02/01/2010 - Lawler KO's Manhoef, Lashley Gets TKO Win

It ended fast and it ended with a bang.

Robbie Lawler was feeling the power and dangerous strikes of Melvin Manhoef, but too much aggression and a perfectly timed counter punch sent the Dutchman crashing to the canvas, a victim of a vicious knockout.

To his credit, Melvin Manhoef approached the fight with Lawler with a much better gameplan that his usual bull rush style. The powerful Dutch striker planted some powerful leg kicks that left Lawler limping, backing up across the cage.

It looked like a completely one sided fight as Manhoef blasted away at Lawler's head and body with his signature punching power. Just as Manhoef went for the kill, Lawler finally threw a big punch, and that's all he needed.

Lawler connected with a devastating overhand right, and followed it up with a left hand on the ground that put Manhoef down and out for good. Usually a very subdued fighter, Lawler let loose as he celebrated the win after looking in trouble.

"I feel really good, this guy's a killer, he was coming after me," Lawler stated. "I kept my hands up, and I knew I was going to catch him. I just didn’t want to get overextended, and I knew I'd have a chance to catch him. His hands seem to drop once he goes to finish guys and that's what I wanted to wait for."

Still a top ten ranked middleweight, Lawler wasn't ready to call out champion Jake Shields, or anybody else for that matter. The HIT Squad fighter was just happy to get the win.

"I'm going to take this win, I'm going to run with it, rest my leg, he was kicking the crap out of my leg and we'll see what happens. Who knows."

It was a short night's work for Bobby Lashley against Wes Sims, as the former wrestling champion ground and pounded his way to a victory in his first Strikeforce fight.

It didn't take long for Lashley to use his wrestling pedigree to take Sims down and put him on his back. Within seconds of hitting the mat, Lashley started to hit Sims with a heavy barrage of shots.

Sims tried to roll out of trouble, but instead he turtled up and took some heavy punches from Lashley, who was going for the kill. After a few punches landed, Sims fell on the canvas and the referee quickly jumped in for the save.

As soon as the fight was over, Sims was complaining to the referee about the stoppage, but it seemed that Lashley did enough to finish the fight, while his opponent wasn't doing much to defend himself.

"Anytime you go in there and you come out victorious, you've got to be satisfied with it," Lashley said after the win.

Setting a goal for himself to go for the biggest match-ups possible after approximately 8 professional fights, Lashley stayed on course picking up his 5th win on Saturday night.

"Right now I'm at 5 so I'm looking for that 6th,7th, and 8th," Lashley commented looking towards the future.