Brazilian magazine TATAME is reporting that Strikeforce has plans to host an 8-man Heavyweight GP in 2011.
The report states that Fedor Emelianenko will face Antonio Silva in a yet-to-be-announced Strikeforce February event as part of the semi-quarters, along with Fabricio Werdum, coming off his historic victory over Fedor, versus Sergei Kharitonov in a March event. The other two possible fights for the tournament could involve current Strikeforce HW Champion Alistair Overeem against former UFC champion Andrei Arlovski, and recent Strikeforce acquisition Josh Barnett could face Strikeforce HW prospect Brett Rogers to round out the tournament.
The tournament could be broken into three events, where the semis and/or finals are potential candidates to spearhead the first Strikeforce pay-per-view event since signing a deal with Showtime/CBS after purchasing the Pro Elite assets back in 2009. MMAPayout has also learned although all the details are not confirmed as of this time, it is Strikeforce’s intent to run the HW GP and have contacted several HW’s in their roster to prepare in case injuries or other rumored participants cannot compete.
Payout Perspective:
Though there are quite a few that have scoffed at the idea of Strikeforce hosting a HW GP next year, quickly pointing out how the planned Middleweight GP never materialized, it is important to note that there were many reasons that the MW GP did not occur, most importantly was the idea of making it a one-night event, which the commissions would not allow.
Strikeforce appears to have moved on from that notion, and in fact has matched-up their MW division this past few months based on what they were originally planning for the MW GP. Current Strikeforce MW Champion “Jacare” Souza defeated Tim Kennedy, who quickly dispatched MMA veteran Trevor Prangly in the Los Angeles event, to become the MW Champion back in August. Previous to the Kennedy title bout, Jacare impressively defeated MMA veteran Joey Villasenor earlier in the year, after submitting Matt Lindland the previous year. Robbie Lawler, who is coming off of impressive victories against Melvin Manhoef and Matt Lindland, is now scheduled to face Jacare for the Strikeforce MW title in the upcoming January 29, 2011 event, set to take place in San Jose.
It is also expected that the budding company has plans to air a 30 minute weekly syndicate Strikeforce show sometime next year, which would provide much needed brand and fighter exposure outside of the Showtime network. The show would be utilized to promote upcoming fights and also show fights from recent shows. Although a reality TV show was mentioned by Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker earlier this year, MMAPayout has learned that talks are still in the early stages between the parties involved, and it is not yet known when a potential deal could materialize.
Other big rumors involve Strikeforce taking their promotion outside of the USA for the first time as an MMA promotion. Scott Coker expressed his intent, in a recent interview on “The MMA Show!”, to bring Strikeforce into Canada next year. There are also rumors of Strikeforce possibly holding an event in the United Kingdom, which would be centered around a possible Paul Daley Welterweight title fight late next year.
Poor old Scottie has a big Christmas list for Santa. However, like most Christmas lists, very few gifts make it under the tree.
In all seriousness, I hold little hope of a a HW tournament or a PPV for Strikeforce in 2011. I know I sound negative, but track record leads me to thing this way. Scott has little control over his fighters accept for those who choose to let him.
I hope it all works out, but I think Scott should focus on a steady build of his Organization taking into consideration the moderate successes of 2010. Canada would be a good market for him. Possibly Ottawa, Hamilton, Halifax or Moncton.
There is just to much info, leaking out of to many sources, for the tournament not to happen. The format of that tournament and the participants is still a question mark. Hopefully SF starts talking publicly when they announce the Jan 29 show next week.
As for PPV on the Straka interview he said Overeem vs Werdum or Fedor could be be a PPV but didn’t say it actually would be on PPV. In an interview in the last couple of weeks he was asked specifically about PPV in 2011 and he didn’t sound to hot to the idea but he didn’t come right out and say no. So I think they are still in play it by ear mode. There is no doubt they want to do PPV but I don’t think they will do it if they don’t think it will be successful.
Two other things that came out of the Straka interview that I found interesting is first that they have digital downloading coming up. What that means is a question mark. It could be any thing from the syndicated show on Hulu / itunes, to the events as on line PPVs. Maybe the back catalog of fights would be available. Some one needs to stick a mic in his face and get some details.
The other interesting thing is that he wants to do big K1 style entrances for the big shows. That would be a great way to differentiate their shows from the other North American shows and add more spectacle. The fighters already get their own walk out music, so that was fixed.
It is amazing how much they have going on.
The thought of a HW GP gets me excited. Heavyweight is perhaps Strikeforce’s one and only division with depth and serious credibility beyond the top three. If done right, this could really provide a platform to increase awareness and interest in the promotion. Fingers crossed, right!
