With Josh Thomson, Gilbert Melendez and Maybe Shinya Aoki, Strikeforce Has Some Great Lightweights
by Kid Nate on Dec 15, 2009 11:27 AM EST
in MMA News
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Saturday's long long long awaited rematch between Josh Thomson and Gilbert Melendez for the Strikeforce lightweight title should be a great fight. Their first match was an epic battle that saw Thomson use an conventional strategy -- using his front kick as a jab to keep Melendez out of punching range -- to take a dominant five round decision.
But Thomson has basically been on the shelf since then with a freakish series of leg injuries that have kept him out of action for 18 months.
Meanwhile Melendez has seemingly regained his early form that saw him go 13-0 before dropping a tough decision to Mitsuhiro Ishida on New Year's Eve 2007. But he emphatically avenged himself by beating Ishida down for a TKO win in the rematch at last August's Strikeforce: Cyborg vs Carano show.
Melendez talked to Ray Hui about the fight:
"Josh took it to me in that fight every round," Melendez said. "Now I'm going to be more prepared. If we're both prepared it's going to be a battle. Yeah, I think you learn a lot from that fight, and the main thing I learned is that I want to be a fighter. If I want to be a fighter, I got to bring my 'A' game, every time."
Melendez, who entered the 2008 fight against Thomson with a record of 14-1, was considered one of the top 10 lightweights in the world and the favorite at the time (and still today) to beat Thomson.
"More than anything I just want to perform better than I did last time," Melendez said. "I think Josh is right. I am a different man. It's been a year-and-a-half and it's almost been two years. It's also been two years for Josh so I know he's a better two-year fighter as well."
Both fighters have dropped in the rankings since the first match, Thomson due to his injuries and Melendez hasn't re-established himself in the minds of fans since losing to Ishida and Thomson. The USAT/SBN Consensus MMA Rankings currently have Thomson at #24 in the world among lightweights and Melendez is rated more highly at #13.
But this begs the question -- with #2 lightweight Shinya Aoki apparently ducking out of a long-rumored New Year's Eve Dynamite! bout with #9 Tatsuya Kawajiri to fight the winner of Thomson/Melendez for the Strikeforce belt in early 2010, will Strikeforce/DREAM be able to press home their claim to have the best lightweight division in the world? They've got 4 of the top 10 lightweights and 5 of the top 15 and if they absorb Sengoku, they'll have 12 of the top 25 in the world.
But I'll let Michael David Smith speak for me on this topic:
At the very start of 2009 we had WAMMA awarding their lightweight title to Shinya Aoki for beating Eddie Alvarez, and now as we approach the end of 2009 we have a Strikeforce lightweight title bout between Thomson and Gilbert Melendez that they're doing their best to portray as a world championship fight. In between I've heard various suggestions that the lightweights in other promotions are better than the lightweights in the UFC.
But does anyone really believe that? I think everyone who really looks at it objectively -- or everyone except WAMMA -- agrees that UFC champion B.J. Penn is the best lightweight in the world, and even after Penn, I have a hard time seeing the lightweights in Dream or Strikeforce or Bellator beating the second tier of UFC lightweights, like Kenny Florian, Diego Sanchez and Gray Maynard.
Strikeforce has some good lightweight fights, and so do Dream and Bellator. But the best are in the UFC.
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Will StrikeForce let Aoki wear his spandex pants into the cage?
for all intents and purposes, just consider all my posts as works of satire.
Don’t think so since its in the rulebook that he can’t but hopefully his shorts will be colorful enough
i know why they are banned but its just funny to think something as innocuous as wearing pants to a fight can change an entire fight.. id like to see a guy fighting in a bar yell “if i was wearing pants i would have beat your ass!!”
No, from what I understand this isn’t a rule of individual promotions but rather athletic comissions in general. Japan doesn’t have athletic comissions so they can get away with whatever.
by kanodogg on Dec 15, 2009 2:08 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
"Strikeforce has some great lightweights"
Every time I hear this it seems like an attempt by someone to convince themselves it is true through repetition.
Frankly, I think Thomson and Melendez are around the Clay Guida level in terms of UFC LWs.
