Strikeforce Announces October 9 Event, Nick Diaz and Sarah Kaufman to Headline

With Strikeforce: “Houston” now a done deal, the San Jose, California-based promotion is once more looking to the future. Their next event will take place live on the Showtime network on October 9, and will be held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. The venue is traditionally where Strikeforce brings all of its big events, much in the same way that the Ultimate Fighting Championship books big shows in the Mandalay Bay Events Center, and the HP Pavilion was even the home of the very first Strikeforce card ever put on. So Strikeforce fans should be treated to a good event, and some of the headline bouts have already been confirmed. Both the male and female Strikeforce Welterweight Championships will be on the line, as the controversial Nick Diaz and the energetic Sarah Kaufman are set to headline the card. Here’s what’s known about the as-yet-unnamed event so far.

As stated before, controversial Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz will make the first defense of his championship in the October 9 card’s headline attraction. Diaz’s opponent has yet to be named. Diaz most recently defeated Japanese star Hayato Sakurai at the Japanese-based DREAM’s “Dream.14” event, where he went back to his consistently-underrated ground game and caught “Mach” in a slick armbar. Diaz was last seen stateside TKO’ing Marius Zaromskis, the DREAM Welterweight Champion, at Strikeforce’s “Miami” event. The fight was to crown the first-ever Strikeforce Welterweight Champion.

Fellow Welterweight Champion Sarah Kaufman will also make her return to the Strikeforce cage in the second defense of her Welterweight Championship. Kaufman was vocal about her displeasure in being consistently placed on the lower-end “Strikeforce Challengers” series of events, especially when she became champion. Actions speak louder than words, as we all know, and Kaufman’s recent monster-slam KO of challenger Roxanne Modafferi seems to have won over the Strikeforce top-brass, since Kaufman will now likely co-main event a major Strikeforce card. Her opponent is scheduled to be Marloes Coenen, who is coming off of a loss to Strikeforce Women’s Middleweight Champion Cristiane Santos. This wouldn’t be the first time that the loser of a fight has been awarded with a championship opportunity, but few can doubt that the appeal of Sarah Kaufman having a rematch with Strikeforce 135-Pound tournament winner Meisha Tate sounds far more appealing.

In the final fight announced so far for the October card, rising star Luke Rockhold will face undoubtedly the stiffest test in his career as he takes on famous MMA veteran Matt “The Law” Lindland. Rockhold’s six-fight winning streak dating back to 2008 is on the line in this fight, as is Matt Lindland’s chances of ever being on a major card again, since “The Law” is 1-2 in his last three fights and debuted with Strikeforce on the lower-end “Strikeforce Challengers” series of shows. It will be a classic match-up of the striking expert vs. the submission expert, so it might just steal the show.

But in all honesty, I’m looking forward to seeing Nick Diaz moreso than any of the announced fighters. Coming from someone who used to hate both Diaz brothers with a near-blinding passion, this is high praise. I still think Nick is highly controversial and still has a wildly-out-of-place “street thug” attitude, but he’s grown into such a complete Mixed Martial Artist that he’s honestly one of the best talents Strikeforce has to offer. I think it will be very interesting to see who he’s matched up with, and if he can continue to be one of the few MMA fighters that have ever made the “punches in bunches” strategy actually work.

And what do you think, fans and friends? With two championship fights anchoring this show, how do you think the October 9 Strikeforce event is shaping up so far?