Jason wrote an aria the other day about Matt “The Law” Lindland. My guess is that it made a lot of people say: “Jesus, what ever happened to Matt Lindland?”

Well, The Law is back and is the main event on the next Strikeforce: Challengers card on Showtime. This news comes from Sherdog:

Matt Lindland will return to the cage in a middleweight bout at Strikeforce Challengers 8 at the Rose Garden in Portland, Ore., the promotion announced on Monday. An opponent for Lindland, formerly a top-ranked UFC fighter and local star in the Portland area, has not been announced.

The event series, which spotlights the promotion’s up-and-coming talent, will air live on Showtime.

Lindland was an Olympic silver medalist in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 games. The 39-year-old veteran suffered back-to-back losses in 2009 against Vitor Belfort at Affliction 2 in January 2009 and Ronaldo Souza at Strikeforce “Evolution” last December. Souza, a world-decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, submitted Lindland with an arm-triangle choke in the first round.

Lindland, one of the founders of Team Quest, holds victories over Phil Baroni (twice), former UFC champion Pat Miletich, and Ricardo Almeida.

Also on the card will be prospect Tyron Woodley, who we have been watching for some time now. He’ll be taking on Nate Coy, who is a fighter out of Team Quest with an 8-2 record.

Last but not least, Kerry Vera, the wife of UFC light heavyweight Brandon Vera, will be taking on Julianna Pena.

Stock Up!

1. Jon Jones – Is there anything that this guy can’t do? He immediately clinched with Vera, threw him to the ground and created with ground and pound. He then gets illegally upkicked, Herb Dean restarts, the fight, and all Jones does is break Vera’s face. Jones showed slightly flawed top control, but it’s nothing another couple of months at Jackson’s can’t solve. The sky is the limit.
2. Junior Dos Santos - All we wanted was for him to show that he is capable of getting back up once taken down. Check. Goal complete. Then, the great counter hook that put Gonzaga down was just a bonus. We are officially ready to call Dos Santos a true contender. If the Mir/Carwin winner stays healthy, we are on a collision course for Dos Santos v. Velasquez.
3. Clay Guida - I know that some people want me to put John Howard here, but once he beats someone that actually has a pulse, we’ll start congratulating him. Guida needed a win to show that he was more than just cannon fodder in the lightweight division and he did so in impressive fashion. Apparently, no one told Shannon Gugerty that Clay Guida doesn’t need air to breathe, as he tried to guillotine him twice. Silly Gugerty.

Stock Down

1. Brandon Vera – What do we even have with Brandon Vera anymore? While there is no shame in losing to Jones, who is up there amongst the top five in the division on some boards, Vera has lost two in a row. Who do you give him next? My guess would be a get well fight like Stephan Bonnar. However, we could think really crazy, if his eye keeps him out a while, could he fight Chuck or Tito? Hmmmm…
2. Gabriel Gonzaga – Poor Gabe. It seems that he will forever be stuck in the purgatory that is life just outside the title picture. Every time he gets close, he seems to fold. Last time, it was Randy Couture tooling him in the title fight, and this time it was Dos Santos not even allowing him to get there. Gonzaga might just be a fighter destined to keep the pretenders out of the “new” heavyweight top five, which is just chock full of talent.
3. Paul Buentello – This is another one that I just don’t get. How much longer are we going to allow this to go on? Buentello is out of shape, and simply can’t run with most of the heavyweights on the UFC roster. I would not pick him against just about anyone on the roster right now. Paul simply does not have a place in the UFC right now.

After fighting Dan Henderson on the upcoming Strikeforce CBS card, Jake Shields will be a free agent win or lose. He does not have a “champions clause” in his contract that states he can’t leave while he is the middleweight champion. Therefore, he is likely to be taking suitors as soon as the 18th of April.

At the front of that line should be Dana White.

