We don't cover a ton of US MMA here at HeadKickLegend, but this is an interesting piece of news worth mentioning. According to Dutch site Mixfight.nl, Strikeforce has signed Golden Glory fighters Valentijn Overeem and Sergei Kharitonov. This makes four recent Golden Glory signings for Strikeforce, who also added Siyar Bahadurzada and Dion Staring.

At one time, Valentijn was a highly regarded HW in MMA, even scoring a submission win over Randy Couture. Sadly, those days are gone, and Valentijn is clearly second fiddle to brother Alistair at this point. I don't see him having much impact for Strikeforce, and would anticipate him being featured on a Challengers event to debut.

Kharitonov is a bit more interesting. A one-time major force who was one of the top HW fighters in the later days of PRIDE, Kharitonov has been pretty inactive lately, and his last two fights have been unimpressive loses, first via surprisingly swift submission to Jeff Monson back at Dream.8, then a kickboxing loss to Daniel Ghita last year. What Kharitonov does have on his record is a win over Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem - in fact, he's the last man to defeat Overeem in MMA. Both men are now working together at Golden Glory, but GG fighters have shown a willingness to face each other in the past. If Kharitonov scores a big win or two, he could easily get a shot at Alistair, especially if Fedor doesn't step up to the fight.

Also of note - we've discussed the possibility of Strikeforce looking to add some kickboxing down the road. While both Valentijn and Kharitonov are primarily MMA fighters, both men do have kickboxing experience and could step into kickboxing rules if called upon. Beyond these names, for Strikeforce to strengthen their relationship with one of the top kickboxing gyms in the world certainly would not be a bad idea for the company in preparation for such a move.

http://www.headkicklegend.com/2010/6/8/ ... kharitonov
http://portal.mixfight.nl/nederlands/ni ... keforce__/