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Former UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez cuts the figure of an angry man ahead of UFC 146, and Antonio Silva may just suffer from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. More

Antonio Silva discusses Saturday's bout with Cain Velasquez, opponent changes, and how he's focused on this bout and not title shots. Watch »

Cain Velasquez talks about his first match back since losing the heavyweight championship and moving on from the Junior dos Santos setback. Watch »

Finally, the end is near.

At least, we hope it is.

With a date now officially set and Josh Barnett at least provisionally cleared to fight in California, it’s actually starting to look like the crazy pipe dream that was the Strikeforce heavyweight GP tournament might draw to an orderly conclusion two months from now.

May 19 is currently being targeted as the day Barnett will meet Daniel Cormier in the tournament final, at a venue in the Golden State to be determined later. You know, probably. Maybe. Barring any further setbacks.

Assuming it happens (fingers crossed), their proposed fight will jerk the curtain on more than a year of false starts, delays, chaotic lineup changes, untimely upsets, injuries and all other manner of misfortune that beset the Strikeforce grand prix and more or less proved the validity of Murphy’s Law.

Even then, we’ll have to use the term “conclusion” fairly loosely, as the terminal stage of this tournament only sort of, kind of resembles how it looked at the start.

But, hey, you know what? If Barnett and Cormier take to the cage as scheduled 73 days from now and engage in a sanctioned MMA fight that results in one man being crowned the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix tournament champion, well, that will have to be considered a success.

Somehow, against all odds, Strikeforce has lucked its way into an extremely interesting and potentially meaningful end to its ill-fated tournament, and that's something almost nobody expected.

After a few years of bouncing between second-tier promotions, fighting B-listers and nobodies, never seeming particularly interested in a future in MMA, Barnett has used this tourney to launch himself back into the thick of the 265-pound elite. Currently ranked No. 5 on ESPN.com’s heavyweight rankings, winning the GP would award Barnett a kind of relevance he hasn’t enjoyed since advancing to the final of Pride’s open weight draw in 2006. It could also set the stage for his return to the UFC for the first time since winning the heavyweight title from Randy Couture and testing positive for steroids in 2002.

At least for Barnett, the stakes in this tournament -- once so arbitrary (not to mention malleable) -- now seem very real. Unlike Cormier, who is probably UFC-bound no matter what, the veteran fighter with the longstanding grudge against Zuffa brass probably needs to win this one to be invited back to the Octagon.

If he pulls it off, it could signal a rebirth. If he loses, he'll just be the uninvited guest at the former Olympic wrestler's coming out party.

All in all, it's a surprisingly intriguing championship fight. Either way it goes, it'll make for a better ending than this flawed tournament rightfully deserves.

Critics unilaterally snorted at the prospect of a heavyweight grand prix featuring three participants as unreliable as Fedor Emelianenko, Alistair Overeem and Josh Barnett when the pairings were unveiled in the early part of last year.

An organization as hapless as Strikeforce could never traverse the mine field of working with all three of those guys simultaneously, right? Surely, Emelianenko’s people would decide to renegotiate his contract midstream. Surely, the notoriously flighty Overeem would get a better offer somewhere else. Surely, Barnett’s preexisting problems with various athletic commissions would make his involvement an enormous headache.

As it turned out, the critics weren’t wrong. Not exactly.

Strikeforce’s heavyweight GP did indeed play out as an epic cluster. As part of his historic tumbling act, Emelianenko got bounced in the first round by Antonio Silva. Overeem notched a single, tepid victory over Fabricio Werdum and then either withdrew or was withdrawn due to scheduling conflicts or an injury or a desire to hopscotch his way straight into the UFC, depending on who you ask.

There was a four-month break between the first leg of the opening round and the second and somewhere in the middle of all of it, Strikeforce sold out to the UFC, either dooming or saving the entire bracket, again, depending on who you ask.

Of the original participants, only Barnett successfully navigated through two fights -- wins over strikers Brett Rogers and Sergei Kharitonov -- to get to the final the old fashioned way. Amid all the surrounding chaos, Cormier was plucked from a field of eight reserves (despite the fact Chad Griggs had won two alternate bouts) and then defeated Silva in a makeshift semifinal to set up a May date with “The Warmaster.”

Yes, this tournament went on so long Barnett actually had time to change his nickname in the middle of it. And no, it probably didn’t go exactly how Strikeforce matchmakers drew it up on a chalkboard at the start.

Nonetheless, here we are. We’re two months out from the end and Strikeforce still lives. It’s managed to set up a solid fight, with better fighters, more relevant stakes and more momentum than anyone could’ve expected when it began this impossible mission.

