Overeem vs. Rogers, Arlovski vs. "Bigfoot" official for May 15 Strikeforce event in St. Louis

A pair of previously reported heavyweights bouts is now official for April 17 with today's official announcement of "Strikeforce St. Louis: Heavy Artillery."

As expected UFC heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem (32-11 MMA, 2-0 SF) meets Brett Rogers (10-1 MMA, 2-1 SF) in the night's headliner, and former UFC champ Andrei Arlovski (15-7 MMA, 0-1 SF) meets former EliteXC title-holder Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva (13-2 MMA, 0-1 SF) in the co-headliner.

Today's release didn't state if Overeem vs. Rogers will be a title fight, and sources close to the competitors today told MMAjunkie.com that an official decision hasn't been made about the championship status of the bout. Strikeforce officials could not be reached for comment.

The event takes place at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis and airs on Showtime.

MMAjunkie.com first reported the Overeem vs. Rogers fight earlier this month. Overeem initially said the fight would be a non-title affair, though he later told other outlets his belt, in fact, would be on the line. A few days later, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker told MMAjunkie.com a decision hadn't been made either way and that an announcement is forthcoming that "might be something that people are not expecting."

Overeem has not defended his title since November 2007, when he won the vacant belt by defeating Paul Buentello at "Strikeforce: Four Men Enter, One Man Survives." Since winning the title, Overeem has competed overseas, primarily with Japan's DREAM promotion, while extending his current undefeated streak to eight (which includes seven stoppage wins and a no-contest with Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic).

Rogers, meanwhile, looks to rebound from the first loss of his career, which also came in the highest-profile bout of his career. In November, Rogers met famed heavyweight and former PRIDE champ Fedor Emelianenko in the main event of Strikeforce's first-ever CBS-televised event. Rogers proved a game opponent but suffered an eventual second-round TKO loss. Prior to the defeat, he had 10 straight wins via strikes, and eight had come in the first round.

In the night's co-headliner, Arlovski fights for the first time since Strikeforce's initial St. Louis show, which took place in June 2009. There, he suffered a 22-second TKO loss to Brett Rogers, which followed a first-round knockout to Fedor Emelianenko at "Affliction: Day of Reckoning" six months prior. Prior to the back-to-back losses, the former UFC superstar had posted five consecutive wins and reemerged as one of the world's top-five heavyweight fighters.

He can get his career back on track against Silva, whose six-fight win streak recently came to an end with a close but unanimous decision loss to Fabricio Werdum at Strikeforce's November 2009 debut on CBS. Silva posted the win streak with now-defunct EliteXC promotion (where he defeated Justin Eilers for the title) and World Victory Road's Japanese-based Sengoku event series.

Source: http://mmajunkie.com/news/18369/overeem ... -louis.mma

Two very interesting fights. Looking forward to both of them.

I'm not in favour of non-title fights for champions unless it's a weight class issue anyway, but in this case I think it's even more important that if this isn't a title fight then Overeem should be stripped of the title and perhaps we could have these four in a tournament situation to crown the champ. Werdum and Fedor should really be in that too, but the winner of their fight could just get the first crack at whoever wins the belt, seeing as there's a delay before their fight anyway.

Yeah both of these fights should be good. I'm also not a fan of non-title fights for champions, doesn't really make sense.

With Alistair Overeem's return to Strikeforce still 6 weeks away, the promotion has made a decision about the heavyweight belt and the title will indeed be on the line when he faces Brett Rogers in St. Louis on May 15.

The news was confirmed to MMAWeekly.com by Strikeforce official Mike Afromowitz on Sunday.

Overeem won the Strikeforce title in 2007 with a win over Paul Buentello, but has been absent from the promotion ever since. The Dutch fighter has also not lost since his last Strikeforce appearance going 6-0-1 over the last few years, while also racking up several impressive wins in K-1.

The title fight will headline the upcoming May 15 show which will broadcast on Showtime, and Overeem will put his belt up for grabs against Brett Rogers, who last competed in Nov 2009 in a loss to Fedor Emelianenko.

Prior to the loss to the Russian, Rogers was undefeated in his career, and even though the defeat put a mark in the loss column, the Chicago born fighter showed tremendous heart and skill against the widely regarded top heavyweight in MMA.

Overeem and Rogers will showcase the heavyweight title fight, and another battle of the big men will serve as the co-main event when former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski takes on Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva.

So it will be a title fight

Excellent news. Was always going to be an exciting show, but having the title on the line has avoided cheapening the event a bit.

