With just five days until fight night, Mike Kyle (18-7-1) has stepped up for the injured Valentijn Overeen to face Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva (14-2) at Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Sobral. Valentijn (28-25) is the younger brother of current Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem and was schedule to make his Strikeforce debut as part of the night main card.
The latest injury followed the loss of Herschel Walker from the card just a week earlier, leaving the card missing two main card bouts. This made finding a replacement a must for Strikeforce and bring in Kyle is a solid replacement on such short notice.
Kyle typically fights at light heavyweight but this fight will be at heavyweight, where he hasn’t fought at since last year. With such short notice and no time to properly cut the weight the fight being at heavyweight is likely a good thing for Kyle.
Kyle is currently riding a four fight win streak in which he won both the XMMA Light Heavyweight Championship and the King of the Cage Light Heavyweight Championship. Kyle’s last lost was six fights ago against Fabricio Werdum at Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg in August of 2009, the last time Kyle moved up in weight to fight at heavyweight.
Silva last fought in May where he defeated former UFC heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski by unanimous decision. Ironically, like Kyle Fabricio Werdum was also the last fighter to defeat Silva back in November of 2009 after he had won six in a row dating back to early 2007.
Though not the matchup of two “true” heavyweights as originally planned, Kyle will not be an easy fight for Silva.