That’s something, at least.

Now all we need to do is wrap it up, put it in the books. That should be academic at this point, though any time you’re dealing with all the things that could go wrong in a heavyweight tournament, 73 days might as well be an eternity.

Cung Le attempted to beat Wanderlei Silva at UFC 139 with an unlikely game plan -- that of fighting like Cung Le.

It nearly worked. Le tried to kick Silva’s liver through his spine, but in the end he was downed with a barrage of strikes that left his nose in crescent form. The scrap was good enough to be a candidate for "fight of the year" but was unfortunate enough to be only the third-most exciting bout of the night. That was the same evening Michael Chandler won a back-and-forth battle with lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez in Bellator, and Dan Henderson outlasted Mauricio Rua in a five-round grind.

But the immediate reports back seem to be that Strikeforce fighters like Le are faring pretty well in the UFC. These were supposed to be the B models, slogging it out in a nice regional show. They weren’t supposed to be able to compete with the elite of the world. At least that’s what we heard from carnival barkers whenever somebody had the audacity to compare a Strikeforce fighter with a UFC fighter.

Yet, since the Zuffa purchase of Strikeforce and the great integration, it looks like Strikeforce had its share of equals and betters. This weekend Nick Diaz will fight for the interim welterweight belt against Carlos Condit after belting B.J. Penn at UFC 137. Win it, and he gets his long-awaited shot at Georges St. Pierre. Meanwhile, Fabricio Werdum takes on Roy Nelson in a fight with very loose title connections in the heavyweight division. Should Diaz and Werdum win -- and Vegas thinks they should -- it will continue a trend that makes Scott Coker look vindicated for something deep inside that could use some vindication. It also diversifies things for matchmaker Joe Silva.

Last weekend, Lavar Johnson scored a knockout of the night against Joey Beltran in Johnson's UFC debut. Former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Henderson came back and beat Rua and is now patiently waiting in line for the Jon Jones-Rashad Evans winner. Strikeforce titlist and linear champion Alistair Overeem kicked Brock Lesnar into retirement, and next faces Junior dos Santos for the UFC heavyweight strap. Other Strikeforce fighters (not named Gilbert Melendez) are making their way from the hexagon to the Octagon, too. In fact, just about anybody who’s anybody in the clearance of Strikeforce heavyweights will soon be in the UFC: Antonio Silva, Chad Griggs, Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett, et al.

The floodgates are open.

Granted, some of the Strikeforce fighters coming over are UFC retreads. But in the early returns the worst you can say is that Jake Shields, who jumped ship to the UFC before the acquisition, hasn’t lived up to billing. Most Strikeforce fighters are having a happier time of it than when the UFC/Pride partition came down, and the Pride fighters faltered. Same with the WEC, given the potential of Condit and Ben Henderson. Yet most of the WEC’s talent competed in the bantamweight and featherweight divisions, which didn’t exist in the UFC until the beginning of 2011, so it’s hard to make a full spectrum comparison.

But think about it -- in mid-to-late 2012, as many as three reigning Strikeforce champions could be wearing UFC gold (Diaz, Henderson and Overeem). If Melendez was ever released from exile, he could challenge for the lightweight belt, too.

What does it all mean? Maybe nothing. Or maybe it’s something that we’ve always suspected and debated about. While the best fighters in the world are generally thought to be in the UFC at all times, there are fighters dying for the chance to be brought in for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

And knowing just how short the fight society’s attention span can be, the UFC is only too happy to be wrong when they do.

So, Strikeforce is running a clearance on its once vaunted roster of heavyweights, and everyone between 207-266 pounds must go. What a difference a year makes.

In January of this year, the eight big guns on Strikeforce’s heavyweight roster stood on a New York City stage and looked like the most imposing ingredients to a nonfictional tournament since the Pride days. Even the alternates -- guys like Daniel Cormier, who defied odds by sneaking in and making it to the finals, and the mutton-chopped Chad Griggs -- were lively enough understudies.

The subtext of the grand prix? That Strikeforce had more depth in the most glamorous weight class than the UFC. It wasn’t the elephant in the room -- these were eight elephants in a room.

Dana White snickered. By spring, Zuffa bought Strikeforce. By summer, Alistair Overeem was on his way to the UFC. By winter, the wrecking ball assembly that made up the grand prix is being rapidly consolidated with the UFC's roster.

Zuffa is closing down the Strikeforce heavies to deepen the UFC’s. This, of course, is a good thing. The UFC’s heavyweight landscape will finally be on par with its other weight classes. How timely is that?

