Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem (35-11) fought Fabricio Werdum (14-5-1) in the main event. This was the second time they have fought; the first time was when they both participated in the first round of Pride's 2006 open-weight tournament.

Overeem came out to the cage holding up a Dallas Mavericks banner with hip-hop artist Jadakiss' song “The Champ is Here" blasting.

Overeem won a unanimous decision over Werdum in the Strikeforce main event in Dallas. The fight turned out to be a matchmaking nightmare because of the contrasting styles. The fans let both fighters know that they were not pleased with the non-action. Throughout the fight a chorus of boos could be heard from the crowd. 

In times past when Strikeforce would have a main event fight like this, we would see UFC president Dana White on Twitter criticizing the competition. But now that the UFC has purchased Strikeforce, MMA fans don’t see White as critical of Strikeforce as he was before.

“Considering that Fabricio is the best grappler in MMA, the game plan was to not go into his game. I consider myself, with the K-1 title, the best striker in MMA, so I wanted to keep it standing,” Overeem said in a post-fight interview with Showtime Sports.

With 90 seconds left, the crowd began chanting, “stand them up,” but to no avail.

Overeem maintain the posture of a lion stalking his prey, while Werdum played a shark trying to bait his opponent to jump in the water. Neither fighter wanted to give the other an advantage; so one fighter would stand while the other would lie on his back on the canvas. Throughout the fight Overeem would throw Werdum to the canvas and Werdum would beg him to join him, but the champ would not abide. It was reminiscent of the 1976 fight between boxer Muhammad Ali and pro wrestler Antonio Inoki in Tokyo, Japan. The majority of the fight saw Inoki on his back, while Ali was asking him to stand up.

Some consider the champion Overeem one of the best heavyweight standup fighters in MMA, but by contrast Werdum is the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu ground fighter in the heavyweight division.

Even though Overeem vs. Werdum was arguably the most anticipated bout of the whole tournament, neither fighter lived up to the hype. In the end, Overeem won a unanimous decision over the Werdum to move on in the tournament to fight Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Silva, another Brazilian, advanced in the tournament when he upset former Pride Fighting Championships champion Fedor Emelianenko back in February in the first quarterfinal matches.

Below are results from the other bouts of the evening.