Shields is a great fit for the UFC for many reason. The first of which is that he simply a great fighter. He possesses great BJJ, and holds 10 submission victories. However, that is what we expect from someone who holds a black belt under Cesar Gracie. However, what separates him from someone like teammate Nate Diaz is solid standup. He’s not going to blow anyone away on the feet, but he can use his standup to set up takedowns. He’s not just throwing a pawing jab out there, he is doing damage with strikes.

Shields has won twelve in a row, including a victory over overrated personality/underrated fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller in his last fight. That fight was at middleweight, which is not Shields natural weight class. However, since they lacked a star at 185 to put on CBS, they went to a bulked up Shields. The result was Miller being too strong for Shields, and Shields being unable to finish the fight.

If he was able to come to the UFC, Shields could move back down the 170 immediately. In that division there are so many interesting fights for him. He could start near the top of the division because of his previous success the same way we saw Vitor Belfort do. That means that fights with Jon Fitch, Thiago Alves, Josh Koscheck, Anthony Johnson and more are all options.

Another reason why it’s important that Shields come over is what I’m calling the Dan Hardy theory. After UFC 100, when we were watching the presser and Jason was recovering from Frank Mir’s loss, Jason said that Shields was the only person that he was interested in watching the GSP fight. I told him to calm down, and that he sounded like a Sherdog forum member panicking like that. New contenders pop up all the time.

Enter Dan Hardy. Is Hardy the second best welterweight in the UFC? No. However, since we have seen Fitch, Alves and Koscheck all fight the Canadian wonder already, Hardy gets the bump up. If we are willing to give that shot to Hardy, then we could easily give it to Shields. There is a suddenly interesting opponent for GSP.

Shields is a top-ten welterweight. There is never any problem with adding a top-ten guy to your company. However, Shields’ validity has been put into question because of him not fighting the top talent in his weight class. All that talent is in the UFC.

It’s too good to pass up for both sides.

Each week, THQ has decided to answer some questions that the public has about UFC 2010: Undisputed. Since most game sites aren’t exactly versed in Mixed Martial Arts, We’re here to breakdown what the answers mean to us fans.

A quick note before we get started this week. If you are amongst the people leaving questions (which you should do), then please think about what you are writing. Far, Far too many people are focusing on the wrong things. I’ve seen some pretty rediculous questions on the thread, including beating on already unconscious opponents, and having UFC 1 style matches with no rules. Let’s think people.

Now, on to the questions!

XPlicit asks, “When you notice your opponent is rocked can you rush them as hard as you can and throw with all your might wasting every last bit of energy just to finish that person.”

You will get a bonus after you rock an opponent. We implemented the new “Adrenaline Rush” system into fights which should make things pretty interesting. You will not be conferred a movement speed bonus, but your fighter will have his energy replenished. This means you can execute the full array of moves without worrying about getting gassed yourself. We wanted to give the player that feeling of mastery and dominance that comes with rocking an opponent and following through on it in the real Octagon — from playing with it and testing it, it brings a ton of excitement to Undisputed 2010.

Interesting development. One of the complaints that was common last year is that every rocked situation ended the same the way. The winner would just stand over the helpless loser throwing bombs until the fight was stopped. The “Adrenaline Rush” would seem to indicate that the stamina boost will be necessary to try and finish fights, which means there will be someway to recover from being rocked.

Fornez1 Asks “How will escaping submissions work with the new system? will you always wind up in an advantages position or will sometimes you escape to standing and sometimes escape to side mount(for example)”

Last year, when you failed a submission, you’d almost always end up in a tough situation — usually on your back or with a player in control. We wanted to move away from this system and towards more of an organic, and realistic submission escape system. There are a number of positions that you can escape into that are beneficial, neutral, and even disadvantageous depending upon what has been happening during the fight. In keeping it real as it gets, escapes will never result in only side control or a full guard.

Another complaint from last year addressed. Fighters never really escape submissions and wind up in dominant positions. Last year, so many subs would be reversed into side mount that it often was worth it try for the submissions. This should also take away some of the predictably from a game that was stiff last year.

SleepyWeasel asks “In the new Career mode, does your fighter age at all? Or does he stay the same age throughout the entire career?”