Not long ago (as in August), Brendan Schaub began to look like a top-flight heavyweight in the UFC. Not out of merit, but out of necessity. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, in the twilight of his career, shut things down. Then it was Matt Mitrione, before he was Jenga’d by Cheick Kongo. Even UFC newbie Stipe Miocic began to look like “promise,” well before he stepped in the Octagon. All this time we’ve been playing at the dearth.

But now reinforcements are arriving. Reigning Strikeforce champion Alistair Overeem was first, and he’ll fight Brock Lesnar next week at UFC 141 in a title eliminator. Fabricio Werdum came next, and he’ll take on Roy Nelson at UFC 143. With the news of Strikeforce shutting its heavyweight division down in total, the carpet is rolling out for others now, too.

Lavar Johnson, who also fought in the WEC back in 2005 and 2006, has signed to fight Joey Beltran at UFC on FOX: "Davis vs. Evans." And MMA Weekly reported that Griggs -- who foiled overly idealistic plans for Bobby Lashley by obliterating him -- also signed a contract with the UFC, and will debut in the Octagon in 2012. Antonio Silva is expecting a call soon, and Sergei Kharitonov would like to join his training partner John Olav Einemo in the UFC.

Of all the grand prix participants, only a few will likely be left out -- Andrei Arlovski, the former UFC champion, who is on (what he hopes) a comeback trail; Brett Rogers, whose personal life is in shambles; and Fedor Emelienenko, whose management would like to skip the process and pencil in a date with Cain Velasquez.

Once Daniel Cormier and Josh Barnett finish up the afterthought-ish grand prix in March, one or each will make their way to the UFC. (There is still a bonus heavyweight fight for the winner, which is short on details right now). When that happens, which could be as early as April or May of 2012, matchmaking in the UFC’s heavyweight division becomes more fun. With the reemergence of Frank Mir, there are now five legit bigs at the top -- Junior dos Santos, Velasquez, Overeem, Lesnar and Mir. Shane Carwin will be back in mid-2012, as well. Cusp fighters like Roy Nelson, Kongo and Travis Browne are still there, and green-but-emerging guys like Schaub and Mitrione are hovering.

But when you stack Werdum, Bigfoot Silva, Barnett, Cormier, Kharitonov, Shane del Rosario and Griggs in there? This thing about finding out who the best heavyweight in the world is becomes legit.

At the beginning of 2011, the questions centered around what happens if there wasn’t a partition between Strikeforce and the UFC, if guys like Overeem fought in the UFC? The partition is coming down, and we’ll find out soon enough.

The UFC's signing of former Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem swelled the total number of ready-made heavyweight contenders to right around three. After Cain Velasquez, there’s Junior dos Santos, Brock Lesnar and The Reem. It doesn’t help that the last two have question marks; one for health reasons, the other for being a smoke and mirrors fighter (allegedly).

After those names? It’s a dark, dark hall. In fact, only Frank Mir’s candle flickers at the end of it, and even that seems dangerously close to blowing out.

That’s why it hurts when guys being groomed like Brendan Schaub fail to get by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, or when Travis Browne registers a yeomen’s decision over Rob Broughton when a statement is needed, or when Dave Herman gets stricken from a card for coming up positive for illegal substances. Contenders are hard to come by in the heavyweight division right now.

Think about who’s out there -- Pat Barry, Cheick Kongo, Stefan Struve, Mike Russow, Shane Carwin, Roy Nelson, Big Nog. None of those guys are realistically close. Heath Herring is the most inactive fighter to ever exist on an active roster. Mark Hunt gets discussed for being salvaged from the garbage heap, but he’s not a threat to contend. Carwin was right there, but he’ll be 37 in January and has suffered two losses in a row. Who knows how much he has left. Ditto Nogueira, who has maybe two fights left in him. And that’s a generous maybe.

Which brings things around to Matt Mitrione. It points to the state of things that he looks like the lone buzz fighter coming up in the heavyweight division -- but the man has five total fights, with a casualty list that includes names like Kimbo Slice, Tim Hague and Joey Beltran. Besides, he’s the first to downplay himself as an actual contender.

Should he get by Kongo, Mitrione at least enters the picture frame. Should he lose? There’s going to be a major round robin between the top four guys in the division until reinforcements arrive.

Once the UFC begins bringing over more of the Strikeforce lot -- guys like Josh Barnett, Daniel Cormier, Antonio Silva -- it’ll deepen. But at the moment there aren’t a lot of heavyweights in the current pool making a big enough splash. In fact, Stipe Miocic looks a little like company gold right about now, which says it all for the prospects.

