“Strikeforce: Evolution” Results: Smith Upsets Le With Come-From-Behind Knockout; Melendez Edges Thomson in Brawl
Former middleweight champion Cung Le dominated Scott Smith early in their “Strikeforce: Evoltion” headliner on Saturday, but the slugger Smith came from behind to score a third-round knockout of the returning Le to cap off the Showtime-televised event at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.
In a “Fight of the Year” contender, interim title-holder Gilbert Melendez again became the undisputed Strikeforce lightweight champion by edging Josh Thomson by unanimous decision in an exciting brawl that co-headlined the card.
Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal both picked up swift victories in their Strikeforce debuts on the “Evolution” main card, as Souza submitted Matt Lindland in the opening round while Lawal posted a first-round KO of Mike Whitehead.
The complete results for Strikeforce: Evolution were:
MAIN CARD
- Scott Smith def. Cung Le via TKO (strikes) – Round 3, 3:25
- Gilbert Melendez (c) def. Josh Thomson (c) via unanimous decision (49-47, 49-46, 49-46)
Strikeforce Lightweight Championship Unification - Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza def. Matt Linland via submission (arm-triangle choke) – Round 1, 4:18
- Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal def. Mike Whitehead via KO (strikes) – Round 1, 3:08
PRELIMINARY CARD
- Antwain Britt def. Scott Lighty via TKO (cut) – Round 1, 5:00
- Justin Wilcox def. Daisuke Nakamura via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
- Alex Crispim def. A.J. Fonseca via unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 30-27)
For the latest Strikeforce news and Strikeforce rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Scott Smith
Tags: A.J. Fonseca, Alex Crispim, Antwain Britt, Bobby Stack, Cung Le, Daisuke Nakamura, David Douglas, gilbert melendez, Josh Thomson, Justin Wilcox, matt lindland, Mike Whitehead, Muhammed Lawal, Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, Scott Lighty, Scott Smith
Loading ...
Smith isn’t that good and got lucky that he caught Cung Le.
Cung should never have let Smith hang around that long. Cung knew who he was fighting so I am sure he knew something like this could happen. Say what you want about Smith, but the guy always puts on a show. Super happy for the guy to get this big W.
wow that last fight was awesome.. Cung le has some killer kicks but smith has amazing heart and hands of stone.. great fight
hands of steel
i think that cung le should work on his finishing game. he is good at knocking ppl down, but guess what, in MMA the fight goes on, not everything is points…
cung had smith down soooo many times, yet he couldnt get him to tap or to KO…
i love cung le, but this time he wasnt able to finish. but a great fight nevertheless…
i am positive cung wont repeat this mistake…
that was a good show tonight!
Gilbert Melendez / Josh Thomson best fight of the night forsure!!
Scott Smith toyaly lucky what a comback
Another good event by Strikeforce, another painful loss for Matt Lindland, who seriously needs to consider retirement, and another entertaining win for Scott Smith. Maybe this fight will serve Le as a reminder to not spend so much time away from his job pursuing “hobbies”…
that had nothing to do with the lost. He caught after a dominating 2 1/2 rounds. He was on his way to an unanimous decision.
I really wish I could get Showtime from my cable provider….. Sounded like a decent night of fights. Wonder how long until king Mo gets picked up by the UFC
King Mo would have to fight at 205 to have any chance of success in the UFC. At HW, he’d get killed coming to the Octagon at anything less than 235-240…
very true.. he came into tonights fight at 218.. way too small for heavyweight..
japes i watched the cung le fight live on channelsurfing.net . you can watch alot of full live events on there
Personally I think Mo gets killed in the UFC no matter what weight hes at. If he fights at 205 I don’t see him doing too great. I think he is severly overhyped. People want him to be the next Rampage, and he might be, but not yet.
I agree UFCmanz, King Mo is whatever. But I do have to give it to him for that KO of Whitehead, looked like it hurt! Le did awesome, I was impressed, but he doesn’t know how to recover from a dangerous position. Jacare was awesome like always and Melendez put a whippin’ on Punk Thompson!
King Mo only fought at HW because Mike Whitehead would only accept a fight if it was at HW. I like Mo’s line at the end “I fight at Money-weight”. I’m sure he’ll focus of LHW though.
Thanks for the link. I’ll be using that site from now on. Further note – they actually replayed the card last night on Superchannel – I guess it would be the Canadian equivalent of Showtime now.
Agreed on King Mo- after watching the card I think he could probably fight at LHW without too much of a problem. He would have issues at HW in the UFC with the competition.
Man, that guy really likes his Rockstar. He bathed in and chugged 2 cans after the fight there
I don’t think theres a more dramatic fighter than smith in MMA.Call it luck.But i don’t think having a huge heart and the will to battle to the final round is luck.I’m sure he knows that he’s not going to win on points but he also knows that he just needs one cleen shot to end it.
i liked how they asked king mo what division he’d like to fight in and his answer was the money division.
lawal is a bad ass dude . I get the fact that most of the guys he had fought were beginners like him but now he put the lights out fairly easily on a guy who is no slouch after 6 fights. Whitehead has talent and to KO him is difficult ,so hats of to king mo for that .
I’d like to see henderson vs lawal …… in a years time .
I see smith ending up as a punch drunk dude years from now. Agreed, huge heart, but the guy takes WAAAAY too many shots.
I guess he must be the luckiest fighter in mma then considering he does this all the time!! Its not luck when in training you practice to faint the right hand and throw a left hook which is his best punch and what do ya know, thats how he won the fight. Doesnt matter how bad he was losing the fight up to that point. All it takes is one punch. Congrats Scott Smith. But damn, my body is sore just from watching all those body shots you took, geez…