The MMA Minute – Strikeforce 26 Aftermath

It was a night of greats. The best male and female fighters in the world were on display, one of them exhibited that greatness, the other was shockingly upset, possibly the biggest upset in MMA history. It was also the night that one of the all time greats officially retired as Frank Shamrock hung it up for good and will turn to full time broadcasting.

Quick  recaps of the main card and a Frank Shamrock highlight video after the jump

For the complete fight recaps of all the nights fights, visit Sherdog.com.

Quick Recaps

• Heavyweight bout:  Fedor Emelianenko vs.  Fabricio Werdum – Werdum wins by Triangle Armbar submission in 1:09 of the 1st round.

Fedor was invincible. This will go down as one of the biggest upsets in MMA history. Werdum wins without landing a single strike. Per Wikipedia:

Until tapping out to Fabricio Werdum on June 26, 2010, Emelianenko had one official loss on his record (to Tsuyoshi Kohsaka), it came under highly irregular circumstances. The fight, a tournament bout, was stopped after approximately 15 seconds when Emelianenko received a significant cut from an illegal elbow from Kohsaka. Normally, a stoppage caused by an illegal strike would result in a no contest or a DQ victory for the recipient. However, because this was a tournament, in order to have a fighter available for the next round, Kohsaka was advanced and Emelianenko was considered “eliminated”. Because of this, many consided Emelianenko to be undefeated until his loss to Werdum.

Fedor was talking about possibly retiring after this fight but I can’t imagine he’d fade into the sunset after his first ‘official’ loss. Werdum gets a matchup against Strikeforce Heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem (who’s probably pissed that HE doesn’t get a shot at taking down the legend).

• Women’s Featherweight Championship bout:  Cristiane Santos(c) vs.  Jan Finney – Santos wins by TKO (strikes) at 2:56 of the 2nd round.

This fight was over much sooner than the final tally indicates. The ref should have stopped this during the 1st round as Finney was basically only covering up. I don’t see any woman on the planet being able to hang with Santos… she’s a monster.

• Middleweight bout:  Cung Le vs.  Scott Smith – Le wins by TKO (strikes) at 1:46 of the 2nd round.

Le takes this rematch over Smith. After dominating much of the first fight, Smith stood strong and was able to get the TKO in the 3rd round after Le was exhausted (it was Le’s first fight back after a long absence due to an attempted acting career). Le took care of business and is probably in the mix for a title shot after this impressive victory.

• Lightweight bout:  Josh Thomson vs.  Pat Healy – Thomson wins by Rear Naked Choke submission at 4:27 of the 3rd round.

Thomson got the choke in with about 1 minute left in the fight and squeezed with everything he had left. I thought for a second Healy was going to try to hold it out and take the fight to the judges, but he just couldn’t make it and had to tap. Thomson might have to win another fight before getting title consideration, but remains in the mix to win back his belt.

So in the end I went 2-2 picking the fights, not bad considering 1 of them was a huge upset victory and I knowingly went out on a limb with another pick. UFC 116 is next Saturday, we’ll cover that later next week.

And last but not least, here’s Frank Shamrock’s highlight video. It’s about 2 minutes of entry hullabaloo, and almost 1 minute of credits at the end, but there’s a solid minute and a half in the middle showing some of his best moments. He was a great fighter, but glad he gets to call it a career while he still has his wits about him, he needs to give Chuck Liddell a call.