Luke Rockhold
NIGHT OF KOS IN LAS VEGAS
San Francisco, CA– Strikeforce middleweight (185 lbs) champ Luke Rockhold dispatched former 170 lb. MMA gatekeeper Keith Jardine in less time than it took for his walk to the cage Saturday night at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. The highlights belonged to 26-year old Rockhold who pulled off a spinning back kick that caught the undersized and shopworn native of Albuquerque, NM square in the gut. After that, with the writing on the wall as the 26-year old champion out of nearby San Jose and the American Kickboxing Academy, dropping Jardine with a clean right hand.
ROCKHOLD SHOULD SHUT UP & TAKE THE CASH
The veteran tough guy got up and then went to the Luke Rockhold “punch buffet,” you know when you eat an unlimited numbers, thus referee Herb Dean stepped in to call the fight off at 4:26 of the opening round. Rockhold who was “crying” for better competition, especially from guys in the UFC’s 185 lb. contenders goes to 10-1. He should not bitch too much as he got an easy touch in Jardine, something not all that prevalent in elite MMA. Jardine is now 36 and drops to 16-11-2.
ROBBIE LAWLER & THE ILLEGAL KNEE
Robbie Lawler is not a guy to cross. With a dual edge razor blade like toughness to him, the MMA crowd favorite forcefully made Adlan Amagov pay for an illegal knee (you can’t knee a downed guy in the head) to the cranium in the first round by stopping him with “punches in bunches” at the 1:48 mark of the initial five-minute stanza. Lawlor, as exciting as he is, I just don’t think that at 29 he’s top tier (UFC) material. That being said, the Gilbert, AZ resident moves to 19-8-1. Russian born Adlan now living in Fairfield, NJ is 24 and falls to 9-2-1.
“KING MO” ON A ROLL AGAIN?
Muhammed Lawal is known to MMA fans as “King Mo.” On the Strikeforce portion of the card televised by Showtime, the 25-year old “King Mo” Lawal snatched the “0″ away from the previously unbeaten Lorenz Larkin (now 12-1). Being better in all facets of the game, the ex-Strikeforce light heavyweight (205) champion, now 31, was beating Larkin of Riverside, CA to the punch and kick for most of the first round. In round two, Tennessee born Lawal now 9-1 and living and training in San Jose, CA, saw the blood in the water and went for the kill in round two. A string of shots, mostly rights prompted the referee to stop the fight at 1:33 of #2.
Pedro Fernandez