On the surface Strikeforce, Dallas seems to have left a lot of questions unresolved. Namely, is Overeem deserving of the hype and is Barnett as good as people tend to think he is? Initial reactions trending seem to be that Werdum entered with such a bad strategy that we have no way of knowing how good Overeem really is against elite level MMA fighters. Yet I think we can take more from this fight than many are giving it credit for.
Overeem buckled Werdum on several occassions with high powered punches and knee strikes. Yes, Werdum was attempting to bait Overeem to follow him to the ground but when he was hit by those strikes, especially the knee in the second round, you can see Werdum literally fold in half. Yet it was not worth Overeem following up because of the massive submission risk that Werdum presents. The only time he entered his guard was with ten seconds left of the first and second round, and through large portions of the third round out of frustration at Werdum's ineffective butt-scooting.
The problem is many pundits are now taking this as an indication that Overeem has reached a glass ceiling in his MMA training. Yet looking through previous MMA fights I find that the Silva/Leites fight is analogous. In that fight we had a killer in Silva hurting Leites throughout the fight, yet Leites was so scared of Silva that he flopped to the ground time and time again in an attempt to avoid being hit as well as lure Silva to the ground. Yet despite that fight being atrocious no one then said that Silva was overated. Yet this is what happened in the Overeem/Werdum fight, and it will happen again if Overeem is put against another elite submission artist, just like it happened with Silva/Maia.
One thing we did learn though is that Overeem has to put combinations together. Werdum, by repeatedly tagging him when he stepped into the pocket showed that Overeem cannot rely on landing one big KO strike, especially against those unwilling to stand with him for extended period of time, which lets face it, is going to be 90% of the Heavyweight division. What he needed to do against Werdum is utilise the jab to keep Werdum at bay and then start mixing in straights and hooks, not just rely on keeping his waist bent and then looking to hit an overhand right. We know Overeem is better than that, and it would not take too much to tweek his K-1 game into an MMA game. The Reem can do whatever the hell he wants against the B-Level fighters his last 10 wins before Werdum came against, but he will have to learn how to use the jab in order to keep opponents at bay and ensure the majority of the fight is not spent stopping takedowns, and as a way to set up combinations, just like it is in boxing.
So what about Barnett? I think that his peformance was perfect, and I actually have no criticism, but I would like to address some of the criticism he is facing, namely the time it took him to put Rogers away. Considering Rogers' ground game, or lack of, many felt that given Barnett's ease with which he was able to get mount in the first round he should have finished him there and then. Yet as Barnett said in his post-interviews that wasn't the plan. The plan he had worked out with Erik Paulson was to grapple him, tire him out, use Barnett's heavy hips to wind him and pressure his lungs to set up the submission in the later rounds. It is a game plan that has been widely used in MMA. When Rick Story beat Thiago Alves, their plan was based around tiring Alves out. When GSP beat BJ Penn at UFC 94, GSP's game plan was based around tiring out BJ in the first round by clinching him against the cage and so preventing BJ from stopping the take downs in later rounds. The only difference between those two fights and the Barnett/Rogers fight is the quality of competition. However, just because Rogers isn't equal competition to Barnett doesn't mean that he should drastically alter his game plan. If we look at Lesnar/Velasquez, Lesnar did everything his corner wanted him to do...in the first 30 seconds. His rash nature helped lead him to a TKO loss. If Barnett had come at Rogers looking to put him away as fast as possible, then that could have led to Barnett getting hit or swept, all because of haste. What is obvious is that Barnett adjusted his game plan between rounds. When he realised how easy it was to get mount, he immediately locked in the arm-triangle in the second round. There was too much at stake for Barnett for him to try and finish the fight as quickly as possible. People praise GSP for being clinical, let us extended the same praise to Barnett.
It was also nice to see Barnett use striking to set up the take down in the second round. Though brief, Barnett was able to close the distance on Rogers and once inside secure the take down. I expect him to do the same thing to Kharitonov, paw quickly with the jab, follow it up with a straight right, and then either clinch followed by a trip, or else drop down against the cage, secure the single/double leg, and just proceed to pass from there en-route to a unanimous decision or arm-triangle/kimura submission win.
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