Strikeforce Villasenor Vs. Santos Live Running Blog

The first fight will begin shortly on this Showtime broadcast. Here is the card for tonight that will be shown on Showtime.

• “Smokin” Joey Villasenor (26-6) vs. Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos (16-12), 3X5, 185Lbs
• Nick “The Goat” Thompson (38-10-1) vs. Tim Kennedy (9-2)
• Jorge Gurgel (12-5) vs. Conor “Hurricane” Heun (8-2)
• Sarah Kaufman (8-0) vs. Shayna “The Queen of Spades” Baszler (9-5)
• Cory “The One” Devela (9-2) vs. Luke Rockhold (4-1)

The first fight on the card will be Devela vs. Rockhold. The broadcast team on Showtime tonight is a three-man crew consisting of Mauro Ranallo, Stephen "The Fight Professor" Quadros and Pat Militich.

Devela and Rockhold are making their ways into the cage. Rockhold is training out of the American Kickboxing Academy in San Jose. He is 24 years old and from Santa Cruz.

Devela is from Washington and he says his MMA style is called "cowboy karate." He trains under MMA veteran Dennis Hallman. Hallman won his fight earlier tonight with a rear-naked choke in the first round over a fighter named Justin Davis.

Rockhold beats Devela with a rear-naked choke 30 seconds into the first round. Devela came forward and Rockhold landed a right hand that rocked Devela to the ground. Rockhold proceeded to take Devela's back and hit him with many punches and fists before deciding to choke out Devela.

The fans were booing because the fight is in Kent, Washington and Devela was the local fighter.

The women's fight is next! Baszler is walking to the cage now and is being accompanied by Josh Barnett. Barnett is fighting Fedor at the Affliction show on August 1.

This fight will be three five minute rounds.

Baszler won round one by taking Kaufman to the ground but Kaufman dominated round two which was a stand-up battle.

Kaufman dominated round three also and she will win by unanimous decision. Baszler did not have any takedowns in the last two rounds. She seemed very tired and was no match for Kaufman in the stand-up game.

Kaufman looked a lot bigger than Baszler.

Huen vs. Gurgel is up next.

Wow, this is one hell of a fight! This is a stand-up war and the Fight of the Night so far.

This fight was three rounds of stand-up action much to the delight of the fans in the arena. They exchanged punches and kicks for all three rounds.

Gurgel should win this fight by decision. Gurgel and Huen embrace after the fight.

The judges do give the win to Gurgel by unanimous decision. Huen said this fight was the most fun he has ever had. The two fighters shake hands and hug a few more times after the fight.

Showtime is having a promo for Cyborg vs. Carano right now. They fight August 15 on Showtime.

Thompson vs. Kennedy is up next.

We are now in round two. Quadros has round one going to Kennedy 10-9.

Kennedy wins by TKO in the second round after Thompson tapped out due to a few strikes to the head. Thompson yelled at the ref after the fight and complained about the strikes to the back of his head.

The main event is up next.

We are going to round two now. I give the first round to Villasenor. It was mostly a stand-up battle.

The last two rounds were close but Villasenor should win by decision.

Villasenor does win by split decision. He told Quadros that he would like to fight Cung Le for the title in the future.

That's it for Strikeforce's second installment of their Strikeforce Challengers show. Their next big show will be on Aug. 15 live on Showtime.