It’s very hard in the mixed martial arts game to top an event like this one: UFC and Pride Veterans throughout the card, the HP pavilion as a backdrop, and 10,000+ screaming fans with a great knowledge of the MMA game. On top of all this, the show happened to take place in Downtown San Jose, CA. Despite a lackluster main event, and an unfortunate freak accident, I can honestly say this was possibly the best fight show I have been to in years.

The main event pitted Alistair “The Demolition Man” Overeem in a rematch against Vitor “The Phenom” Belfort, a fight that took place just over a year ago in Pride. What started out as a promising fight with Vitor counter punching effectively and slamming Overeem to the canvass, quickly turned into a fight that drew the first boo’s from the crowd the entire night. Vitor decided to abandon his standup and wrestling game by choosing to drop to his back countless times throughout the fight. You could hear the crowd’s excitement every time the referee stood the two fighters up, just hoping that we could see the old Vitor come up with something, but it never happened. The cheers quickly turned into boo’s, and half the crowd left before the fight was over. Overeem was awarded a unanimous decision after 3 rounds simply by falling on top of Vitor and throwing in-effective punches from the guard. Belfort did manage to come up with a few sweeps and guard passes, but he was not able to capitalize on any of it in what has to be another disappointing fight for the most disappointing fighter in the Mixed Martial arts game.

The co-main event proved to be much more exciting as fan favorite and San Jose Native Cung Le put on a show in a rematch against Brian Warren. The two met in a San Shou match a few years earlier with Le winning that bout easily. This fight would be no different, as Le used incredible throws, spinning back kicks, and good combinations to knock Warren out cold at 4:19 of the first round with a right hook as Warren was running away from Le. The only question now is whether Le can continue this kind of success against a well known fighter, and if he can, he will definitely be someone to watch for in the 185 division.

In what some may call the fight of the night, Gilbert Melendez stole the Strikeforce 155lb title from Clayton Guida in a 5 round war that saw Melendez dominate for nearly 25 minutes. Melendez used ground and pound in the first round but quickly switched to fighting a standup game that he does not get enough credit for, as he out boxed and out wrestled Guida for the remaining 20 minutes. Guida had a chance in the second round where he got a take down and secured back hooks, nearly sinking a choke, only to be speared into the ground by Meendez. It was amazing that Guida made it through the fight, as he was eating bomb after bomb from Melendez. The judges had the fight as a split decision, as one judge scored the bout 48-47 Guida, while the other two had it 50-45. I scored the fight 49-46 to be unbiased, yet a score of 48-47 makes you wonder what fight this judge was watching.

Whoever had the simple job of locking the cage door needs to be fired and not allowed anywhere near an MMA event again, as it cost the fans a great fight between Bobby Southworth and James Irvin. Only 17 seconds into the fight, Southworth pushed Irvin against the cage, upon which time the door flew open and both fighters fell through. Southworth was fine, but Irvin landed on the side of the steel steps with his knee, which left the Capitol City fighter in excruciating pain. The bout was declared a no contest, and we only learn from accidents like this is that they don’t need to happen.

In one of the lightweight feature bouts, Tyson Griffin continued his undefeated streak, this time against the well-known Duane Ludwig. It was no surprise that Ludwig wanted to stand and that Griffin wanted to take the fight to the ground. Heck, Griffin even sported the words “ Ground and Pound” on his trunks. After a minute of feeling each other out, Griffin secured a takedown and landed in Ludwig’s guard. After another minute or so of positioning and movement, Griffin decided to unleash a non-stop barrage of strikes from the top onto Ludwig with deadly accuracy, which forced the ref to stop the bout at 3:57 of the first round due to TKO. With a record that now stands at 7-0 and being the only person to have defeated Urijah Faber, look for many things to come from the Nor Cal Fighting Alliance fighter,

Since his last bout in Strikeforce where he lost a unanimous decision to Clayton Guida, Thomson has looked for a chance to prove himself in the ring. Fighting in front of his hometown crowd against Harris Sarmiento, he was able to do just that by finishing his opponent at 3:19 of he third round with a side choke. It was an even fight with the first round going to Sarmiento and the second going to Thompson. However, Thompson used superior cardio to take the Hawaiian fighter down and improve position to secure the choke.

In what turned out to be the fight f the night in this writer’s opinion, Eugene Jackson returned to the fight game against a game Mike Seal. After nearly securing a guillotine seconds into the fight, Jackson seemed a little gassed from the failed submission attempt, as Seal chose to fight standing with his Muay Thai background. For the remainder of the fight, Seal used elbows, knees, and kicks while Jackson used jabs and Haymakers to hurt his opponent. It looked like a Rocky movie for a bit, until Jackson was able to secure a takedown to mount where he finished his opponent at 2:49 of the second round.

In the first of the main card fights, WWE Tough Enough contest winner Daniel Puder secured a quick armbar over his opponent Tommy Tuggle at only 28 seconds of the first round. It was the second win in a row for Puder in Strikeforce, so I can only imagine he will look to continue that streak on the next card.

Aside from the fights, Oleg Taktarov was filming a fight scene from an upcoming movie during an intermission of the show, which some of the drunk people in the crowd did not seem to notice was a fake fight, and Phil Baroni signed a contract to fight against Frank Shamrock in an upcoming Strikeforce show. Stick to MMARingReport for more details on this.