I think giving a guy coming off a loss a title shot cheapens the event more than not having the title on the line. Especially when Fedor is signed to that promotion. Coker should have just done Fedor and Overeem straight off or better yet stripped Alistair and set up a small tourney over the span of 3 events or so for the HW belt if they wanted to generate interest leading up to a ppv.

IMO Overeem should be fighting a guy coming off a win, and naturally Fedor should too. Would be a bit hard to do with the sparse HW division and AA, Bigfoot and Rogers all coming off losses and guys like Lashley/Del Rosario not ready to step up to that level.

If Bret wins which isn't an unlikely possibility with Alistair not being known for an iron chin are they going to do Rogers vs Fedor 2 with Fedor being the challenger for the belt to a guy he recently beat by devastating knockout? I have a feeling that SF want to push a re-match but Bret ending up with the belt before that re-match is going to be one of the biggest brainfarts from an MMA promotion.

I agree that it makes the situation awkward for fans and to some extent SF, but I definitely think it's better that they at least have the title on the line when the champion is fighting. For us "hardcores" it is a shitty situation with who it is who is fighting, yeah, but I don't think we're going to get anything changed now.

Completely agree with you that they would have been better off doing a tournament (I already suggested that further up the thread), but yeah, if Rogers beats Overeem and then Fedor beats Werdum I don't think SF are going to be too bothered commercially about having to do Fedor vs Rogers 2. The last fight went really well and the response from fans and TV was great, so a second fight would likely be very good for them. Can see the marketing now: Fedor's the best, coming to claim his title, angry he missed out on his shot... Rogers has a score to settle and a belt to keep, has to prove he's worthy... And that's of course assuming that the two fights are foregone conclusions already. For me, Rogers vs Overeem is going to be a lot of fun and either man could win. Fedor vs Werdum is probably not as knife-edged, though, but you never know.

And as I said in the earlier post, Fedor's next fight isn't for a few months (late June sometime), so whoever is champ might get another fight around the Fedor one (or possibly at the same event - assuming they don't swap out Werdum for whoever the champ is). That next fight is possibly the real worry here for SF, as Fedor would need 3 months or so to rest and then prepare for a second fight: do they make the champ wait, or do we have someone else jump ahead of Fedor? How long will even the casual fan's patience last, hearing about how great Fedor is but seeing he's not getting a title shot, etc...

Excellent points, although I think your idea to the hype the re-match is a bit pro wrasslin. Fedor angry? lol. He's too diplomatic to be able to hype like that. He wouldn't play along. He'd just shrug, smile and say he hopes for a good fight.

Yeah don't get me wrong, I'm pumped to see Alistair and Bret, very interesting fight, heavy handed slugger that's shown he has td defense and can scramble against Fedor vs a Dutch style kickboxer with an above average ground game, one of the few guys in mma that can compete with k-1's best standing. Just the circumstances around it are a bit of a facepalm, but as long as we see good fights and SF succeed and compete with the UFC for ratings I won't complain, although personally I want Alistair to win as I want to see Fedor fight him after Werdum rather than Bret a second time regardless of the shenanigans with the title. The real problem is as you pointed out in your third paragraph the time frame with medical suspensions & training for getting the match-ups together and keeping the casual fans interested, especially if they want to sell a ppv.

Werdum has improved a lot, looks to have developed some brutal leg kicks in some vids I've seen recently, the JDS fight was clearly an aberration. He wasn't in shape and threw a lazy right cross to who turned out to be someone who has possibly the best hands at HW. He didn't pay JDS the respect he deserved as a UFC debutant. In shape and proper game planning, knowing Junior fists are like bricks that fight could have gone very differently. Werdum definitely has the potential to topple Fedor, Alistair and trouble the top 5 in UFC I wouldn't write him off as easily as most are. Really pisses me off as I'm huge fan of Werdum. I really hope Fedor doesn't try to play in Fabricio's guard like he did with Nog and stands with him, could be dangerous but not throwing those club fisted punches that land on the inside of his thumb and break his hand and sideline him for 6+ months.

Overeem vs. Rogers will be as stated May 15th so if Fedor will fight at the end of June then there will probably be no fight of either Overeem or Rogers during or just after Fedor's match. Especially not when you look how often they have fought recently for Strikeforce.

I asume SF hopes for a win of Overeem and Fedor and then decides to let those two fight for the belt next, probably somewhere around October or November.

It would be difficult of course if Rogers would win and they need to have Fedor fight Brett again, but people do not care about the fact that it is a re-match as long as the title is on the line. That makes it worth while to watch for people imo (plus the fact that these are also just great fighters).

Agreed. I just had it in my head that it was April 15th, not May. My bad.