Despite coming off a November loss to top-ranked heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, Brett Rogers will have the opportunity to claim the Strikeforce title when he squares off against heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem on May 15.
Originally believed to be a non-title bout, Strikeforce commentator Mauro Ranallo clarified on The Fight Show on Tuesday that the belt will be on the line in matchup, which is expected to headline the Showtime-televised event at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis.
For more on the fight, and why Emelianenko isn’t challenging Overeem for the title, check out “Alistair Overeem Returns to Strikeforce Against Brett Rogers on May 15“.
For the latest Strikeforce news and Strikeforce rumors stay tuned to MMAFrenzy.com.
Pictured: Brett Rogers
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I’m still baffled as to the reason behind choosing Rogers as the first contender in 2+ years for the StrikeForce HW title. I can understand why it wouldn’t be Fedor (speculation around him wanting to leave the promotion) but why not Werdum?
HaHa…i take this moment to laugh once again at Strikeforce. Silly promoters…
They shouls have scrapped the fedor vs werdum and either given the shot to fedor or werdum. This is kind of ridiculous. Rogers get’s ktfo by fedor then gets the champ?
EB,
Where did you read this speculation that fedor wants to leave SF?
Allister is claiming he heard rumors about fedor wanting to leave,
I found the first “speculation” in the Frenzy forums starting with a comment by Carls (http://forums.mmafrenzy.com/topic/couple-things#post-16632) and then I did some Google-ing and saw other similar speculation on various websites (bloodyelbow and sherpup). Of course this speculation is just that, speculation, and nothing has been proven or is concrete.
If Fedor is planning on leaving do you think the UFC will be able to sign him or is he planning on going back to Japan to fight?
I’m honestly not sure about that Bharris4, I would really love for him to pitch up in the UFC but I should know better that that after the many failed attempts to acquire him.
The most likely thing, should Fedor leave Strikeforce, is that he goes back to Japan. He and M-1 have a much higher immediate profit potential there than they do with Strikeforce, and the UFC still won’t co-promote, and one of the issues that M-1 is supposedly unhappy about is that they didn’t get enough of a co-promotion.
Maybe he will leave strikeforce, go to dream, Bankrupt it and Zuffa will buy them out or let them fail and start the UFC or Pride in Japan and Fedor will be in limbo yet again.
I think its great. How many times did they tell Rogers he was next in line for the title, then turn around and take it from him. Its about time they let him fight for the belt! Even though he did get KO’D…
hope alistar wins… he should
I hope that Rogers wins so Strikeforce can cut Overeem…
I think giving the title fight to Rogers(instead of Fedor) tells everything about Fedor leaving SF after the current contract is over.
Or sooner.
almost the same thing happend with brock.. he lost to Mir got a rebound fight against the crazy horse.. which grim didn’t but still.. then turned around and got teh title shot
If he fights for the belt and wins he might get stuck in a “Champions Clause”. Maybe he’s unhappy with Strikeforce and doesn’t want to get contractually stuck there. I smell another conspiracy!!
That’s what I’m thinking GarRule.
fedor. S Shields. G Mossuai. Aoki… all leave strikeforce.. have fun promoting D Henderson and B Lashley that be funny
No fighter bashing.
-Justin
opps ill check my jrammmer next time
You might want to check your cpelling too.
you are not aware of the way that FEG and Strikeforce are handling their co promotion, what so ever
strikeforce definitely needs to improve their heavyweight class if they have to put up a guy who just got done getting wrecked and give him a title shot, i was ok with hearing it was gonna be a non title fight because they have two big names to fight because theres no one else, but a title fight? c’mon this isnt how titles should be obtained, i didnt know getting rocked brings a guy closer an closer to a title fight
LOL
even if Fedor leaves strikeforce there are still quite a few fights to be done …. Fedor is obviously a big draw for them but there is lots left to go through and will keep people watching so really its not a huge deal to me .
We’ve discussed this a bit in a dedicated thread over on the forum.
The truth is Scott Coker is pretty much screwed with his HW division no matter what he does, Fedor or no Fedor, so I guess he figured he’d just man up, take a big bite of that cold sh!t sandwich, and get this over with.
Moving past this unfortunate fight, maybe he can try and piece something together that will restore some sort of relevence and current interest in the SF HW title…
can someone please tell me exactly why Overeem isn’t fighting Fedor? Is his contract up or something? This is all very strange to me.
Fedor is not fighting Overeem because he signed the agreement to fight Werdum and Rogers signed the agreement to fight Overeem.
Also, M-1 is “retooling” their contract with Strikeforce. In wonder if Mousasi leaving them had anything to do with that.
alright I guess that makes sense… it’s just weird that Overeem is finally fighting for the title, after two years, before Fedor is fighting Werdum. Couldn’t they have postponed the Overeem title fight until after the Fedor v Werdum fight, and the whole M-1 Global bull**** subsided, so there would be a real number one contender. The Overeem v Rodgers card already has two title fights so there is no reason I can think of why they would do this.
The only title fight on that card is the Overeem v. Rogers fight. You may be mixing this fight in May up with the Henderson v. Shields card which is in April.