Yeah, “great” might be overdoing it. They have an “ever improving” Lightweight Division. Besides Clay Guida fighting both of them, there really isn’t enough crossover to see where they compare to the UFC guys. Personally, from what I have seen from Melendez’s standup and wrestling these days, I would say that he could be up their with Tyson Griffin, Maynard, Edgar, or just around that level. However, unless he fights in the UFC, we’ll never know.
by chrisbboy82 on Dec 15, 2009 11:50 AM EST up reply actions
Melendez crushed Guida
but Guida beat Thomson.
I think you are correct.
However, the evidence is pretty clear that Melendez is at or near the top of the DREAM LW pile. He dusted Kawajiri pretty good. Split with Ishida.
I think he’d lose to Alvarez but it would be very close.
He’d beat Hansen.
Before his injury, Thomson was much improved and I think would beat Guida in a rematch and do quite well against the DREAM guys.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Dusted Kawajiri?
I thought they’d only had the one super-close fight. When did this dusting happen?
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
I am remembering it as a definitive win for Melendez
but I haven’t watched it in 18 months.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
I was looking around for some old info about Melendez for another website not too long ago and I found out that prior to the Ishida loss, Melendez was ranked #3 P4P by Sherdog and I am sure other sites had him ranked similarly. Aside from his inactivity I don’t see why he has slipped so far down in the rankings. I still personally regard him as a top ten LW while I consider Guida to be top 15 at best.
The UFC may have cornered the market on the best of the best heavier fighters (possibly with the exception of HWs) but when it comes to LW/FW/BW the fighters are hard to rank against each other because they are so spread out. As was mentioned in the article 12 of the top 25 LWs (according to BE) are currently outside of the UFC and not all of the remaining 13 of the top 25 that are in the UFC are right at the top. Even if you look at other mostly objective rankings systems, 3 of the top 5 LWs, 6 of the top 10, and 13 of the top 25 are outside of the UFC with Melendez near the bottom of the top 10.
So yes, with the assumption that SF/Belator/Dream and possibly Sengoku are willing to copromote then Strikeforce does have access to a lot of great light weights. Now if only the same could be said for their other weight classes aside from HW, particularly WW and MW.
by exsanguinator on Dec 15, 2009 12:02 PM EST up reply actions
Melendez lost his momentum
completely when he lost to Ishida and then to Thomson within a few months of each other. And other than revenge on Ishida he hasn’t fought top notch competition in 2 years.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Ishida was a smaller, 1-dimensional wrestler who outwrestled Melendez.
I believe that was what made people re-look at it like “Did we overvalue Gil?”
Then the loss to Thomson, whom nobody had anywhere near the top of any p4p list, exposed him.
Beating Kawajiri should not make you top p4p, though it is a quality win.
It’s a little unfair but the UFC lightweights enjoy rankings inflation due to just being in the UFC… aside from BJ Penn, I think fully half of the top LW talent does reside outside of the ufc
I would make the exact opposite argument
but there’s no way to know since the two talent pools are separated by a Berlin Wall.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Yea, the argument goes both ways.
The problem from the UFC side is that if you get to the top, you get destroyed by BJ Penn and then slide down. While outside of the UFC, while Aoki is good, he isn’t as dominant as Penn, so losing to him (or beating him) doesn’t make as much noise in the rankings because the top of the LW division outside of the UFC gives a MMAthematician an aneurysm.
It’s sort of hard to judge where there is such a division between who has fought who but it really does seem that people who do rankings tend to overlook the UFC guys (particularly at lightweight). It seems like they are under ranked instead getting a ranking boost.
by who me on Dec 15, 2009 12:37 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Great I think may be an overstatement...
I think Michael summed it up best here
Strikeforce has some good lightweight fights, and so do Dream and Bellator. But the best are in the UFC.
I’m not resting until I’m officially Anderson Silva status.- Jon "Bones" Jones
but they aren’t. If you check out the rankings and my above post only 2 of the top 5 LWs are in the UFC and only 6 of the top 10. Some of the best are in the UFC and some of the best are outside of it is a much more accurate statement.
by exsanguinator on Dec 15, 2009 12:26 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
just wanted to add
that I am going by mma-elo’s rankings. the BE rankings are a bit different.
by exsanguinator on Dec 15, 2009 12:28 PM EST up reply actions
thank you
Instead of rebutting my argument, just mock it. Please, give me a well thought out explanation for why I am wrong.
by exsanguinator on Dec 15, 2009 4:45 PM EST up reply actions
You’re wrong because your whole premise is based upon one set of rankings.