What would make sense to me is do the quarter finals on Showtime, put the semi finals on CBS and then do the final on PPV. That would have enough buzz to draw people for the CBS show and the CBS show could work as a 2 hour infomercial for a PPV. The HW semi-finals on CBS would be big enough to be able to withstand the obligatory UFC counter programming.
jv:
From my sources, I believe they may be trying to implement and On-Demand fight vault and possibly global streams in the future. A lot of great things are being planned. =)
Scott also said on HDNet that their Shine International deal was a seven figure deal, and they are happy with all the revenue streams they have right now, enough that a bad gate does not hurt their business as much as it would have a year or two ago.
JV,
SF does not have a CBS deal and can’t count on one materialzing in the near future. Things could totally change, but my understanding, as of just before Thanksgiving, is that CBS has no interest in any MMA right now.
I like the idea of a HW tourny, but medical suspensions could wreck havoc with it.
For me, I simply want to see SF get the titles defended on a regular basis. Why have them if they are not defended?
>”I like the idea of a HW tourny, but medical suspensions could wreck havoc with it.”
Lynchman:
That is what reserve matches are for.
>”SF does not have a CBS deal”
If you listen to the Fight Nerd interview with Kogan he says that the the Fedor negotiations were between SF/CBS/Showtime and M1. That isn’t proof of any thing but it is interesting.
But more to the point. Showtime will be the one hosting the PPV so their slice of the PPV money will be pretty big. As they are part of the CBS empire they may be able to make a business case that it is worth trying again in order to prime the PPV pump. If they don’t do it then Showtime will have to arrange for advertising time on CBS. You can’t do a major PPV with out advertising and every one knows that.
It is inaccurate to say SF doesn’t have a CBS deal because they do. It is a frame work that allows CBS to pick up, up to 4 shows a year. They have been electing not to but that does not mean that they can’t change their minds again.
To me nothing says desperation and lack of direction like running a Tournament. Its a quick money grab and leave divisions in shambles. The UFC give up on them ages ago because they are not needed if things are done properly. Also most fighters hate them. Not as much as single night tournaments but still. People want to run them because Pride did. But Pride did lots of things to hide the problems a tournament creates. For one they had worked fights to reestablish fighters to feed to someone else. They also had cans who where used for the same purpose. Just to get guys wins. In actuality a tournament leaves you with one winner and a bunch of losers. So when its over no one is deserving of a fight with the winner. Also just as we saw in Pride you are left with dozens of rematches. You give away all your big fights in tournaments where everyone fought everyone and now they have to fight again and again.
This is a amateur move with looks like something KOTC would do when you have no stars and no talent so you say “lets have a contest”. SF has to many names to throw them all away and end up with 1 name. Not good when just about everyone in the mix is toward the end of their career.
Also does anyone believe Fedor will not pull out after the first fight? He leveraged his way out of Tournaments long ago in Pride. If he dont get his rematch with Werdum in round 2 he will pull out. He probably wont be the only one.
This is why top Orgs with any future dont risk running tournaments. To much can go wrong and very little to gain. Desperation pure and simple.
All of this sounds great, but some of this stuff needs to start happening, Coker can talk all he wants, time to start making some of it a reality.
IMO, he should focus on the weekly TV show, they need consistent presence with casual fans that they completely lack right now.
Inside MMA had a clip of an interview with A.O. and he said he would like to fight in SF again in “april, may or june” so if they do something with the H.W. tourney then it would likely start around then.
the thing that makes me scratch my head a little on the current proposal for the HW tourney laid out in the 1st paragraph is Fedor and A.O. Fedor and his camp are notoriously difficult to negotiate with, now they are going to agree to fight in a tournament style format where they won’t know exactly who their potential 2nd round opponent is? Also, A.O. has fought once for SF since end of 2007, now he is going to commit to possibly fight 3 times in a year coming off his K-1 victory that likely made him a bigger star in Japan? Also, no doubt he’s a great fighter, but he’s fought 1 top 10 HW, being Brett Rogers, lately, and he and his camp is going to agree to a tournament with many top 10 guys and Josh Barnett who is a legit top 10 guy, but just not ranked at this point?
All these issues are manageable and with both fighters getting a little older, I could see some concessions made, but this stuff isn’t as easy as just talking about perfect scenarios.
>”This is why top Orgs with any future dont risk running tournaments.”
Brain Smasher :
Why don’t you just say UFC? Since that is who you obviously mean. I guess because it doesn’t sound quite so ominous when you say all the top organizations except the UFC have run tournaments and fans love them.
>”Fedor and his camp are notoriously difficult to negotiate with, now they are going to agree to fight in a tournament style format where they won’t know exactly who their potential 2nd round opponent is?”
Stan:
The broad strokes of the deal are done and the lawyers are just dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. That is what they have been doing with M1 for the last few months.
