Strikeforce Houston: Was Jim Lovell on Hand for that Successful Failure?

Jim Lovell is one of the two astronauts, along with John Swigert Jr., who made the famous assertion, “Houston, we have a problem.” After Strikeforce’s efforts last night I just wonder if maybe he was watching cageside and remembering back to that Apollo 13 mission. The crew made it back to earth and the mission was deemed a “successful failure.”

This is kind of how I see Strikeforce Houston. The fights were good, I thought exciting, but each one had something happen that made any non-dandruff-riddled fan scratch his head. That’s not usually such a good thing.

With a nice cut on his left eye from round one, Bobby Lashley had full mount on Chad Griggs and was punching, resting, punching, resting...Then with a little less than a minute in the second round, referee Jon Shorle (a veteran referee) decided to stand them up. Lashley touched his eye and the doctor came in to check it. It was okay, the fight continued, a tired Lashley got stopped. Here’s the problem, the fight never should have been stopped. Lashley wasn’t doing much, but he was in full mount. Griggs was doing nothing to further damage the eye, and I think Shorle was simply standing them up, not to check the eye. That happened after the fact. Unless a fighter is taking a nap while in the mount, the referee should not stand them up! And if he stood Lashley up to check the cut, he should have put them back in the mounted position.

KJ Noons knocked Jorge Gurgel loopy with a left hook right at (or after) the bell to end round one. Then he bet up a still loopy Gurgel at the start of round two and inexplicably decided to throw a knee (almost a soccer kick) as referee Kerry Hatley ambled over to stop the fight. Whether the first left hook was that much after the bell or not, whether the knee landed or not, it doesn’t matter. Noons’ actions were totally inappropriate and nothing was said of either after the fact! It should be a NC or a loss for Noons and I’d go as far to say he should receive a suspension. Instead he’ll fight either Floyd Mayweather or Nick Diaz?

Tim Kennedy and Ronaldo Souza put on an extremely close fight. Kennedy got cut, Souza landed more standing arm strikes, Kennedy landed more leg strikes and more strikes overall, Souza couldn’t take Kennedy down, Kennedy dumped Souza twice, Souza landed more damaging shots...You get the idea, it was really close. Souza got the unanimous nod and a lot of people think Kennedy should have had his hand raised. I’ll say it was really close.

Big John was in the cage for the Rafael Feijao vs. King Mo bout. Feijao stifled Mo’s wrestling and then dropped him in the third. Mo held on to a single leg and took a ton of shots. Many thought at least some of these punches and elbows were to the back of the head and I believe I even heard Big John warn Feijao. Here’s the deal though, a warning doesn’t do Mo any good. He’s already rattled and getting hit on or near the back of the head makes it impossible for him to recover.

Despite the above issues with each of the main card fights, I thought it was an entertaining event. The fighters fought hard and all of them deserve credit (even Noons, I think he was wrong, but that doesn’t take away from his efforts and I don’t believe he’s a dirty fighter). And yes from time to time the announcers said something that was off, but it’s tough to talk at a fast pace for a long time in front of a bunch of people and not make any mistakes. I don’t think all the hate on Mauro, Frank, and Gus is deserved.

So if Jim Lovell was cageside, he might’ve said, “Houston we have a problem” a good four or five times, but at the end of the night he probably walked to the parking lot, climbed in his spaceship, and thought Strikeforce Houston was a “successful failure.”

I’d agree with Jim.