Chicago Invades St. Louis: Strikeforce Artillery

By KTW
– Senior Editor

Strikeforce:  Heavy Artillery is a mixed martial arts event to be held by Strikeforce on May 15, 2010 in St. Louis, Missouri, United States at the Scottrade Center. The event will air live on Showtime in the United States and on Super Channel in Canada.

Mixed Martial Arts will be on display May 15th in the city they call “The Gateway To The Midwest” … St. Louis, Missouri.

Strikeforce is calling this fight card simply Strikeforce: Artillery.

Both Andrei Arlovski and Brett Rogers have deep Chicago connections. They headline this event in the main and co-main event fights.  Maybe I should have titled this post “Brazil Invades St. Louis”, considering that there are 6 Brazilians in action this night.

Arlovski, a native of Belarus, lives and trains out of Chicago.  He considers it home as he’s been accepted as one of Chicago’s very own.  At team.arlovski.com, there’s a group dedicated to his fans in Chicago.

And Brett Rogers was born in Chicago before moving away at an early age.  Rogers grew up in the rugged and sometimes violent housing projects of Cabrini Green…which also served as the backdrop to the horror movie Candyman, and well as the 1970′s American hit tv sitcom Good Times.   And how many remember former Chicago mayor Jane Byrne moving into this crime infested conglomerate of high rises, in part as a publicity stunt.  Rogers still has relatives that reside throughout Chicago.

Many mma fans will make the trek from Chicago to St. Louis – just a 4-5 hour car ride down I55.

The only dislike that the city of Chicago and St. Louis share are their sports teams.  When both cities have had good runs of good pro sports teams, college sports included, and considering the proximity of the two, a natural rivalry will surely persist up and down Interstate 55.

Go Bears!!!

Nonetheless, on May 15th, Strikeforce will be the main attraction in St. Louis.  I suspect that both Arlovski and Rogers will be the fan favorites for the night.  However, Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem will be welcomed with a warm cheering section as he faces off against Brett Rogers.  And much of it may be because they are finally going to see him fight again, after a 31 month absence.  Overeem trains out of The Netherlands and is part of a rich tradition of kickboxers.

Overeem(29) has been fighting in Japan and The Netherlands for the past 2½ years under K-1 rules (kickboxing).  Fighting under a Strikeforce contract, respectfully allows fighters to fight for other organizations.

Many casual fans have never seen Overeem fight in a live televised match.  And since Overeem last fought in late 2007, Strikeforce has gained a considerable amount of fans, and even more amongst the mma casual fans.  Many are very excited about finally seeing Overeem fight.   I sort of don’t want to take sides in this matchup, for some reason.  But I suspect that this ultra-matchup will give us sparks, and a desire for more Strikeforce fights.

Main Card

• Heavyweight Championship bout: Alistair Overeem (champ) vs. Brett Rogers
• Heavyweight bout: Andrei Arlovski vs. Antonio Silva[#12]
• Middleweight bout: Ronaldo Souza vs. Joey Villaseñor
• Light Heavyweight bout: Roger Gracie[#15] vs. Kevin Randleman
• Light Heavyweight bout: Rafael Cavalcante vs. Antwain Britt

Preliminary Card

• Welterweight bout: Jesse Finney vs. Justin DeMoney
• Lightweight bout: Vitor Riberio vs. Lyle Beerbohm
• Light Heavyweight bout: Francisco France vs. Lee Brousseau
• Welterweight bout: Mike Chandler vs. Sal Woods
• Lightweight bout: Pat Benson vs. Erik Steenberg
• Lightweight bout: Matt Ricehouse vs. Tom Aaron
• Light Heavyweight bout: Booker DeRousse vs. Darryl Cobb

Bobby Lashley, who gained fame as a professional wrestler (WWE and TNA), was originally set to fight at the Strikeforce: Nashville event. When that didn’t happen rumors began to circulate that he was to have a fight on this card. He has now been announced to fight at Strikeforce: Los Angeles (June 16th).

Japanese mma star Norifumi Yamamoto was originally announced to fight Federico Lopez on this card, but was later pulled out by DREAM.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Related posts:

1. Louis Taylor hopes to bring his “Handgunz” to his Strikeforce encounter
2. Official For Chicago, Nov. 7th: Fedor’s Next Opponent Is Undefeated Big Bad Brett Rogers
3. Where To Watch Locally…Bellator 14: Chicago