knocked Heun down just before the round came to an end.  The crowd is loving it. 

8:25-  Round two concludes as the combatants stood and traded again for nearly the whole round.  Aside from two or three lethargic takedown attempts from Heun, this was a certified Strikeforce strikefest with KJ hungry for the knockout on the back end of the second round. 

At one point, KJ was swinging like an angry Celtic fan does on his wife following a loss.

Heun countered an attempted body kick from Noons with a takedown.  This needs to happen quite frequently in the third if Heun wants to pull off the upset.  

8:31 - The fight concludes with another round that saw an intense amount of brawling.  Heun more than held his own trading with KJ for the majority of the fight as he seemed too tired to go for a serious takedown attempt. 

Heun noticeably pooped out towards the end of the fight as KJ Noons exacted a series of strikes and knees.  This one’s gonna be close.

Winner:  KJ Noons by split decision.  Hmmmm. 

8:41 -  The bout between Tim Kennedy (11-2) and Trevor Prangley (22-5-1) has started.  This round saw three total takedowns (two by Prangley, one by Kennedy) within the first two minutes. 

Kennedy seems to be in control of the fight despite telegraphing two early takedowns.  As Prangley attempts to stand with Kennedy on his back, Kennedy scores with a rear naked choke and the win. 

Winner:  Tim Kennedy at 3:30 of round one.  

8:48 -  The lights dim and a promo airs for next week’s, um, showdown between Fedor Emelianenko and Fabricio Werdum.  At one point, Fedor is sitting on a throne.  Cute.

In the obligatory fair-weather moment of the night from the Los Angeles crowd, not a single person reacted during or after the dramatic promo. 

Or was it a fair-weather moment? 

Perhaps this was an MMA fan moment, where true MMA fans were showing their disapproval for the lack of prestige in the opponent for “The Best Fighter in the World.”  Perhaps…

Okay, I’ll stop.                       

This promo is followed by an underwhelming interview with Fabricio Werdum, who appears to have mastered the broken English language.

8:52 -  Evangelista Cyborg (17-13) is introduced wearing nothing but shorts, gloves, tattoos, and an iPod.  Referee Mark Coleman is trying to tell him something, but he’s just wasting his breath. 

It’s hard to tell where the tattoos stop and the skin begins with this guy.  He has more tattoos than the starting five of the Lakers combined, which will explain the gasps of horror heard throughout the crowd upon the removal of his shirt.    

Mrs. Cyborg (Strikeforce Women's Featherweight Champion Cristiane Santos) is cageside as expected.  She’s making a bunch of weird noises.  Don’t quote me here, but I think she just said “I love you” in Cyborg.   

8:54 -  Marius Zaromskis (13-4) is introduced next as the crowd goes wild... 

...For Dan Henderson.  He was spotted amongst the crowd and blasted on the big screen. 

8:59-  Round one is stopped at 2:51.  This is the best round one of any fight on this card to this point, and that’s saying a lot.  After some fierce leg kicks and quick striking by Zaromskis, Cyborg uses Zaromskis' own momentum against him when he catches him on the chin with a right as Zaromskis was going up for a flying knee. 

This looked very similar to Fedor’s knockout of Andrei Arlovski back in Affliction. 

Mrs. Cyborg picks raises him in the air like he just won the Super Bowl and the family Cyborg share a moment in the cage.  Cute. 

Meanwhile, Goldberg is standing in the front row, screaming to one of his associates who is located in the adjacent section where I am seated. 

Something about a poker match.  One of his lackeys hands him a full cup of beer.  Not sure if that’s a great idea.

Former WCW Champion and co-star of The Wrestler Ernest “The Cat” Miller is sitting on the aisle two seats from Goldberg.  He looks lost. 

9:05 -  Strikeforce shrewdly uses screenshots from the upcoming EA: MMA game to illustrate how the main event between Robbie Lawler and Babalu Sobral will play out. 

Have you ever accidentally tripped someone and tried to hold them up only to ultimately fall down with them? 

That’s what the takedowns on this game look like.

9:07-  Babalu Sobral (35-8) makes his way to the cage.  Former and current WWE stars Dave Batista and Chavo Guerrero show up with what appears to be Jay Glazer just in time for the main event. 

Goldberg gives Glazer and Batista very enthusiastic bear hugs with a big ole smile on his face.  The scary thing is he’s not even halfway finished with that beer.

Sobral is followed by Robbie Lawler (17-5).  The crowd seems to have plenty left in the tank for an already exciting main event after back to back stoppages. 

9:14- End of round one-  After some steady action early, the fighters went through a feeling out process for about a minute and a half.  Babalu scored with a takedown and a sweep of Lawler who seems tentative.  Round one definitely went to Sobral.

9:20-  “King Mo” Lawal, who could be spotted running up and down the aisles cageside for most of the night, momentarily settles down to give a quick interview.  He picks “his boy” Babalu Sobral to win the fight. 

9:21- End of round two.  Lawler came out much more aggressively, yet still took some serious shots from Babalu.  Lawler is getting tired, noticeably dropping his hands less than two minutes into the round. 

Sobral became the aggressor for the majority of the round with a quasi-stunned Lawler lethargically fending off his attack. 

In a microcosm of this fight, audible “Babalu” chants break out, followed by a haphazard smattering of “Lawler” chants. 

Lawler won this round in terms of moral victories as he withstood an onslaught of headkicks and strikes from Babalu but remained on his feet throughout.  However, I’ve got Babalu winning this fight two rounds to zero.  

Lawler may need another miracle knockout (like the one he gave Melvin Manhoef) to get out of this one victorious. 

9:28 -  End of Round Three.  Robbie Lawler may have won this round based on some stinging desperation jabs and left hooks, however it seems to be too little, too late.  The crowd definitely seems to have already decided who was victorious.

“BA-BA-LU!”  

Winner:  Babalu Sobral by unanimous decision.

We get the “tough fight to score” line from the otherwise infallible Mauro Ranallo.  That’s just play-by-play speak for “these guys don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

All in all, this was a good card.  The fights that were stopped featured great finishes, and the fights that went the distance were intriguing throughout.

This is the type of fast-paced, action packed card that will bring in more casual viewers to the sport who won’t feel like they need to know what a Gogoplata is in order to enjoy the art form that is MMA. 

The house was packed (by 9:00), which is an encouraging sign for Strikeforce considering their future star Bobby Lashley’s fight was scrapped due to a knee injury he sustained in training.

The ubiquitous problem of questionable judging in MMA once again reared its ugly head, however this is a problem that will work itself out as this sport continues to evolve. 

Consider Strikeforce: Los Angeles a success.  If it were an article on Bleacher Report, I’d give it a “Like.”      

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