CINCINNATI -- Muhammed Lawal fights Roger Gracie this weekend, and he’s not sure where a victory puts him in the title picture. In fact, with current 205-pound champion Dan Henderson all but certain to sign with the UFC, he’s having one of those “Matrix” moments that goes like this: The truth is, there is no picture.

“Nobody knows man, we’re all confused,” he told ESPN.com after the prefight newser. “Nobody knows.”

Lawal was fairly candid about the uncertainty of Strikeforce and where things are headed. Yet, he pointed out to the media on hand that there should be more media on hand, and made it known that all the things going on outside -- namely, UFC 137’s game of musical match-ups -- were overshadowing a pretty explosive card. He would like people to take note of it, but since it’s out of his hands he’ll roll with the punches. One of his favorite refrains is a shrugging one: “I don’t care.”

“That’s what I do man -- you can tell, it’s different,” he said. “The big issues are other things, like Brock [Lesnar] fighting [Alistair] Overeem, and then Nick Diaz getting pulled out of his fight with Georges St. Pierre. For me? It’s like whatever. But to Daniel [Cormier], Bigfoot [Antonio Silva], Jacare [Ronaldo Souza], Luke Rockhold, and Josh Barnett, it matters. You have the title on the line and the semifinals of the tournament and nobody cares.”

King Mo has always been one to speak his mind, and he does it well. He says the simplest way for him to proceed at this point is to keep things light-heartedly mercenary -- “it’s a business, it’s all about money” -- and win his fights. After 14 months away from the cage, he’s anxious to get back in there against the jiu-jitsu ace Gracie and get paid again. He was cleared to fight and ready to go all the way back in January, so the last nine months have come off the calendar very slowly.

“I think it’s a good match-up, grappler versus wrestler,” he said. “But it’s going to be more than that, it’s going to be a little bit of everything. We’ll see. I think he wants to go to the ground. I don’t care, I’m prepared for all positions. Now nine months [after being cleared], I get my shot.”

And after that shot, who knows. Lawal has made no secret about desire to fight in the UFC. There are a lot of match-ups for him there, whereas in Strikeforce, currently, the cupboards a little bare. A win over Gracie would resolidify him as a top ten light heavyweight, and more importantly remind everyone that he’s out there. Not that, you know, he cares to remind “everyone” of anything.

“A lot of people in MMA don’t know s---,” he said. “Most MMA fans that I’ve ran into aren’t fans of the other sports. They watch MMA, but they don’t watch any boxing, kick-boxing, none of that other than basketball and football. They don’t really know what really good athletes are. They can’t relate to anything because they never competed at a high level. They just watch.”

Circling back around, that’s exactly what he wants you to do this weekend. It’s a King Mo paradox, and it’s best to roll with the punches.

CINCINNATI -- It’s the deepest card in Strikeforce’s history, and yet it’s one of the stranger atmospheres you’ll find leading up to an event. For starters, the Nick Diaz/Carlos Condit/Georges St. Pierre drama is playing out at the same time, as is the announcement that Brock Lesnar and Alistair Overeem have agreed to a colossal heavyweight battle in a week that colossal heavyweight battles were supposed to belong to Strikeforce. These things don’t help.

In fact, those two storylines have sort of exhausted the hype quotient for the week. The mood matches the rain and drizzle in Cincinnati.

But the main reason for the strangeness is that Strikeforce, as a brand, is sort of teetering on the brink of disappearing. Everybody knows this, and it’s become elephant in the room. No microphones made their way around the small media contingency at the prefight newser today, and none were needed. Scott Coker asked more questions of the fighters in attendance than the press. If he didn’t have to, he would have just as happily skipped opening things to the floor where dreaded topics might be brought up. In the end, they weren’t, because most of the media is to the point where they know he has no answers (and if he does, he isn’t likely to share them).

Regardless of everything surrounding the card, the fights themselves remain compelling. The three primary bouts have the same situational feel -- American wrestlers against guys who are good-to-excellent in other areas (read: non-wrestlers). It’s easy to pick out the biases. People who see wrestling as an always playable trump card are picking Josh Barnett over Sergei Kharitonov, Daniel Cormier to upset Antonio Silva, and Muhammed Lawal over Roger Gracie. The sight of wrestlers neutralizing talented jiu-jitsu players and great kickboxers has become all too common over the years. It’s easy to imagine Barnett taking Kharitonov down, just as he did Brett Rogers, and keeping things there. And keeping things there. And possibly pounding him out while he’s keeping him there.

