Eight Strikeforce heavyweights have all signed to compete in a single-elimination tournament to begin on Feb. 12, MMA Fighting reports.While several of the matchups have been rumored for some time, it has been confirmed that Overeem will face the only man to have a legit win over Fedor, Fabricio Werdum.
The first two quarterfinal bouts will take place on Feb. 12, with Fedor Emelianenko taking on Antonio SIlva, while Andrei Arlovski will face Sergei Kharitonov. The other two quarterfinal bouts include Brett Rogers facing Josh Barnett, and Overeem taking on Werdum.
While the Emelianenko-Silva and Arlovski-Kharitonov fights will take place at the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the location and date of the second set of quarterfinals is still to be determined.
Overeem's presence in the field is particularly relevant, as the promotion's champion has defended the belt only once, in a May 2010 knockout over Rogers. He ha since won the world's most prestigious Kickboxing Title as the K-1 tournament champion and also recently won the DREAM interim HW title on New Years eve with a devastating KO of UFC Knock Out record holder (7 sec.) Todd Duffee.
The stacked field should bring some rivalry and attention from the big dogs, the UFC. Dana and co. have been known to regularly have counter-programming to affect Strikeforce show numbers, with the UFC Heavyweight division in some trouble, Strikeforce could make some real noise with their Stacked tournament and possibly become the top HW promotion for MMA??
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