Barnett, Overeem advance in Strikeforce tourney

DALLAS – Josh Barnett and Fabricio Werdum both had similar ideas on Saturday night on how to take a hard-hitting striker out of their element in the first round of the Strikeforce Grand Prix tournament.

Barnett executed his game plan perfectly, by taking Brett Rogers down and controlling him virtually the entire fight before finishing him with a head-and-arm choke in 1:17 of the second round.

Werdum, considered by many as the best heavyweight submission artist in MMA, attempted to follow suit. But in his case the striker vs. grappler style made for a fight that made nobody happy, even Alistair Overeem, who won the unanimous decision on scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 30-27.

The wins set up international semifinals, likely to be held in October, where Overeem (35-11, 1 no-contest), from Holland, will face Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva (16-2), from Brazil. Barnett (30-5), now living in Fullerton, Calif., will face Russian Sergei Kharitonov (18-4), who fights out of Russia.

“It was ego in there,” said Barnett. “You have a strategy, you stick to it for the most part, once I came on top of him, get him underneath me, I had to finish it without an injury because it’s a tournament, it’s important to be tactical in how to take guys out.

“In the second round, his mind set changed. He tried to take me down because I hurt him with a left hook. He decided to go on the offensive. He went for a bear hug, which is a good move for a big guy, and you don’t want a big guy like that swinging away, but it gave me a double-arm salto opportunity.”

Barnett, who controlled Rogers (11-3) after a takedown for most of the first round, bothering him by throwing some punches as well as annoying things like rubbing his elbow into Rogers’ cheekbone. He did a few different things, feeling they would force Rogers to be wary of them, and the more he was looking out for, the more new opportunities would eventually open up.

“I wanted to threaten with a top wristlock [early in the first round], which is a basic and easy submission. Threatening means he has to think about it. If you throw the right hand, you have to think about it. I was riding him heavy, wearing him out.”

All four winners appear to be heading into the semifinals unscathed. Silva has a bruising fight with Fedor Emelianenko in February, but appears to be fully recovered. Kharitonov had an easy time dispensing of Andrei Arlovski on the same event. Overeem took some punches from Werdum, but claimed none of them hurt him and said Werdum didn’t punch very hard, while Barnett largely controlled and finished Rogers in a low-risk fight.

On paper, Barnett’s strategy of relying on wrestling to wear down Rogers and finish him by submission, would figure to be similar to the one he’d employ on Kharitonov, although his next opponent has a lot more experience on the ground.

“He’s a more well rounded fighter,” said Barnett, a former UFC heavyweight champion. “He’s a much better boxer in terms of technical sound boxing technique. I don’t know if he’s got Rogers’ slugging ability. Sergei has a chain of granite and a better ground game. Rogers may actually be faster.”

But Barnett never really committed to trying to finish in the first round, and by the second round, the crowd was growing restless and booing.

The next moment, they erupted in thunderous applause as Barnett locked in the submission.

“I just decided not to open up [in the first round],” he said. “I just wanted to keep it there, conserve energy, ride on him heavy, take his guts, take his wind, you can’t really see it, but I could feel it. He couldn’t breathe well, then his breathing became labored. I knew it was a sign of taking all his guts out.”

Barnett in the ring told announcer Gus Johnson to move aside during the post-fight chat, and did another of his pro wrestling inspired post-match interviews.

“I’m not there to do what everyone tells me to do,” Barnett said. “I’m here to entertain. I don’t need anyone’s help too give me my moment. I’ll give the audience what it wants and then some. People want to hear what I have to say.”

The Silva vs. Overeem semifinal match up the two most imposing physical specimens in the tournament. Overeem looks almost like a cartoon character with his larger-than-life physique. Silva is big in a completely different way, at 6-foot-4 and showing the effects of acromegaly. Sitting next to the other fighters, Silva’s features made him seem like he dwarfed them.

“I already have the game plan for him,” said Overeem. “But I’m not going to tell you what it is. But I’m going to start working on it.”

Silva said he was not surprised about Overeem in watching his fight, which may have been the most disappointing major fight of the year.

Werdum had was looking to repeat his 2006 submission win over a much smaller version of Overeem. But for the most part, he couldn’t take Overeem down. So the fight became a sequence of attempts to Werdum to bait Overeem to the ground, and Overeem avoiding it and wanting Werdum to stand up.

“I expected to have a fight,” said Overeem. “I came to fight, but it’s difficult when your opponent doesn’t want to fight.”

Even though he advanced to the semifinals, Overeem admitted frustration with the fight, which was heavily booed by the crowd of 7,639.

When Overeem came out, he got a reaction similar to that of Emelianenko, with what was a very MMA-savvy crowd believing the hype that he was going to be the next big thing on the American scene in the heavyweight division. But while Werdum’s strategy made things difficult for Overeem, he also didn’t take many chances and appeared to get tired as the fight dragged on. Werdum was actually landing more strikes in standing exchanges in the third round. Overeem didn’t look anything like the world-beater he had seemed to be when fighting lower-level competition in Japan, or when he ran over Rogers in his most recent U.S. appearance last year.

Overeem landed some punches and knees in the first two rounds, but nothing with his usual knockout power, seemingly not wanting to fully commit because his game plan was to make sure he didn’t get taken down. Werdum (14-5-1) would either shoot for a takedown and Overeem had a too powerful base, or he’d engage, take a blow from Overeem, and go down, acting like he was knocked down. But it was to bait Overeem in the same way he surprised Emelianenko, going down after a punch that Emelianenko thought he knocked down and hurt Overeem with, only to get trapped and submitted in an instant when following him to the ground.

Overeem knew the strategy and said after the fight he didn’t think his knockdowns were real knockdowns, but rather a Werdum ploy to catch him off guard.

At one point late in the second round, Overeem was on the ground with Werdum, who held him in a closed guard. Literally nothing happened for the last 30 seconds of the round, no offense by Overeem on top, and Werdum made no attempts at submissions. The crowd was constantly imploring referee Leon Roberts to stand the fight up, even loudly chanting “Stand them up” at one point in the third round, but Roberts let the action on the floor continue.

Overeem was actually on the ground, on top on takedowns initiated by Werdum, but he would do little there, just making sure he wouldn’t get submitted. Werdum never came close, although he was going for a heel hook just as time expired in the third round.