Gesias in photo by Carlos Ozório
Gesias Cavalcante and Josh Thomson are set to lock horns at the October 9 Strikeforce event in San Jose, California. Better still, according to the promoters, the winner of the bout will be to challenge for the lightweight title now held by Gilbert Melendez.
Since establishing himself as one of the world’s best lightweights, two-time K-1 GP winner Cavalcante went through a period of inconsistency in his career. Besides a string of injuries, he suffered one no contest and a loss to Shinya Aoki and another to Tatsuya Kawajiri. In his last outing, “JZ” had a rough time, but managed to beat Katsunori Kikuno by split decision in the Dream promotion.
“I feel I could have had a better performance in my last fight, but it was my first appearance after a long time on ice; I was rusty. But now, I feel great and I’m excited about being back doing what I love to do. I train hard against good guys every day,” remarks the ATT representative.
After years fighting in Japan, the fighter is pleased to be back fighting in the USA, where he lives. And having the crowd against him doesn’t bother him.
“I’m happy to be 100% healthy and fighting in America. When the bell rings, it’ll be just Thomson and me in there. It’s a tremendous opportunity to reestablish myself, against a former world champion. The fight is really important. The winner should fight for the Strikeforce title,” he says jubilantly.
Thomson in photo by Esther Lin
Thomson won’t make things easy, especially as he wants his belt back. The fighter has nine submission- and four knockout-wins out of seventeen triumphs and three losses. He has beaten athletes like Hermes França and Melendez, the current champion, with one win apiece.
“The fans expect me to fight guys of JZ’s caliber and I, too, want to fight the best lightweights. Now Strikeforce has a ton of fighters in the division. There will always be talk about a third fight with Gilbert, but that will only happen at the right time,” he comments.
“I need to keep winning, though. There are a number of great fights for me, and this is definitely one of them,” he adds.
Other promising matchups featured on the Strikeforce card are Nick Diaz’s welterweight title defense against KJ Noons and Sarah Kaufman’s against Marloes Coenen.
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