Listening to Barnett, you know he’s weary of the Russian’s hands, and he promises the fight won’t go the distance. “I know he’s going to bring a never say die attitude, and we’re going in there with our shields and coming out either on them or on our own two feet,” he said. “So, it’ll be a good tussle. But being the type of fighters we are, I think we’re going to finish one another within that three-round limit. I don’t think there’s going to be any extra rounds, no decisions here.”

As Barnett also mentioned, it could be a main event-worthy scrap. But the fight that could steal the show is between middleweight champion Ronaldo Souza and Luke Rockhold. This is wizard jiu-jitsu player against the card’s sleeper.

“I think I’ve got the best jiu-jitsu credentials that Jacare’s ever fought,” Rockhold told ESPN.com. “My jiu-jitsu’s no slouch. I thought that jiu-jitsu was going to be my career for a long time. I thought I was going to be the best guy in the world, but I realized real quick that if you want to be the best at something, you can’t be the best at everything. And when I switched over [to MMA], I decided to be the best MMA fighter I could be, not the best jiu-jitsu guy.”

Besides that, you’ve got former light heavyweight champion Rafael Cavalcante on the undercard, as well as Evangelista Santos and Mike Kyle. Pat Healy is fighting Maximo Blanco on the fifth main card fight. It’s the deepest Strikeforce card ever, and for whatever reason, its timing couldn’t be worse.

Keeping it real

To further voice the general air of preoccupation, just turn to Muhammed Lawal.

“I don’t even know what to say; I’m just ready to fight on Saturday,” he said. “I was hoping for more people out here, more media and more questions, but I guess you guys don’t care about Strikeforce. Me and Roger are going to put on a good fight; it’s going to be a good card, and I think people are going to miss out on it, because everybody is worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend. I’m just being real.”

Keeping it even realer

Want to be real? How about Cormier on his expectations against Silva?

“I’m excited for the fight,” he said. “Josh [Barnett] said that [he] and Sergei [Kharitonov] are going to finish each other. Just to put it out there, I’m fine to win a decision. Is that OK?”

Of course it is, but if Cormier wins a decision, we can almost guess at the type of fight it will be -- and that sort of forward-thinking doesn’t make it sound as fun.

Kharitonov, the Russian wrestler stifler

Kharitonov made his game plan clear for Barnett.

“I’m going to try and have a stand-up fight," Kharitonov told ESPN.com. "I’m going to try and put on a good defense against getting taken down, and that’s my main strategy,” he said. “I’m ready for anything. If it’s on the ground, or if it’s a stand-up fight, wherever it is, I’m ready.” (Subtext? I’d really, really like to knock him out on the feet).

From Russia with fists

More Cormier, this time about him and King Mo knowing what time it is when it comes to wrestling and fighting.

“We fought thousands and thousands of times,” he said. “In wrestling competitions, and not only wrestling but fighting Russians over there [in Russia]. We’d get into actual fistfights when we’d go wrestle Russians. You can find mine on YouTube, and Mo is fighting the guy right before on YouTube; we’ve had a thousand fights.”

Wonder if he’s had any experience fighting behemoth Brazilians?

The UFC will roll out its as of yet “non-mainstream” heavyweight stars on the inaugural FOX card on Nov. 12. That’s champion Cain Velasquez against the definitive No. 1 contender Junior dos Santos.

Dana White said during Friday's news conference that it made sense to put “our best foot forward” for this colossal showcase. It’s a great first step, but the UFC might not want to look backwards after they take it. At least, not the way things stand now in the heavyweight division.

That’s because the UFC’s current heavyweight division is hardly the deep reservoir that its other divisions are. In fact, it’s only knee deep. The world can tune in to watch the two best heavyweights go at it, but behind JDS and Velasquez there’s a gulf which has yet to be filled.

The one guy who can fill this gulf? Alistair Overeem. Here’s guessing that his signing is the next announcement made.

Had Brendan Schaub defeated Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira -- as just about everybody outside of Brazil expected -- there would at least be a fresh body scaling toward contention in the heavyweight division. Turns out, he didn’t beat Big Nog. In fact, Schaub lost so emphatically that the word “exposed” was being tossed around. Not so much directed at Schaub, who is young and raw and realistically exactly where he should be today, but at the overall state of the heavyweight division in the UFC.

There was plenty of banter leading up to UFC 134 about Schaub becoming the No. 1 contender with a victory over what was thought to be a fading star in the sport in Nogueira. That’s the big red flag right there. To have been talking about Schaub being that close to a title shot at all was to admit that there’s a dearth of believable contenders at the top of the division.

