Title Writing: Mopping the Mats 6 'Strikeforce Rockhold vs Jardine'

Mopping the Mats is a weekly Monday feature meant to wrap up the weekend that was in Mixed Martial Arts. Today's edition is all about Strikeforce, as their Saturday night event was accompanied a day earlier by the news that Cristiane Santos, the female 145 pound champion better known as "Cyborg", had tested positive for banned substances following her bout on December 17th and would be suspended for one year.

THE EVENT: Strikeforce: Rockhold vs Jardine

The first Zuffa event of 2012 was a Strikeforce joint, featuring a fighter that is quickly becoming one of the top middleweights in the world, in Luke Rockhold. Don't believe me? That's fine, but I'll be saying I told you so soon enough. Rockhold burst onto the scene last fall when he defeated Jacare Souza to become the Strikeforce middleweight champion. Not many people gave him a chance against Souza, long considered one of the top 10 grapplers in the world at any weight class. Why would they have? Rockhold grew up training wrestling and jiu jitsu, ultimately leaving the wrestling behind to focus on the gentle art. If grappling was his strong suit, surely he would be eaten up by the man they call "Crocodile"? This would not be the case, as Rockhold not only out-struck the champion, he also out-grappled him en route to a five round decision victory. Rockhold has a lot going for him: He is a large middleweight, standing at 6'3. He is young, having just turned 27 years old and he trains with a great camp in American Kickboxing Academy. Ironically the only thing holding him back from the bigtime might just be his championship belt, which he defended against Keith Jardine on Saturday.

Follow the jump for the event results and some takeaways from the weekend, including my thoughts on Cyborg's positive drug test.

THE RESULTS: AKA gets back on track and vacant title pictures start to clear up.

Rockhold got a quick win over Jardine, stopping the former UFC light heavyweight via strikes in the very first round. For the second straight main event I felt like I was watching two men headed in vastly different directions. Rockhold, like Overeem, moving towards the top of the fighting world while Jardine, like Lesnar, moving towards the end of the line. In my opinion, the most under-reported storyline currently flowing through MMA is the lack of fights at the highest level between two fighters from the next generation. Jon Jones' entire 2011, which has been trumpeted as the greatest year of all time by many (including our own David Castillo), consisted of beating three fighters whose glory days were firmly in the rear view by the time he took them out. Yes, Lyoto Machida, Quinton Jackson and Shogun Rua are still considered upper echelon fighters but that is largely because no one else has been allowed to move them along.

I can understand why Zuffa is reticent to put two young guys in together: They don't move the needle nearly as much as the Pride era stars do. We had Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard combine for two spectacular title fights last year but, according to the MMAPayout.com Blue Book, the cards they headlined were the two lowest buy rates of the year. Contrast that to the cards featuring Jones and the old lions, which had the 4th, 5th and 6th highest buy rates, behind cards featuring GSP, Anderson Silva and Brock Lesnar. Until they signed the seven year deal with Fox, the UFC had been dependant on the revenue stream coming from pay per view events, so they had to make fights that sold. At the same time though, it's frustrating to see two fighters at such different points in their careers competing together. The way to build stars and make rivalries is to have young champions face young challengers! The stars of yesterday were all older when they started, but when Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell fought each other for the first time they both had less than 15 fights. There is reason to be optimistic on the horizon though: Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes are both new generation fighters and they'll face off for the 145 lb title this weekend. The star power of Carlos Condit and Nick Diaz will never have been higher for either man when they meet at UFC 143. Those are the kind of fights I want to see and I hope we get more like them this year.

Back to Rockhold and Strikeforce though. His victory over Jardine did little for him other than give him a little boost in recognition. He wants to fight someone in the top 10, which means someone in the UFC and he said so after the victory. He should fight Tim Kennedy first though, as Kennedy has far more to offer than Jardine did and Tim has actually beaten a Strikeforce middleweight. If Rockhold gets past him, which I expect he will, then we can hear his argument for moving to the number one promotion.

As for the rest of the big names on the card, Rockhold's stablemate at AKA King Mo Lawal dispatched Lorenz Larkin with a second round TKO in a light heavyweight bout, while Tyron Woodley won a close but somewhat lackluster decision over Jordan Mein in the welterweight division. Both divisions are currently without a champion and Mo and Woodley are front runners for the vacant titles. I'd like to see Strikeforce work a little bit at building up the legitimacy of their championships before they put on those title fights. At 205, Gegard Mousasi, Feijao and Mike Kyle join Lawal as the best of the bunch. I'd like to see those four square off in some combination of matches before a championship fight is made. As for the welterweight division, Woodley looks like he is in a class by himself. There was talk of him facing Tarec Saffiedine (who was also on the card, defeating Tyler Stinson by decision) for the strap but he already beat Saffiedine just one year ago. He's already beaten Paul Daley too. A fight with Jason High makes some sense, but not for a title. Woodley and Melendez are probably the two Strikeforce fighters that deserve to me in the UFC the most right now both because of their accomplishments and the lack of competition for them. I'll be following their next moves very closely.

THE TAKEAWAYS: Strikeforce is the home of fun, if not particularly relevant, fights. Out of competition testing is a must for mainstream legitimacy.

The main card featured three knockouts: Joining Rockhold and King Mo was Robbie Lawler, who finished main card newcomer Adlan Amagov in just under two minutes. Amagov took Lawler down early in the fight and proceeded to hit him with an illegal knee to the face while Lawler was in the process of getting back to his feet. Lawler responded with a flying knee of his own, clipping the Russian on the top of the head and finishing him with precision strikes. All in all it was a pretty exciting event, which is something I've come to expect from Strikeforce going back to the days of Nick Diaz throwing middle fingers at anyone and everyone who crossed his path. The promotion seems to be quite good at making matches that produce knockouts. Numbers for Nerds, my Wednesday feature, will be looking at this in the near future. As long as they keep making fights with exciting finishes they'll keep their head above water, which is why I don't mind them taking some time to find new champions. This exciting style of matchmaking is what (to me) led them to be purchased by Zuffa in the first place, so I would say keep doing what you are doing.

As for Cyborg, I don't want to rehash what others have said about it, but I liked these three articles the most:

• Cory Braiterman looks at the positive aspect.
• Ben Thapa gives an insightful look at the reality of the situation.
• Female fighter Rosi Sexton pleads for higher testing standards

To me, the only answer to the performance enhancing drug issue is out of competition testing. Currently the testing is mostly limited to pre and post fight testing. The Nevada State Athletic Commission has a random drug testing program, but they barely have enough funding to keep it running at all times. It's far too easy for fighters to use drugs during their off time. Most of the drugs will be out of their system by the time their fight roles around. If the state athletic commissions can't afford to test year round I'd love to see the UFC institute a testing system of their own. I'm thinking three tests per year, at random, in order to get a license to fight for the promotion would be just fine. This would be the type of forward thinking that Dana White and Zuffa have become known for. They are already ahead of the other pro sports leagues in terms of social media and using it to their benefit. Why not lead the way in the field of drug testing? Alas, I'm not sure that it's really on the Zuffa agenda. As Thapa notes, sports are focused on the here and now, and drug cheats are usually welcomed back once they have served their time. Thiago Silva is just up off suspension. Anyone not excited for his next fight? I hate to admit that I am, but the 205 pound division needs contenders and he fits the bill. So unfortunately I think it'll be business as usual on this front.

Thanks for reading. As always, any comments or criticisms are welcome.