MMAConvert.com

Here’s a few interviews Strikeforce posted of Andrei Arlovski, Jake Shields, Josh Thomson and Daniel Cormier training at AKA.

It’s official. Strikeforce “St. Louis: Heavy Artillery” is scheduled to take place at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri on Saturday, May 15 and will air live on Showtime at 10PM ET (tape delayed on the West Coast). The event will be headlined by two heavyweight bouts — Alistair Overeem vs. Brett Rogers and Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva. It’s unclear if Overeem’s heavyweight title will be on the line or not.

So I finally got around to watching Universal Solider 3: Regeneration starring Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Andrei Arlovski and Mike Pyle this week, and I have to say it wasn’t bad. It wasn’t the original by any stretch of the imagination but by today’s Van Damme movie standards, it was pretty good.

I was really surprised by how much screen time Arlovski and Pyle got. I didn’t time it or anything, but I’d say they both definitely got more than Lundgren and as much if not more than Van Damme himself. Arlovski doesn’t strike me as someone who has a lot of natural acting ability, but all he really had to was look menacing and fight, so he fit his role as the mindless killing machine quite well. Pyle had a much bigger role than expected and was actually very good as an Army captain tasked with infiltrating the enemy stronghold. Not Oscar material or anything obviously, but for a full-time fighter who took an acting gig on the side, he was impressive. He seems to have a lot more potential than most of his peers trying to make the jump do.

Anyhow, here’s a few interviews and a bonus clip of Arlovski and Pyle throwing down (spoiler). I don’t think I’d run out to Blockbuster to rent it or drop the cash to buy it, but if you have something like Netflix, it’s worth throwing on your queue.

Via Cagewriter

It looks like the Strikeforce April 17 event is all but officially announced for CBS. Jake Shields tweeted earlier today that his title defense against Dan Henderson and the rumored Gegard Mousasi vs. King Mo fight are official. MMA Weekly confirmed those two bouts will co-headline the event.

“It’s true that I haven’t defended it for 2 years. Actually, i had something scheduled for 2009. but then I got injured. The real truth is that there weren’t any real opponents for me to fight at the beginning of Strikeforce. Everything was new and there was no one to fight. They didn’t complain and I competed in Dream and K-1 in the meantime. Then when real fighters came, I got injured in 2009. I cut myself, and had a serious bacterial infection…I will definitely fight Fedor this year. There’s no doubt about it, unless he says no. I don’t believe he will, but I’m a little worried about his managers. I’m sure he wants to fight, but I’m not sure people behind him do too…Besides Fedor, there’s Brett Rogers. Big guy that doesn’t worry me that much. Strong, but talks to much. I will fight him soon as well. Then there’s Fabricio Werdum, and I definitely want to kill him. He’s a loudmouth, but I think he’s first in line for Fedor, so that fight will wait a bit. Finally there’s Andre Arlovski. A very good fighter I will also fight eventually…I wouldn’t say UFC has the toughest competition. I think Strikeforce is getting stronger, theres me, Rogers, Fedor, Werdum, Arlovski… I’m not sure, I’d even say that the Strikeforce HW division is stronger then UFC’s right now. So no, I’m not thinking of going there…I think I’m currently in the top 5. There’s Fedor, and that big guy from the UFC, Brock Lesnar. Not sure about the rest, id say Dos Santos is up there. He really impressed me.”

—Alistair Overeem in an interview with Index.hr, translated via Sherdog.net & BE, reiterating his intentions to fight Strikeforce’s top heavyweights

It’s no secret fans and writers are getting frustrated with Alistair Overeem not fighting for Strikeforce in the US, especially when he continues to take pointless fights overseas. I gave him the benefit of the doubt last year when he said he would compete for Strikeforce in early 2010. But now that that time has come, we hear Alistair is being booked for K-1, DREAM and Golden Glory fights and won’t fight for Strikeforce until later this year. It’s getting old and very difficult to take anything he says seriously. If Overeem’s priorities are overseas, fine, but he needs to relinquish the title and quit talking about fighting here until he’s actually ready to follow through it. Overeem vs. Fedor, Rogers, Werdum and Arlovski are all fights I’d like to see, but at this point, I won’t believe them until I see them.

On a semi-related note, Fedor Emelianenko would still like to fight Brock Lesnar…just as soon as he remembers who he is.

It’s been six months since Andrei Arlovski’s stunning knockout loss to Brett Rogers and he still doesn’t have a home. However, according to Fabricio Werdum, Arlovski may be headed to Strikeforce starting with a rematch from their UFC 70 bout.

“I must fight in February or March, and I imagine that it could be against (Andrei) Arlovski. I lost to him by 2×1, it was an ugly fight, nobody liked, but I never choose opponents, I can fight anyone, but then I wanna fight Fedor.”

The second and third round of their first fight was about as exciting as watching paint dry, so I really don’t understand why Strikeforce would even consider booking the rematch. Some things are just better left in the past, and Arlovski-Werdum is definitely one them. Werdum-Rogers, Arlovski-Rogers II, Arlovski-Silva, Werdum-Fedor, Arlovski-Fedor II, Arlovski-Overeem would all make for better fights than rounds four, five and six of that snoozefest.

Here’s the trailer for the new Universal Soldier movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and MMA’s very own Andrei Arlovski. Arlovski is apparently playing the main villain in the film.

Scott Coker has mentioned a few times in the past week that Strikeforce will announce two major heavyweight signings this week, and if I remember correctly at least one of them he said is a worthy competitor for Fedor. Considering they’ve been negotiating for the past several weeks, I’m guessing Bobby Lashley is one of them, but he’s not ready to compete with Fedor yet. My other guess was Josh Barnett, but as Coker implies in the Heavy.com interview above, they’re not really interested in Barnett until he gets his steroid issues straightened out with the CSAC. So who else could it be? Not that I think any of these guys would be particularly interesting opponents for Fedor, but Arlovski, Monson, Yvel and Kharitonov (only because Coker has mentioned him before) are the only other names I can think of. Am I missing anyone?

Update: Fanhouse is reporting that Andrei Arlovski is in negotiations with both Strikeforce and FEG to compete on one of their year-end cards, Evolution or Dynamite!! 2009, respectively.

This would be cool to attend if you’re going to be in Chicago for the Strikeforce “Fedor vs. Rogers” event.

If you haven’t heard, Andrei Arlovski is currently in New Mexico for a 10-day training camp at Greg Jackson’s presumably to help him get back on the winning track. Arlovski has never been a part of a major camp (hires his own trainers), and while this is only temporary, I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction. Now if only Jackson could help him with his chin…