Penick's Take
PENICK: "Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery" exactly what fans have come to expect from Strikeforce, and that's not necessarily a good thing
May 17, 2010 - 8:15:17 AM PENICK: "Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery" exactly what fans have come to expect from Strikeforce, and that's not necessarily a good thing

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Saturday's Strikeforce: Heavy Artillery event on Showtime brought fans everything they've come to expect from a Strikeforce: a number of good fights, standout performances, inept commentating and left over time on the broadcast.

The good came from Alistair Overeem, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Antonio Silva and Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante. Along with Roger Gracie, the other winners on the night's card put in good to great performances in victory, making for an enjoyable night of fights.

Alistair Overeem made the biggest impression in his first Strikeforce Heavyweight Title defense, manhandling Brett Rogers in a completely one-sided first round TKO. The win was his first real introduction to fans in the United States, and it was the best possible introduction Strikeforce could have hoped for, setting the stage for the biggest fight they can put on between Fedor and Overeem in the fall.

"Jacare" set himself up as a very viable candidate to be the next Strikeforce Middleweight Champion with a fairly one-sided decision victory over Joey Villasenor. WIth Jake Shields in all likelihood heading to the UFC, a fight with Dan Henderson or Robbie Lawler would be a solid fight for a vacant Title.

Antonio Silva fought a good fight against Andrei Arlovski on his way to a decision victory, plugging himself back into the mix of the top Strikeforce heavyweights. There's a clear hierarchy in the division with Fedor, Overeem, Werdum, Silva and Rogers at the top, Arlovski on the next rung down and then a drop off to the Shane Del Rosarios and Bobby Lashleys on the roster.

"Feijao" managed to knockout a fighter in Britt who had never been knocked out before, and in the process continued his bid to erase the memory of his loss to Mike Kyle in his Strikeforce debut last June. With his second straight victory he is a definite candidate to be the next in line to face Light Heavyweight Champion Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal.

All of these fighters were impressive last night, and though the fighters on Strikeforce's roster perform as best they can, it's a hard task for them to overcome the deficiencies in Showtime's presentation of these cards.

That leads us to the negatives.

The commentary team at the employ of Showtime and CBS is simply a joke. With Gus Johnson at the helm last night, along with Mauro Ranallo and Frank Shamrock by his side, the three proceeded to do such a poor job of conveying the action in the cage that at times they almost blatantly attempted to sway viewer opinion as to what was taking place in the fight.

The most egregious bit of awful commentary came during the Villasenor-Souza fight. Souza had clearly won the first two rounds with effective takedowns and strikes on the ground, as well as effective striking on the feet, but you wouldn't think that the way they were speaking.

The focus of the commentary was on the slight success Villasenor was having in the fight, with Johnson exclaming "this fight is his for the taking." Then, after he had been taken down again, they continually talked about how much Villasenor had worn Souza down. Souza spent the fight in top position!

That's just one example. The sheer ineptitude from the three of them throughout the event was comically bad at times, and at some point the excuses made for them need to stop. Gus Johnson has done enough of these events to at least have shown some slight improvement, and instead he has gone backwards.

Mauro Ranallo has no excuse. He's been commentating for MMA for so long that he should know better than to make some of the comments he does, such as last night's brilliant "well how should those takedowns be scored?" line in the Souza fight. His one-liners are becoming worse and worse, and looking at him now compared to his commentary for Pride, it's simply sad.

Finally, Frank "Braces" Shamrock has no business on commentary. For someone who has such knowledge of the sport and who has been around the sport for as long as he has been, he sure sounds like he hasn't a clue what he's talking about when he's spouting off during a fight. The commentary is simply a distraction from what the fighters are doing in the cage, and it sways the opinions of casually uninformed or unobservant fans as to what is happening during a fight.

The other issue is one that is brought up after seemingly every event, and that's Strikeforce's timing issues and refusal to air preliminary card fights when there is time. Once again last night 24 minutes were left on their allotted timeslot, and though there were several early finishes on the undercard and a decision in the featured preliminary card fight, they decided to end the show instead of showing any of them.

When these fighters will be fighting on future cards for them, any fight they're involved with under the Strikeforce umbrella should be filmed and utilized for hyping said future fights. And with a fight like Lyle Beerbohm vs. Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro, one that took place last night, what is the point of putting them on the preliminary card when there is no chance the fight's going to be seen? The two of them deserved to be at the very least on a Challengers card where they could gain more sponsorship money just by virtue of being on television.

The last issue is one that Showtime clearly has no desire to remedy, and unfortunately it just means that fans and writers alike need to just deal with it and move on. As for the commentary, there are a number of other broadcasters in and out of the game that would make for a better combination than what is currently in use by Showtime and CBS. At some point there needs to be a job evaluation, and when there is almost universal decrying of the job done by these three, and Stephen Quadros can be added to the list, then heed should be taken by those in charge.

RELATED STORY: STRIKEFORCE: HEAVY ARTILLERY RESULTS: Penick's live on-going coverage of Rogers vs. Overeem event on Showtime: [CLICK TO READ ARTICLE]