By Brian Hemminger

Strikeforce is holding  a big card on May 15th in Kansas City and last Thursday they held part one of their conference call for the event.  Participating fighters were former UFC champions Andrei Arlovski and Kevin Randleman as well as Antonio Silva (13-2) and Brazillian jiu-jitsu world champion Roger Gracie (2-0).  Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker was also in the call, and he was willing to answer speculative questions as well.

The call opened with all questions for Arlovski because he was in a rush to get back to training.  He had a pretty long opening answer when asked how he’s reacted to his two most recent losses:

After I lost to Brett Rogers (June, 2009) I had meetings with all my trainers and they gave me a lot of ultimatums and said that I had to do it their way or that I would have to start to look for new trainers. When I fought Rogers I didn’t stick to my game plan and I didn’t take him seriously. So after that loss I just kept training and training and in November of 2009 I met with Greg Jackson and started training with him. I came back and trained in Chicago and then started working with Bob Cook and the guys at AKA Academy and then went back to Chicago. So I’ve had a lot of experience with different trainers. Everything happens for a reason and I’m more disciplined now. I’m definitely going to stick to my game plan. No more putting my hands down like I did against Rogers. I just can’t lose again. It’s very dramatic for me to lose fights and I want to climb back into the top. It’s going to be a very tough and important fight for me.

(Silva) is very dangerous on the ground. That’s why I have spent a lot of time here in Chicago with some big heavy guys training a lot on the ground. He’s an all-around fighter. His striking is good. He’s good on the ground. He has long arms. He’s really dangerous. I have to be really prepared for this fight.

I asked Andrei if he was still training with Freddie Roach and if boxing was planned in his future and he said,

I still train with Freddie Roach. My boxing debut was going to be June 27 but then I fought Rogers and he knocked me out so it didn’t happen.  Boxing is great but you can’t just use boxing in MMA.

I also asked him what his impressions were of Cain Velasquez since he’d trained with him at AKA.

He was very fast and strong.  If I get the chance to come back to AKA. I’m like Nike, ‘just do it.’

After that, Andrei was off the call and the most of the next questions were targeted towards his opponent, Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva.  Silva was asked about what he’d learned since his last loss to Fabricio Werdum,

My last fight) was a big lesson for me (a loss to Werdum on the Fedor-Rogers undercard). I had the opportunity but I could not do it. I fractured my hand and I’m not going to let something like this happen again.

Because of my former suspension it had been awhile since I fought in the states and I wanted to put on a show. When I got Werdum in trouble instead of going down with him and keeping with ground and pound when he tried to grab my leg I stepped back and let him get back up. I broke my hand at the beginning of the second round after a left hook and it was really bothering me and I wasn’t the same after that. But that’s all in the past now.

Once the questions started getting directed at Roger Gracie I stepped back in and asked him if he was going to be able to train at an elite level in both MMA or jiu jitsu or if he would focus on one.

I believe I can train for both (Jiu-Jitsu and MMA). Of course May 15th is my main focus now but three weeks later I will fight in the Jiu-Jitsu worlds. Before I used to fight in Jiu-Jitsu four or five times a year and I think now I’m down to about two so I can concentrate more on my MMA fights. I feel like I can do both.

Lastly it was Kevin Randleman’s turn and he  basically made it a point to mention how much he’s refocused himself on his training and how much he’s been improving.  The dude’s been in the sport for 13+ years and hasn’t shown much improvement though, so I’m not sure if I was buying it.  He certainly put his best effort forth though.

Scott Coker was also in the call, and the main interesting thing he said was that Japanese star Kid Yamamoto was off the card and would be participating in Dream 14 in Japan instead.  Some blogger tried to douche it up by calling out Coker for his matchmaking but he made an ass of himself instead of getting the desired reaction out of Coker.  Randleman even stepped in and defended Coker.

Other than that brief bit of drama, everything else went as expected.  This should be a killer event.  Expect another recap on a separate call with Brett Rogers and Alistair Overeem later this week.