Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira says Fedor, Silva and Barnett are the favourites to win Strikeforce tournament

Former UFC and PRIDE champion, Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira has named Fedor Emelianenko, Antonio “Big Foot” Silva and Josh Barnett as the three men for him who could win the forthcoming Strikeforce heavyweight tournament, with current champ, Alistair Overeem nowhere to be seen.
Speaking via PVT, Nogueira said:

“I think Big Foot, Fedor and Barnett will be the favorites for the GP. The fight between Fedor and Big Foot could be an anticipated final. (Big Foot) has good wrestling, he’s tough, and he’ll be the biggest challenge to Fedor in this GP.”

When asked whether he agreed that Strikeforce had the best heavyweights on the planet right now, Nogueira said:

“I do not agree, I think the best are in the UFC. Strikeforce has a lot of tough guys, we’ll have big fights in this GP, but the UFC is still more complicated.”

Finally, on the appointment of his student, Junior dos Santos as a coach on the forthcoming season of “The Ultimate Fighter”, the Brazilian remarked:

“TUF is going to be important to showcase Brazilian MMA in the US, show them how we train united. I showed them that when I was TUF coach and Cigano will show the same. We’ll be going to visit him, me and Anderson, but Cigano is a guy who already knows how to teach, he already teaches. He’ll know how to show the techniques and show why he’s one of the best in the world.”

“As for Lesnar, he doesn’t kick, so Cigano will not need to train too much defensive Muay Thai, as he was training for Cain, he can now rely more on training offensive Muay Thai. And this is the type of fight where he’ll look for the KO, train a lot of wrestling, train the guard because he could end up falling underneath (Lesnar), even though Lesnar’s GnP is not as good as Cain’s. But (Cigano) will look for the KO in this fight.”

Nogueira was last seen in action almost a year ago when he was knocked out by current champion, Cain Velasquez at UFC 110 in Sydney, Australia. Can this Brazilian MMA legend, who’s seen it all both in Japan and America rally for another run at a major heavyweight title before he hangs up his gloves?