Your fighter, and all other fighters will age. Aging occurs in two ways. As your fighter becomes more experienced at certain skills and moves after training, it’ll become easier and easier to better maintain your proficiency in that field. For example, once you get so good at wrestling, you don’t have to train as extensively to keep up your skill as a wrestler. On the other hand, we’ve implemented a decay system that’s a function of your age. Once your fighter gets up there in the years, you’ll find that you need to focus on maintaining your core stats through your weekly training routine a bit more to stay fresh in the Octagon. Along your career mode playthrough, you’ll even see the greats of the UFC retiring.

Yes. Thank goodness. Last year’s career mode was underutilized in many different ways. One of the main ones was that once you became champion, you fought the same people over and over again. As fun as it is beating down B.J. Penn, I wanted some new blood for my fighter to face. This year, it seems that the divisions will be thinned out by retiring fighters and re-stocked with new talent. One big step for a better career mode.

Kurowski God asks “Are there different “rocked” stages, like you hit with a head kick, maybe he gets more rocked then a good right hook.”

In this year’s game, we shared that you can be rocked from any position and by almost every move. While these moves, and by extension the rocked states that they’ll be causing, will look different depending upon what you do (head kick, uppercut), being rocked will not have varying degrees of ‘rockiness’ or grogginess. What’s important is how the player who rocked the other executes his next few moves. If you have your combos down and have excellent timing, you’ll be able to quickly level some devastating moves on your groggy opponent — you might even knock him out. These ‘follow up’ combos are going to be tough to execute, as any other button inputs after the rocked animation will derail the combo. But the skilled player who uses caution and foresight when he knows his opponent is struggling will get an awesome payoff.

This seems to relate to the first question of the day. It seems that some skill will be needed this year to finish a rocked opponent. It’s no longer enough to just land the big punch and pound out every opponent. This should lead to longer fights and more decisions.

Check back Tomorrow afternoon for the full B.J. Penn Trailer!

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.

One of Brock Lesnar’s training partners, Cole Konrad, has been dubbed a hot prospect by just about everyone in the MMA world. Last night, he fought at Matrix Fights 1 in Philadelphia, defeating Joel Wyatt by TKO. Shortly after, both Cole and Bellator proudly announced his signing with the up and coming MMA promotion.

Konrad was proud to moving up the ranks so quickly:

“I’m excited to sign with Bellator. It’s a great opportunity to fight for a great company and I’m just really excited for what the future holds with this company.”

While Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney was excited to sign the huge heavyweight for his upcoming season:

“Cole Konrad brings some great characteristics to the table that could make him a force at heavyweight. Brock Lesner’s dominance in the UFC has shown the impact that an elite, world-class wrestler can have in the heavyweight division. As a two-time NCAA heavyweight champion who is aggressively rounding out his MMA arsenal, Cole’s potential is unlimited. We are happy to be teaming up with him and, as a company, we are excited with what the future may hold.”

“We are happy not only to announce our long-term deal with him but to reveal that fans will be able to see his next fight on one of our nationally televised May events on FOX Sports Net, NBC and Telemundo.”

We here at the 3SS have been watching Bellator put together the best young talent in the country and wondering what the hell Strikeforce is doing. As a matter of fact, there hasn’t been a day that’s gone by in the last few months that Jason and I haven’t discussed Bellator quickly coming up in Strikeforce’s mirror. Now, they steal another amazing prospect from them in the form of Konrad.

The scary part about Konrad is that he could be everything that people think that Brock Lesnar is. While Lesnar is the UFC champ, there are still those, including us, that have been unimpressed with his wrestling game. What will happen when he goes up against a guy who is his size? We aren’t so sure that it’s going to be as easy as his last three fights have been.

Konrad possesses the wrestling skills, but has not really shown that he can adapt them to MMA. While training with Lesnar, Sean Sherk, and all the other pro fighters at Minnesota Martial Arts, I’m sure that he’ll develop quickly. It’s yet another steal for the Bellator organization.