When Strikeforce announced that their middleweight title holder Luke Rockhold’s next opponent would be Lorenz Larkin more than a few eyebrows were raised, and Scott Coker has now been lumbered with the task of trying to convince us all that he’s a worthy challenger.
“If you look at Lorenz Larkin’s record when he was fighting at 205, he had the one loss with ‘King Mo,’ who tested positive for that fight and it was ruled a no-contest, so he had an undefeated record,” Coker tells MMAJunkie. “And he had such an impressive performance with Robbie. When we talked about it (after the fight), I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Sean yet and see what his thoughts were.
“But I feel really good about this fight because Lorenz, to me honestly, is probably the most dangerous striker in MMA right now. He reminds me of a K-1 fighter back in the day with just tremendous kicking ability, good movement, great boxing skills. The guy took it to Robbie pretty good, and that’s really what got him the shot with Luke. That’s how it turned out.”
Larkin’s a fun fighter to watch, but “the most dangerous striker in MMA right now”, Scott? Really?
Of course he’s only doing his job as a promoter, but still, that kind of talk is hard to get behind when Larkin’s gone to a decision in three of his last four fights and was KO’d in the other one.
There’s no way that Larkin is more deserving of the shot than former champ Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza, but given that so much attention is going to be focused on the main event between Frank Mir and Daniel Cormier at the event in November, it’s probably not such a bad idea to just have Rockhold Vs Larkin for now, and save that rematch for headline duties on a future show.