BE’s rankings are a better way to make the argument because they take more information into account. You’re argument is especially troubled because you are using a set of rankngs that will punish the UFC fighters more for losing to BJ, punish BJ for losing to GSP, reward the non-UFC fighters for doing their rock paper scissors game of who can beat who, and somehow still has Gomi ranked in the top 10.
And let us not forget that MMA-ELO ranks dead people.
Twitter @brettcjones
"BJ on the BE" - Kierkegaard
Actually, I did think you were joking. Did you expect anyone to take you seriously while citing MMA-ELO?
Twitter @brettcjones
"BJ on the BE" - Kierkegaard
I expected to be taken as seriously as one who cites rankings that have Brock Lesnar as the No. 2 HW.
by exsanguinator on Dec 19, 2009 4:11 PM EST up reply actions
BJ destroys them all…
"Frank Mir had a horseshoe up his ass. I told him a year ago. I pulled it out of him and I beat him over the head with it." Brock Lesnar
by pitbull187 on Dec 15, 2009 12:37 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
Okay….
Mauricio Shogun Rua #1 LHW in the World. The TRUE Champion.
Mike Goldberg: "You know Joe, When Matt and his brother Mark Hughes were growing up, they would pound each other behind the barn."
by xFenixKnightx on Dec 15, 2009 1:50 PM EST up reply actions
Maybe Huerta will go over there and beat one or both of them and settle the UFC/non UFC argument.
I dislike Matt Hughes. Shogun beat him like a dirty horse.
That's what I'm hoping for
i mean I want Huerta to move to Strikeforce and fight some of these guys. May the best fighters win. I could see Huerta having mixed results against the Strikeforce/DREAM guys. Don’t forget he was fed a series of lesser UFC fighters before running aground against Kenny Florian. And he barely escaped Clay Guida with the win. Maynard, Edgar, Sherk, Griffin….those guys would probably smoke Huerta.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
shit
I completely forgot that fight!
My memory went up in smoke years ago it seems.
i even did a Judo Chop on that fight.
True true, Huerta performed much better than I expected him to in that bout.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
I’m sure the UFC has the better lightweights.
But one thing kind of irks me.This guy talks about other fighters not being able to beat the “second tier” of UFC lightweights. Who says Diego Sanchez is second tier? He’s arguably the 2nd best UFC LW, and aside from BJ is the best the UFC can offer. Ditto with Kenny Florian. If BJ becomes a welterweight, one of those “second-tier” fighters becomes UFC champ.
The UFC has the strongest fighters, clearly, in every division. But that kind of misses the point. Strikeforce/Dream has built up a really good roster, which you’re not paying 45-50$ to see.
this is a very good point
BJ smoked Takanori Gomi in 2003 but Gomi didn’t look very 2nd tier over the next 3 years while he was ruling in PRIDE.
Follow me on Twitter @KidNate
Well, the UFC LW Tier structure goes something like this:
BJ PENN
everyone else
by argyle on Dec 15, 2009 2:12 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
World wide LWs goes something like this:
BJ Penn
everyone else
Tier structure
IMO…
Champ/Legend.
BJ Penn
To put him in a tier is an insult to him.
He’s like Tier 0 (damn, I just insulted him)
1) Sanchez, Florian, Maynard
2) Edgar, Sherk, Griffin, Stevenson
3) J. Miller, Guida, Uno, Diaz, Tibau, , J. Lauzon,
4) Fisher, Pellegrino, Stout, Escudero, Sotiropoulos, Guillard, Wiman, Etim, Tavares, C. Miller, Emerson, Danzig,
Huerta, if resigned, is somewhere in that lower 2nd tier.
There’s is enough crossover at the lower levels to see that the top Dream/Strikeforce guys could at least compete in the UFC. The question is could they compete with the UFC elite LWs: Sherk, Florian, Maynard,Edgar, Griffin (forget BJ. He’s in a class by himself). If Huerta sign with Strikeforce we’ll have a better clue, although I’m sure if he wins a few or loses people will be quick to point out he was a UFC washout. Nevermind that he went 6-2 in the UFC, defeated the UFC’s personal Mendoza Line in Clay Guida (that may be a little too harsh to Clay) and only lost to Florian and Maynard. And Maynard was by split decision. So Roger definitely belonged in the UFC and will be a pretty good guy to gauge between a UFC fighter and a UFC elite fighter.
This, of course, is only about fighting in the cage. If we move everything to a ring in Japan, we’ll get into a whole new set of argument.
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