Reserve Bouts Announced For Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament

The reserve bouts for the upcoming Strikeforce World Grand Prix heavyweight tournament were announced on Tuesday. Taking part in the reserve matches will be bouts between heavyweights Ray Sefo (2-0) vs. Valentijn Overeem (28-25) and Lavar Johnson (15-3) vs. Shane Del Rosario (10-0).
The news comes via MMAjunkie.com, who posted the Sefo vs. Overeem match, and via Josh Gross who posted the Johnson vs. Del Rosario bout via Twitter.
Sefo is a longtime K-1 fighter with only a couple of mma bouts under his belt. His last mma fight was back in September of 2009 when he earned a TKO win over Kevin Jordan at a Strikeforce Challengers show. Sefo was last seen taking on Tyrone Spong at the K-1 World Grand Prix Final 16 event, he wound up losing to Spong by decision.
Valentijn Overeem is the older brother to Alistair Overeem, and was to have made his Strikeforce debut in December against Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva but was forced to withdraw due to an injury. The Golden Glory fighter has won his last two and is 3-2 in his last five fights. His career reads like a roller coaster with stretches of wins and losses, with the longest being seven wins and six losses.
Undefeated del Rosario has fought twice under Strikeforce, last appearing in July at a Challengers show where he earned a first round TKO win over Lolohea Mahe. His other Strikeforce win was against Brandon Cash at another Challengers event in November of 2009, he earned a first round submission in that fight. Pervious to that, del Rosario fought under the M-1 and ShoXC banners.
His opponent, Johnson, has won seven straight fights including three at Strikeforce Challengers shows. His last appearance was in October where he knocked out Virgil Zwicker. He also earned a TKO win over Mahe in March of this year and a KO victory over Carl Seumanutafa at the very first Challengers event.
The upcoming event, tentatively-titled “Strikeforce: New Jersey” will take place on Feb. 12th at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The events main card will air on Showtime.