By Richard Gardner
The very unique
Strikeforce World Grand Prix, a single-elimination tournament among eight heavyweight fighters, continues on Saturday night at American Airlines Arena in Dallas with two bouts: Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum and Josh Barnett vs. Brett Rogers.
These two bouts are the final two quarterfinal fights. Antonio Silva awaits the Overeem-Werdum winner while Sergei Kharitonov will fight the Barnett-Rogers victor later this year. All eight competitors in this tournament felt that the true top-ranked heavyweight in the world would be the victor, regardless of the UFC. But all of the fighters remaining think that winning would open the door to a bout with current UFC heavyweight kingpin Cain Velasquez. This wouldn?t have been possible before the UFC and Strikeforce joined forces at the start of 2011.
"If I would win the tournament, I personally ? and I believe many fans with me ? would love to see the [winner] of the tournament against the UFC champion, Cain Velasquez," Overeem said recently.
Bettors at Bodog are all over Overeem (34-11-1) so far. The current
Strikeforce champion (his belt isn?t technically on the line in this tournament) opened as the -270 favorite but has been bet down to -500 by taking nearly 80 percent of the action on the moneyline. Overeem has secured 33 of his 34 career victories via stoppage. While Overeem hasn?t technically been beaten since a loss to Kharitonov in September 2007 in a K-1 fight (he was part of a no contest decision against Mirko Filipovic in September 2008) he did lose to Werdum in a PRIDE fight back in 2006 via second-round decision.
And Werdum (11-2) has looked very impressive in his past three bouts, beating Mike Kyle by submission, Silva by unanimous decision and a huge upset of Fedor Emelianenko by a shocking first-round submission last June. Werdum opened at +210 for this fight and now is +300. He is 3-0 when he opens as the underdog at
Bodog while Overeem is 5-0 when he opens as the betting favorite. Approximately 56 of parlays on this bout are still live.
Meanwhile, in the other main card bout, Barnett, a former UFC heavyweight champion, faces Rogers. Barnett became the youngest UFC champion in history at age 24 when he scored a second-round TKO on MMA legend Randy Couture in March 2002. Barnett (21-5) hasn't fought in the U.S. since failing a drug test in 2009 that forced the cancellation of an Affliction event that was to have been headlined by Barnett vs. Emelianenko. Overall Barnett has won six in a row since a loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at PRIDE Shockwave in 2006.
Rogers (11-2) has won 10 of his bouts by knockout and carries a notable victory over Jon Murphy because that was the first MMA bout to be shown on U.S. network television. His most impressive performance to date had to be a 22-second destruction of former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski in June 2009. However, Rogers has dropped two of three bouts since ? the losses coming to Emelianenko and Overeem. Only one of Rogers? career fights has gone the distance.
Barnett opened as the -300 favorite but has been bet to -365 as he has taken more than 56 percent of the action on the moneyline. Rogers opened at +240 and now is at +285. Barnett is 5-0 when he opens as the betting favorite at Bodog, while Rogers is 2-2 when opening as the underdog. A little more than 50 percent of the parlays on this bout are still live.
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