In an attempt to rectify any emotions hurt by the Lashley news, Strikeforce announced that the former Lashley vs. Sparks bout has been replaced by a middleweight fight that should determine who should be next in line for the Strikeforce Middleweight Belt: Tim Kennedy vs. Trevor Prangley. I know you’re probably saying Jacare should be thrown in there based on his most recent annihilation of Matt Lindland at Strikeforce: Evolution, and I completely agree with you. But let’s go one step further. Since Jake Shields is about to venture over to the ZUFFA side of MMA, why not have a Strikeforce Middleweight Tournament to determine who will hold Shield’s former piece of hardware (it’s cool, he has four others).
I wish I could take claim for the idea, but once again I cannot. Props to Josh Gross of Sports Illustrated for letting me bastardize his idea of an eight-man tourney and proclaim my version to be greater than his. In order to grab sixteen middleweights from the Strikeforce roster, I visited Fightmatrix and grabbed the top sixteen 185lbers in the organization and seeded them in order of rank they appear on the site. I then entered all fighters into challonge.com and by means of magic they I still cannot comprehend, I was presented with a full sixteen-man seeded tournament filled with some interesting match-ups.
Based on this simulated ‘sweet-sixteen’ bracket, who do you guys have taking the entire thing?
