Strikeforce Challengers 12 results, flying eye poke ends fight
Justin “The Silverback” Wilcox defeats Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27) Ovince St. Preux defeats Antwain “The…
Justin “The Silverback” Wilcox defeats Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
Ovince St. Preux defeats Antwain “The Juggernaut” Britt via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28)
Marius Zaromskis and Waachiim Spiritwolf is ruled a no contest after an inadvertent eyepoke from Zarmoskis in round one
Liz Carmouche defeats Jan Finney via technical knockout (strikes) at 1:30 of round two
Caros Fodor defeats Derek Getzel via submission (D’arce choke) at 4:39 of round one
Wes “The Perfect Storm” Shivers vs. Goldman Butler
Wesley “Pitbull” Little vs. Jacob “Psycho” Noe
Jeremiah “Bigg Rigg” Riggs vs. James Sharp
Jamie Houston vs. Dave Martin
Anthony Mitchell vs. Jeffrey Hedgepeth
Brian “The Law” Hall vs. Thomas “Die Hard Kid” Vasquez
Joel Cooper vs. Brian Burse
Travis Robertson vs. Ken Duboise
Justin Wilcox, Ovince St. Preux and Liz Carmouche all had the biggest wins of their MMA careers at last night’s Strikeforce Challengers 12. It’s a shame that an accidental eye poke ending a fight in just six seconds is what everyone will be talking about.
Dream welterweight champion Marius Zaromskis charged across the cage at the opening bell, went for a flying knee and accidentally poked Waachiim Spiritwolf in the eye, causing an injury that led the ringside doctor to call off the fight. The Showtime announcers didn’t seem to understand the rules about injuries caused by accidental fouls, which led to some confusion until the rules official went on the air and explained things.
Zaromskis hasn’t defended his Dream title in more than a year, and ought to either fight in Japan again or relinquish his belt. Furthermore, if Zaromskis is going to fight in the United States, he should face a better opponent. Spiritwolf isn’t a good enough fighter to be worthy of fighting a champion of a major promotion. On the other hand, this was Zaromskis’s third time in the Strikeforce cage this year, and he still hasn’t won a fight in Strikeforce. So maybe Zaromskis should be fighting opponents like Spiritwolf.
In the main event, Wilcox had absolutely no trouble methodically defeating Vitor Ribeiro by unanimous decision. Ribeiro was once among the best lightweights in all of MMA, but as the sport has progressed, Ribeiro has not. Wilcox outclassed Ribeiro in the stand-up, showed off a good sprawl when Ribeiro went for takedowns, and easily won, taking a unanimous decision, 30-27 on all three judges’ scorecards.