The Weekly Wrap: June 12 - June 18

Babalu Beats Lawler, Wants Henderson

The bout stayed almost entirely vertical, but Renato Sobral still managed to edge power puncher Robbie Lawler in a catchweight main event on June 16 during a rare mid-week offering from Strikeforce.

Held in conjunction with the E3 video game convention in Los Angeles, Strikeforce “Los Angeles” drew 5,259 attendees to the Nokia Theatre and did extensive cross promotion with the EA Sports “MMA” game, which will be released Oct. 19. The Showtime broadcast featured game play footage of Sobral vs. Lawler before the fighters stepped into the cage. The fights drew a $418,061 gate.

Sobral, who came in significantly larger and with a reach advantage in the 195-pound fight, got the unanimous 29-28 nod largely by working a steady diet of kicks on Lawler, who did a lot of stalking and little angle cutting in the fight. Sobral landed more than Lawler in the fight, 66 of 227 strikes compared to Lawler’s 55 of 107, according to CompuStrike. Lawler came on stronger in the third round but accepted the verdict. Post-fight, Lawler admitted he spent too much time waiting for a knockout opportunity to present itself.

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker had indicated Sobral would get a shot at training partner Muhammed Lawal’s light heavyweight title with a victory. In a post-fight interview, Sobral downplayed the suggestion in favor of challenging Dan Henderson, to whom he lost in a 2000 Rings tournament. It was also set forth that Lawler would qualify for a middleweight title shot against Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza with a win. He was still asked about interest in the match, as if it remained in the plans despite the loss.

Also picking up wins at Strikeforce “Los Angeles” were Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos (first-round TKO over Marius Zaromskis), Tim Kennedy (first-round rear-naked choke submission over Trevor Prangley) and K.J. Noons (split decision over Conor Huen).