Thoughts On Strikeforce Challengers 8 Event

So I watched the Strikeforce Challengers 8 event last night and was pretty entertained during a couple of the fights.  Last night showcased a couple of guys that could potentially have some bright futures in the sport.  Let's do a quick rundown of each fight:

Healy/Travares:  The fight was a grueling, grind'em out type of fight between two wrestlers.  However, the size and pace of Healy seemed to take over sometime in the second round. Travares showed a lot of heart and had Healy in some tough spots at times in the fight, but Healy was just too much and got the decision.  Good win for Healy in his Strikeforce debut.

Saffiedine/Moore:  Saffiedine gave them thangs to Moore and that was pretty much it.  Very nice KO and shows that Saffiedine has skills to put you away.

Bowling/Voelker:  Oh man.  Roger Bowling comes out and tries to take his opponents to the WOODSHED son!  That kid can be a star.  Also, I have to give major props to Voelker because a lesser man would have looked for a way out of that fight.  Bowling hit him with everything he had and the kid was still there.  The fans were retarded for booing these guys when the unfortunate eye poke/scrape happened in the last round. 

Woodley/Coy:  This was a very close fight, but this fight wasn't memorable for either guys performance.  It was the commentating during this one that got me.  Mauro Renallo and Stephen Quadros are horrible.  If there were any uneducated MMA fans watching, I'm sure they thought Woodley was getting slaughtered by the time the third round ended.  I thought Woodley fought tentative, or maybe he was injured because he wasn't as fluid with his movements nor as explosive.  Coy did a good job of keeping the pressure on Woodley though, so hats off to him.  I wonder if Strikeforce would do a Woodley/Bowling matchup, because the commentators mentioned it last night if I recall correctly.  I don't know if Woodley is ready for Bowling though.

Lindland/Casey:  This was just a old school beatdown.  Why did Strikeforce have Casey in the main event anyways?  He looked like a clone of Rickson Gracie from PRIDE 1.  I thought for sure this fight was going to goto the judges, but Lindland surprised me and finished Casey.  Lindland tries to remain relevant in the SF middleweight picture, but his loss to Jacare hurts him.  Maybe they can do Lindland/Villasenor?

All in all, it wasn't a bad event. However, the commentating on last night's show was absolutely horrible.  Mauro Renallo took over Gus Johnson's role of screaming for no apparent reason and Stephan Quadros was in la la land during the Woodley/Coy fight.  After it was announced that Woodley won, Quadros said something to the effect of it wasn't close at the end as Coy was having his way with Woodley.  However, what about the first two rounds?  Pat Miletich was bearable, but he was definitely a lot better than Frank Shamrock or Gus Johnson.  If those two would have been there, I would have probably turned the TV off.  All Strikeforce shows will be viewed with the MUTE button firmly engaged.

SBN coverage of Strikeforce Challengers 8