That’s why it’ll not only big news when the UFC signs Strikeforce champion Overeem, but an act of necessity. The UFC needs somebody in the on-deck circle for Junior dos Santos and Cain Velasquez. As of right now, you would never confuse what’s going on at the top of the heavyweight division with a logjam. What’s going on is the exact opposite of the UFC’s lightweight division, which is flush with contenders.

Check out what’s below dos Santos and Velasquez currently:

There’s Brock Lesnar, whose future is uncertain as he continues his ongoing battle with diverticulitis. If he returns, the question mark then becomes in what form?

There’s Frank Mir, whose star is sinking a little with lackluster performances (even in victory). He’s viable, but not coveted -- and besides, his next fight will likely be against Big Nog.

There’s Shane Carwin who has lost two in a row, Roy Nelson (ditto), and guys like Cheick Kongo, Matt Mitrione, Travis Browne and Stefan Struve, the last one who’s a stretch and all the rest of whom aren’t there yet.

By bringing in Overeem, there’s at least an immediate third to the JDS/Velasquez party, which only magnifies the singular main event on Nov. 12. As with all sports, people have a tendency to play things forward. A marquee that reads “Champion versus Champion: Cain Velasquez versus Alistair Overeem” will do big business. Just about everything else would require blinders and gullibility to get stoked about for the winner of this big fight.

Once the Strikeforce GP wraps up and contracts can be navigated through, the UFC can stock its shelves with heavyweights for days. Guys like Antonio Silva, Fabricio Werdum, Josh Barnett, Sergei Kharitonov and Daniel Cormier. By 2012, the UFC’s land of bigs will look completely different. Out of the aforementioned names, guys like Mitrione could emerge into the top ten as well. A couple of names on the current UFC roster will certainly make cases for their contention. Only then do you have a true division where mixing and matching the top eight guys or so becomes an exercise in frustrating parity. That’s the right kind of frustration.

But, for now at least, the UFC can use some of Overeem’s muscle.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. -- At UFC 82 in 2008, Dan Henderson was cutting down to 185 pounds for the first time in a long while for his fight with Anderson Silva, and he overshot the mark by three pounds to 182. He said he was “rusty.” It was a bad experience, and a worse -- though probably indirect -- result.

Friday in Chicago, Henderson found himself in a rare position that he’s never experienced in any of the 14 years he’s spent in this racket. He was trying to load himself down with fluids and continental breakfast to meet the minimum of 206 pounds for his heavyweight fight with Fedor Emelianenko. Once again he overshot his mark. He weighed in at 207 pounds.

“I’ve never had to do this,” he told ESPN.com about half an hour before weigh-ins. “I’ve never had to weigh over a certain amount. It was a little weird. When I weighed in at Pride I never had to weigh in over a certain amount. So I never worried about it, and I was always a lot lighter.

“This is unique, it’s a little different having to make sure I am over 206. When I got here I checked with Burt [Watson] just to see if that was true because I wasn’t sure. I should be weighing in over 206, maybe 207 at least.”

As a life-long wrestler, Henderson has an almost Pavlovian urge to wear plastic on weigh-in day. Yesterday, however, he had prevent himself from sweating. It was only a few pounds he needed, but he had to make sure he got them. If there was a drawback to the process it was that he couldn’t work out at all yesterday, for fear he’d drop down too far from his usual 204 pounds. He didn’t work out this past weekend, either. He went a little harder on the weight-lifting, but otherwise he just kept the bladder full. Before moseying over to the weigh-ins he had his usual oatmeal, some juice and some fruit. In other words, except for stripping down to his underwear before a room full of people and cameras this afternoon, he just had a normal kind of day.

The result? While everybody was replenishing themselves with Pedialyte after the weigh-ins, Henderson felt the need to use the bathroom. But he made weight easily, and only 16 pounds separate him from Fedor, who got the larger reception while on the scale. Fedor weighed in at a pretty light 223 pounds -- seven pounds lighter than he came in against Antonio Silva in February.

“He looks OK, he just looks a little thinner,” Henderson said of Fedor. “I don’t know how that is going to translate into conditioning or strength. But he definitely looks like he’s thinner, like he’s trained a little better.”

It’s enough that Dan Henderson and Fedor Emelianenko are facing each other to make the Strikeforce card on July 30 (Showtime at 10 p.m. ET) worth watching. But for those needing an additional reason to tune-in, how’s this: It could be Emelianenko’s final fight.

The former Pride heavyweight champion, who has dropped each of his past two bouts (to Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Silva), isn’t ruling out the possibility of calling it quits if he falls to Henderson.

“I don’t know; we’ll see,” Emelianenko said during a Strikeforce conference call on Thursday to promote the bout. “Everything will be known after the fight. It’s better to talk about that and answer that question after the fight.

