There are a bunch of people who are rooting for Bobby Lashley to fail. After Brock Lesnar came over from the WWE, people were worried that others would follow. Since Lashley was the next to attempt it, he has drawn a ton of heat from the hardcore MMA fans.

However, what they don’t realize is that Lashley does have some real talent. A strong wrestling background in his back pocket, he is training with American Top Team to improve the other areas of his game. While he hasn’t been tested yet, he is 5-0, and sure to start facing tougher competition in Strikeforce.

It does have the look of a WWE t-shirt, doesn’t it? I do really like the look of the lightning graphics.

MMA Warehouse has this one for 35.99.

For more TapouT shirts, check out The 3rd String Store.

We haven’t been around the last few days. Two reasons. One: There is nothing going on right now. Outside of some hype for Strikeforce: Miami and a couple of fights being made, it’s just been a boring freaking month for MMA. Think about it: When is the last time you had to wait three or four weeks between cards? It’s painful.

Second, I’ve been playing Mass Effect 2. Sue Me. It’s awesome. Go buy it.

So, for my return, I naturally have to find a topic to piss Jason off. To do that, I’ll go back to old argument that I’ve been making since the dawn of this site: Everyone who came over from PRIDE is overrated.

You may be asking yourself what in god’s name this has to do with Marius Zaromskis and this weekend’s Strikeforce card. Well, Let’s quickly take a look at his game and you tell me who he is closely emulating.

If you said anyone except Mirko Cro Cop, I don’t really know what you were watching.

Here is the interesting thing: Cro Cop built a career on one combo: Jab, Head Kick. Sure, he’s got great takedown defense, which helps him eventually throw Jab, head kick. In PRIDE, he never needed to anything but that to win, so no one realized what a flawed plan it was.

Then, Mirko came to the UFC and found himself in the ring with people who are better, more well-rounded strikers than he is. He lost to Gabe Gonzaga, Cheick Kongo, and Junior Dos Santos. All three of them beat him soundly.

So, here comes this new guy calling himself “The Whitemare”, which sounds like he should be wearing some Hoezler-Reich gear. He head kicks his way to a DREAM welterweight title. People start talking, and the next thing you know, he’s fighting Nick Diaz for Strikeforce’s welterweight title.

Here is the thing: I don’t think the Whitemare measures up. Sure, could he catch lightning in a bottle and beat Nick Diaz? Of course, Diaz is hardly GSP. He’s not going to dominate night in and night out.

I just think that his gameplan is flawed. He live in a different world than we did five years ago. Jab, head kick is simply not enough to beat top competition. Cro Cop found that out. If they stay on the feet, Diaz could use his jab to keep distance between him and Zaromskis, or perhaps a better idea is to clinch and not let him create enough space to head kick. If Diaz gets him down, we have no idea what the Whitemare has, but it probably isn’t as good as Diaz.

So, Nick Diaz will be the welterweight champ of Strikeforce on Sunday morning. All the media will be talking about Zaromskis’ striking, and how it wasn’t good enough. Just remember that you saw it here first.

When my lightweight rankings come out (and I promise that will be soon) Benson Henderson will be outside my top 10.

Despite his recent 9 fight win streak Henderson is a fighter that’s very raw. His wrestling is solid as is his striking but even Benson will tell you it needs to be refined. His cardio is off the charts and he’s also very strong for a lightweight. His biggest strength is his submission offense and defense. As he showed in the Donald Cerrone fight, he can’t be killed by conventional weapons. I’m pretty sure every bone in his body is double jointed and he doesn’t need air to breathe. That’s the only possible explanation for how he survived Cowboy’s onslaught.

In terms of offense, he has great posture in top guard. He demonstrated this against Cerrone as he was able to rain down punches without taking much damage. His lightning fast guillotine against Varner shows you how explosive he can be.

The case against Benson is that even in wins against Cerrone and Varner, he was on the defensive a lot. A lot of people think he lost to Cerrone and he was most likely down 2 rounds to none against Varner.

So where does Benson go from here? A rematch against Cowboy appears to be in the works. But, what does a win ultimately do for him? Cerrone isn’t in the top 10 and Henderson already beat him. Let’s say he beats Cerrone a second time then what? The WEC lightweight division is surprisingly thin. Rising star Anthony Njokuani would make sense but Henderson beat him just a year ago. After that whose left? A rematch against Varner? Benson, Varner and Cowboy form the top tier in the lightweight division. After them, there’s not a whole lot there.

Henderson’s skill is undeniable but seeing him be outwrestled for two rounds against Varner doesn’t bode well for his chances agaisnt fringe top 10 fighters like Gilbert Melendez, Josh Thompson, Tyson Griffin and Sean Sherk.

So how high is the ceiling for Ben Henderson? As long as he stays in the WEC we may never know.

