Strikeforce: One Heck of a Paradigm Shift
Published by Jim Genia on June 8th, 2009 in Current Events

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A paradigm shift is defined as a fundamental change in assumptions. Well, by the end of Saturday night’s Strikeforce: “Lawler vs. Shields” event on Showtime, when the dust had settled on both welterweight Jake Shields’ quick win over top-tier middleweight Robbie Lawler and Brett Rogers’ lighting-fast destruction of former UFC champ Andrei Arlovski, the world of MMA was left with one heck of a paradigm shift.

Lawler should have murdered Shields. Never mind that the Midwest slugger with the solid sprawl has been through hell and back with a wide range of opponents at the highest levels of competition; his championship reign with EliteXC was among the 185-pounders, a world a full weight class above Shields’ plane of existence. As such, he should have been a bad match-up for the EliteXC welterweight champ, who is a wizard on the ground but has sometimes struggled to get it there. No, when Lawler vs. Shields was announced, the general consensus was that Shields’ takedown attempts would be met with a wall of hips and fistfuls of doom, and the Cesar Gracie-trained 170-pounder would retreat back to his rightful division and stay there. In just over two minutes Shields proved his doubters wrong.

Wading in and tying Lawler up with a neck-clinch was only the beginning of a series of moves that led to checkmate. The next involved Shields snaking an arm over Lawler’s bowed head, then jumping to guard and cinching in an arm-in guillotine. The UFC veteran resisted, but gravity pulled him to the canvas and impeccable technique forced him to tap. So now what? Lawler was the top 185-pound dog at Strikeforce, destined to face Cung Le for the belt or face someone worthy for an interim title until Le returns. Does Shields’ win make him the man at middleweight? And should all in that weight class now worry about facing him somewhere down the line? Possibly, but one thing is sure: the assumption that Shields would be too small to be competitive outside of welterweight just flew out the window.

Also gone is the assumption that Rogers was jumping into the deep end of the pool too soon by taking on Arlovski, who, despite his recent loss to Fedor Emelianenko, is still every bit a top ten heavyweight capable of ending things suddenly and violently. Based on Rogers’ impressive but short record, Strikeforce’s “Lawler vs. Shields” event should have left him struggling, wet and gasping for air. Instead, he lumbered forward, absorbed a low-kick, and fired off straight punches until Arlovski was seeing stars. Twenty-two seconds was the official time of the knockout, and all those who believed Rogers to be at most a promising up-and-comer have to rethink their opinion and rethink it now. The big-punching heavyweight is ready, willing and able to take on Strikeforce champ Alistair Overeem – and he could very well win.

The rest of the event saw match-ups play out like they should have. In the light-heavyweight opener, TUF 2 and IFL refugee Mike Whitehead outworked a past-his-prime Kevin Randleman for a tedious unanimous decision victory. In a welterweight pairing between two men who’ve fought everywhere, Joe Riggs battered a lethargic but still courageous Phil Baroni for three rounds to earn the decision. And in the Nick Diaz/Scott Smith contest, fought at a catch-weight of 180 pounds, Diaz completely picked apart KO king Smith with a few hundred of his pitter-patter jabs and harder body shots. By Round 3 Smith was stumbling, and when he fell, the jiu-jitsu black belt mercifully applied a rear naked choke for the tap out. No surprises here.

But for all those who thought Shields and Rogers would fall to Lawler and Arlovski, the phrase of the night was “Wow! Didn’t see that one coming!” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a paradigm shift. Say goodbye to those old assumptions!