“What I have learned is that I can thank God for all of my successes and all of my failures, all of my good times and all of my bad times. I’m thankful to Him for all that he’s given me.”

Despite his recent disappointments inside the cage, Emelianenko (31-3-0) still believes in his fighting abilities and expects to end his two-bout skid.

“[Losing] hasn’t affected my confidence at all,” Emelianenko said. “If God has given us a certain path for my life, then I have to go down that path and feel confident about it.”

Faith is helping Emelianenko get through his recent difficulties in the cage, but Henderson has a strong belief that he will leave this fight victorious.

Henderson has closely watched Emelianenko’s two recent setbacks and spotted mistakes in the former champion’s approach. If Emelianenko has not corrected those flaws, Henderson plans to exploit them.

“Against Werdum, it seemed he got a little cocky with his submission defense, thinking he wouldn’t get submitted,” Henderson said. “Everybody can get caught, I guess.

“With Silva, he was a little bit out of shape; the size definitely got to him. Silva just hung out on top of him and didn’t let him move that whole second round. But no matter if he’s in shape or out of shape, he’s still dangerous. Anybody who has their back to the wall is definitely more dangerous.”

One thing is for sure: Retirement isn’t an option for the 40-year-old Henderson, whose contract with Strikeforce will be completed after this fight.

No matter the outcome of this fight, Henderson’s wants to defend his light heavyweight title.

“I don’t have any plans on going anywhere,” said Henderson, who will take a pro record of 27-8-0 into the cage against Emelianenko. “I’d like to defend that Strikeforce [light heavyweight] belt and go from there. But we have to figure everything out at the same time.”

For Henderson, this fight marks another chapter in a storied career. His book, however, appears far from being completed.

The same can't be said about Emelianenko. We will learn on July 30 if his story has reached its conclusion.

We knew this would never work.

From the moment of its unveiling back in January, the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix tournament struck us all an ambitious, shoot-the-moon gambit from a company best known for organizational chaos. The bracket looked admittedly epic, but before a single fight had been staged the doubters were lining up to point out the many ways it might fail.

Conventional wisdom said there was simply no way to get three superstars as notoriously flighty as Fedor Emelianenko, Josh Barnett and Alistair Overeem to sit still for a tourney that would take at least three events and a full year to finish. No way Strikeforce could avoid disaster long enough to pull off a gesture this grand. No way, no how.

Score one for conventional wisdom. With the sudden removal of Overeem from the field on Monday, it’s clear we were right to be suspicious of this tournament, even after Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce brought an added aura of legitimacy and even feasibility to the proceedings.

Prior to this year, Overeem had fought just once in Strikeforce since winning the promotion’s heavyweight title back in 2007, so it should come as no real surprise that after just one appearance in the grand prix, he’s already talking about bolting to chase a fanciful fight with a Klitschko brother or go back to kickboxing or some other endeavor that could conceivably make him more money.

We should also not be shocked that with the ink barely dry on the quarterfinals, the grand prix now appears damaged beyond repair. We hate to say we told you so, but just about everything that could go wrong with this tournament, has.

The opening round took four months to complete and even though Strikeforce stacked one side of the bracket with Emelianenko, Overeem and Fabricio Werdum -- ostensibly because not even the company believed it could get two out three all the way to the final -- Emelianenko's loss in the first round to Antonio Silva scuttled reported plans to put the semifinals on pay-per-view. One of the participants best known to casual fans, Andrei Arlovski, got knocked out by Sergei Kharitonov in the first round and Overeem’s only appearance was an absolute stinker against Werdum in June.

There was also bad news out of the cage. First Shane del Rosario had to put his MMA career on hold after being hit by drunken driver, then Brett Rogers was arrested on domestic violence charges just a couple weeks after losing to Barnett in the tournament’s first round. All that is to say nothing of the grand prix’s very murky “alternate system,” or the even murkier “competition committee” we were told was overseeing things. As if that was meant to reassure us.

Officially, Overeem is out owing to an injured toe, though the conspiratorial buzz (about his contract, a possible UFC crossover and whether or not he’s using threats to leave MMA for boxing as a Nick Diaz-style negotiating chip) has been thick ever since his appearance on AOL’s “MMA Hour” on Monday. Zuffa brass moved quickly to quash some of those rumors, confirming that Overeem is still legally bound to Strikeforce for at least one more fight and they’re intent on having him fulfill the deal as written. Sounds like "The Reem" won’t be going anywhere for a little while.

