By my count there are no less than 5 dark horses in the Strikeforce Heavyweight GP. You have Bigfoot Silva, a definite dark horse. Andrei Arvloski is a dark horse for sure. Barnett is a evil fiery black steed. Rogers is a horse that is dark, and then we have Sergei Kharitonov, who many have also dubbed a shadowy Equus ferus caballus. This tournament is full of horse allegory’s and it’s ridiculous. Werdum is Vai Cavalo (go horse), Ubereem is making horses disappear faster than Gerald Ford, and a few weeks ago Fedor is riding around atop a horse smiling. Madness.
Where does the phrase “dark horse” even originate from? Gather around this internet article and I will tell you, I was just about to look it up anyway. Lets see here, the first time the phrase was used was in the early 1800’s by Benjamin Disraeli in his novel, “The Young Duke“, it was about the underdog horse that no one knew winning a race. Later on politicians used the term and now here I am today, by definition totally misusing the term since I am familiar with each one of these participants in the GP. Crap, technically there are no dark horses in this tournament, only underdogs. The beginning of the article is rendered meaningless now. Oh well, lets roll with it. MMAFighting caught up with the original dark horse of the tournament Sergei Kharitonov to talk about Arvloski and more, check it out.
“To be honest with you, it’s OK for me not to get all the attention,” . “I don’t necessarily want the attention until I prove myself and prove that I deserve the attention. I understand I haven’t fought in the United States since 2007 when I fought in Las Vegas. So people don’t know me right now, but that’s OK. I’d rather not get the attention until I do something to deserve it.”
“I don’t think I’m getting him at the right time necessarily because of the fact he’s coming off three losses, because this is a guy who, those three losses were against some of the best in the world,” he said. “And before that, he had beaten some of the best in the world. So I don’t think I’m getting someone who is in any way less dangerous than he’s ever been. In fact, he’s probably more motivated that he’s coming off of those losses.”
“I’d like to fight as often as possible whether it’s MMA or boxing or sambo,” “I plan on fighting as soon as I can. Whether I fight in February or April, it doesn’t make a difference to me. In fact, I’d rather fight every month if I can.”
Props to MMA.US for the pic.
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