Strikeforce Challengers 17 showcases a trilogy in it’s first trip to Vegas

Note: Before watching this card you should click here to read my exclusive interview with Ovince St. Preux who’ll be facing Joe Cason tonight on this card.

Strikeforce will be making it’s debut at the fighting city of Las Vegas, at the Pearl at the Palms casino and resort. The home of many UFC Fight Night cards, also the former home of the WEC will be introduced to the six-sided cage for the very first time. The main event of the evening is a trilogy bout featuring welterweights Bobby Voelker and Roger Bowling. Both men like to strike it out and the heat will be turned up in this third fight. Voelker and Bowling have one win on each other. Bowling won a decision in the first fight back in May 2010 by decision and Voelker won the second fight via TKO in October 2010. You can expect the winner of this bout to be taken out of Challengers and into the main stage to be one step closer to a Strikeforce welterweight title shot.

Light heavyweight top prospect Ovince St. Preux will be taking on another hot up and comer making his Strikeforce debut in Joe Cason. Cason who trains out of Rufusport has been on fire with eight straight wins (all of them finishes) in the Iowa MMA scene. OSP has a seven fight winning streak as well with a upset victory over Benji Radach as his biggest ‘W ‘to date. A win for OSP will bring him back to the main Strikeforce card, but if Cason can upset St. Preux, Joe will be another fighter from Rufusport to watch out for.

The woman’s 135lbs bout between Liz Carmouche and Sarah Kaufman has ‘fight of the night’ written all over it. Strikeforce up and comer Carmouche pushed the current 135lbs champion Marloes Coenen to the limit back in March during the Feijao vs. Henderson card. She nearly won the title until she got caught in a triangle choke. The hard hitting Canadian Sarah Kaufman suffered a simliar fate having submitted to an armbar to Coenen during the Diaz vs. Noons II card. Sarah recently had a fight in her hometown of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada for the Armageddon Fighting Champion where she beat journeywoman Megumi Yabushita. Expect the winner of this bout to possibly leave Vegas as the number one 135lbs contender to possibly face the winner of Marloes Coenen vs. Miesha Tate.

The card will start at 7PM PST / 11PM EST on Showtime. Check your local listings!

The complete Strikeforce Challengers 17 televised card:

Welterweight bout: Roger Bowling vs. Bobby Voelker 
Heavyweight bout: Devin Cole vs. Shawn Jordan  
Light Heavyweight bout: Joe Cason vs. Ovince St. Preux  
Women’s (135 lbs) bout: Liz Carmouche vs. Sarah Kaufman
Middleweight bout: Ronald Stallings vs. Adlan Amagov

Photo credits to Strikeforce.com