What he leaves behind, however, is a tournament badly hurt by his withdrawal. Don’t get me wrong, Silva is a Top-5 heavyweight, Daniel Cormier is a blue-chip prospect and Barnett is more relevant now than he has been in years. A tournament win for any of them will still be newsworthy, but after Emelianenko's unceremonious exit, Overeem was the real show here. As the Strikeforce heavyweight champion and the top-ranked fighter still in the field, much of the drama left in the bracket concerned whether he could live up to expectations and make his case as a viable candidate for a world No. 1 ranking.

In a sadly predictable way, Overeem being forced out midstream did in fact live up to our expectations for this tournament. We knew all along it was doomed, and it was.

Sometimes it stinks to be right.

Down to four and the field is wide open.

Antonio Silva and Sergei Kharitonov can situate their minds on Alistair Overeem and Josh Barnett respectively after the second leg of Strikforce's heavyweight grand prix quarterfinals on Saturday. The semifinals most fans pined for -- Overeem versus Fedor Emelianenko or the Russian against Fabricio Werdum -- didn't materialize. But so what? At a minimum, the tournament has unveiled two bouts that could be considered tossups between highly accomplished fighters.

For as much as people will attempt to find fault with the Final Four, let's not forget the facts. The winner of the tournament will be the lineal heavyweight champion in mixed martial arts. That may or may not mean much to you, but it is a tidy piece of MMA history and, I think, important. The UFC titleholder has not been considered MMA’s lineal champ since October 1998, when Randy Couture traveled to Japan and lost to Enson Inoue. It's part of the reason I suspect that when the tournament concludes, Zuffa won't have a choice but to match the grand prix winner against the UFC champion. The tournament king would likely be considered No. 2 in the world, and, whether he physically holds the belt or not, Strikeforce's heavyweight champion.

Beyond the "what's it worth” component, tournament brackets reveal fights we haven't seen before featuring two Europeans, a Brazilian and American. This event could also take on extra significance in the nationalism department, which would be welcome as far as I’m concerned.

Which fight makes for the best final?

From most to least interesting (there isn't a wide gap -- no matter the final, it will be worth watching):

1. Barnett vs. Overeem -- Once Emelianenko was ousted, Barnett-Overeem became the sexiest remaining possibility. Two impressive fighters with a long history in the sport.

2. Silva vs. Barnett -- As we were so ridiculously reminded of on Saturday, Barnett is a pro wrestler; so anything he says regarding a potential rival must go through some loudmouth reverse osmosis treatment. Having done that, it seems -- and I stress seems -- they don't like each other so much. Real animosity. High stakes. Sign me up.

3. Kharitonov vs. Silva -- Promotionally this is worst-case scenario for Zuffa and Showtime. Neither guy moves tickets. They don't speak English well, if at all. The only hope for attention comes if both fighters repeat their opening round experiences and win convincingly in the semis. A good heavyweight fight is always worth something.

4. Overeem vs. Kharitonov -- Overeem hanging around for the finals is good for everyone, but Kharitonov is a teammate and that may take off some of the edge. I've no doubt that both men would attempt to destroy the other, but the promotion might be awkward.

How does it play out?

Prior to the start of the tournament I pegged Overeem as the favorite. I'm going to stick with that, though I don't feel nearly as positive about his chances.

It's rare that Overeem is the smaller man. He will be against "Bigfoot" Silva. A resurgent Kharitonov is dangerous and has the game to stop Barnett. But just as easily Overeem could paste Silva like Mike Kyle did. And Barnett might have no problem using his size and smarts against the Russian everyone tends to forget about.

Barnett-Kharitonov is a true tossup.

Barnett gets hurt to the body, and we've seen Kharitonov dig to the ribs and abs. Can the Russian stay off his back? I think he can make it difficult, at least. The Russian is familiar with submissions, and should have enough skill to avoid Barnett's subs. Don't expect him to apply any, though. Kharitonov wins by boxing with Barnett, while the former UFC champion will have to play a top game. That means takedowns and control. That's how I envision the fight transpiring -- Barnett, on top, grinding down Kharitonov to a decision.

Overeem versus Silva is wonderfully dangerous for both. Silva took advantage of his size and surprisingly nimble movement to dominate Emelianenko. Overeem is a different beast and Silva will pay a stiff price for standing in front of him. I'm tempted to take Silva -- I think there's a good chance he can put Overeem on his back -- but the current Strikeforce champ is the play here.

And the finals ...

How about choice No. 1? Overeem fights Barnett. We don't know when or where, but that's my selection for the Strikeforce grand prix heavyweight finals.

Fresh off his pummeling of Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva shared some interesting takes on former UFC heavyweight champions Josh Barnett and Brock Lesnar. More »