I’m a huge Lyoto Machida mark. I love everything about this century’s version of Bruce Lee. He was just about unstoppable. There was no reason to believe that an overagressive fighter like Shogun Rua was going to be able to avoid five rounds of lightning quick counters.

Until the fight started. Instead of the old Shogun that everyone wanted back, we got a brand new Shogun. One that couldn’t possibly have existed just a couple of years ago. Instead of seeing the explosiveness of old used to finish an opponent based solely on physical skills, We saw a brilliant game plan. Machida’s most important ability is his elusiveness. How do you take that away? By taking away his legs of course! How had we not thought of this?

I also believe that the hype got to Lyoto. He has already admitted that he had to leave Belem, where his gym is, and train on his family farm because all the people that wanted a piece of him were becoming a serious distraction. He looked gassed, and while the leg kicks were a part of it, I think that his training was not where he wanted it to be.

When you combine these two things, you got a 49-46 victory for Shogun. Everyone in the room I was in thought the exact same thing. Hell, I was already writing an article comparing Lyoto’s loss to Shogun and the loss GSP suffered to Matt Serra. (It sounds weird, but it’s more similar than you think. Stay tuned.) As the fight went to the judges, I was packing my stuff and barely even paying attention to the decision. When the decision was unanimous, I knew that Shogun had won.

Only he didn’t. He was robbed of his UFC title reign by poor judging. He was robbed by the “you have to dominate the champ” rule. Shogun did dominate Machida. He did. There was no question about it. However, it wasn’t a particularly flashy kind of domination. It was a beautifully technichal fight, but it wasn’t the most exciting affair. Shouldn’t MMA judges be capable of understanding the technical aspects of striking? Hell, give me a scorecard! Apparently, you and I get it better than Cecil Peoples and his crew of walking jokes.

The one good thing that this does is set up a rematch. Both Machida and Shogun will likely have one fight, and then they will get their chance to go at it again. This time, Shogun won’t be able to fire leg kicks at a distance because Machida will know it’s coming. He’ll have to come up with a brand new way to chop down the evergrowing tree of the Machida legacy.

He shouldn’t have to do it again, though. He did it tonight.

Jon Jones d. Jake O’Brien via submission

- Did anyone hear the pop that Jon Jones got? They must be reading this site!

- When most people watch this fight, they are going to look at the wacky stuff that Jon Jones does. The Spinning back elbows and lightning fast high kicks. However, look at the improved fundamentals of Jones as well. For one, look at all of the leg kicks he throws during the first round. They are sharp, quick, and clearly slowed down O’Brien by the end of the first round.

- The standing guillotine that ended the fight is a great example of what Jones needs to do to reach the next level. He needs to become a lot more efficient. His should maintain the massive number of different strikes, but learn to throw them with greater accuracy. He also needs to learn better technique. Joe Rogan called it a “no arm dars choke.” I call it sloppy.

Tom Lawlor defeats C.B. Dollaway via submission

- This makes MMA great, but also really frustrating at the same time. Dollaway would still win this fight 99 times out of 100. However, Lawlor lucked into a guillotine and finished it. Much love to him for doing the job, but Dollaway is still a much better prospect.

Shannon Gugerty d. Matt Grice via submission

- Impressive patience in executing the arm-in guillotine by Gugerty. He simply waited for quite a while and kept the move in place before sinking it in. The match wasn’t long enough to really evaluate either fighter.

Mark Coleman d. Stephan Bonnar via unanimous decision

- Wow. How much does it suck to be Stephan Bonnar right now? After losing to an up and comer in Jon Jones, he now loses to a guy who is barely still alive. Figuratively speaking of course.

- This went down about how you thought it would if I told you that Coleman won. Despite a changed stance from Bonnar (he came out in a Lyoto Machida-type wide stance), Coleman took him down and tried to ground and pound him. Bonnar did a nice job threatening from the bottom, and was able to grab round one. Then, Coleman spent the next two rounds on top of Bonnar, ground and pounding him.

- I think that this has got to be it for Bonnar. I have no goodwill left for his fight with Griffin, and the steroids thing really ruined any chance he had any prospect. He’s now 5-5 in the UFC and is on his last legs in the UFC.

Dong Hyun Kim d. TJ Grant via unanimous decision

- This was probably one of the more boring fights of the night. Grant scored the first takedown and then spent the rest of the night on his back. Grant was just too powerful for Grant, who was an injury replacement. Kim showed great elbows and control, but couldn’t finish the fight.

Jim Miller d. Mac Danzig via unanimous decision

- Danzig got opened up early and bled literally anywhere. He never really got his feet back under him. The cut was on his forehead, but the blood rolled into Danzig’s eyes, and I was shocked that the referee didn’t stop it earlier.

- Despite the cut, Danzig mounted some threats from the bottom. However, he just never had a chance with the all that blood in his eyes.

- Danzig is in danger of being the first winner of The Ultimate Fighter to be cut from the UFC as he has now lost three straight.