JV,
I have no doubt Fedor will resign with SF, at this point there’s no real viable alternative for him, however, is his current contract involve the tournament details? Last thing I saw late last week that his deal was about done and he would be fighting Bigfoot next, but nothing about a tournament clause and such…
If they have CBS involvement with the tournament I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s the 1st round, anything short of that would be a huge risk for CBS because they can’t guarantee (or at least as much as you can guarantee an MMA fight due to training injuries) who would fight on it. It doesn’t seem like CBS is in any hurry to get another MMA show on the air, and I could see them not wanting to commit to a 2nd round where none of the “stars” are promised to be on it, either via losses or injury in the 1st round fight.
Let Fedor fight early in 2011, if he wins set up A.O. and Fedor for a CBS or Showtime card, run the tournament and have the final on the same card and winner gets a title shot.
As far as UFC not having tournaments, well they kind of do, they just don’t label them as such, and usually they could be identified as a 4 man tournament. Basically it revolves around belts, they have a championship fight and then the winner of that often fights a winner of another fight against top contenders. Not exactly a “tournament” but I understand why they don’t commit to using that word. For one, this is a business and I understand wanting the flexibility to change things to satisfy an often fickle audience. Then these things can get convoluted if fighters start to get injured etc… It doesn’t sound like SF is going to do a tournament involving multi-fights a night for a fighter, especially since U.S. ACs have rules about how much a fighter can fight etc. It’s not a bad idea since it would help introduce fighters to some casual fans if they get an outlet that would reach them on a consistent basis.
I really hope SF does not rush a PPV, because as it stands now I don’t see how it does well. It would require a decent size payroll to run a PPV for SF, and IMO they don’t have guys who are a proven enough draw to gain a decent buy-rate. Now, if they can get another CBS show or a weekly/bi-weekly show on a good outlet, that’s another story.
Tournaments have their share of problems – namely ensuring that fighters with difficult management are willing to continue competing in them as they progress, and trying to keep fighters healthy – but both fighters and fans love them.
The Showtime Super 6 tournament has been praised by fans, fighters and media despite all the problems that have ensued and rightfully so. We’ve seen great fights even though some fighters have subsequently dropped out.
The latest Showtime boxing tournament is also doing great (bantamweight I think, I forget all the weight divisions in boxing), with two great fights already done and two more to go.
A big part of the draw of K-1 is their annual tournament format that allows unknown fighters to climb to the top of the sport in 12 months – think Petrosyan – and consistently pits top fighters against each other allowing rivalries to develop – think Aerts-Schilt.
I like the idea of a SF HW tournament. The fights currently being discussed are interesting, and as the tournament goes on, the new matchups will be even more interesting. Yes, someone will probably drop out due to contract disputes or injury – think Fedor – but you still get a lot of good fights in a short time, and at the end of it, a champion (within that organization), what else can fan or fighter ask for?
I’m all for it. Now if we could just get that Alvarez-Melendez fight going…
I also don’t think SF should rush or even feel they require a PPV at this point. If they are making enough money to pay their fighters well and still stay in the black, they can take their time getting to PPV. Yes, PPV can mean much more money, but it also means much more risk. SF has done a good job of growing within their means and I would hate to seem them risk everything on a PPV and lose.
Diego,
Yeah, that is my exact feeling on the situation, and I only mentioned it because I’ve seen it mentioned a few times by Coker.
Also, I do like the concept of a SF tournament but again, there are flaws with that style IMO. However, at this point with them not having a regular presence outside of Showtime it might be the best way for people to follow what’s going on in their prime division. As you pointed out boxing has had some success with it lately. My main “concern” with it is simply this… yes, fans and some fighters enjoy the format, but as everything stands now, how does it expose SF to more casual fans? Super Six etc. got some decent run from some main stream media, but would SF get the same? At this point I don’t see ESPN covering more than a brief blurb… better than nothing? Of course, but ESPN gives them updates on their crawl after their bigger fights. I just think SF needs to do everything to establish a regular presence somewhere bigger than showtime, yes they are a good org who puts on good cards with some very good fighters, but IMO I just feel they need to get more fans on a more consistent basis.
The idea of putting it on PPV is a suicide mission unless round 1 is on CBS. The best draw of the bunch is probably Fedor, and he sold less than 100k on two different stacked Affliction cards. I also fail to believe that M-1 won’t be demanding more money after Fedor wins round 1. Look at all of the bullshit required to get him back in the cage after a 69 loss to a lower top 10 heavyweight.
I agree with a lot of the comments posted and most are advising against a tournament and PPV event.
Scott should try to focus getting SF back on CBS. This is the best way to grow his business. With this, possibly a weekly show on one of CBS’s affiliate networks.
Good luck to SF in 2011. I’m sure they will continue the steady growth seen in 2010.
All things considered, I hope for big things for MMA as a whole in 2011, starting with the WEC fighters in the UFC.
JV
If i meant the UFC obviously i would have said so. I said top Orgs dont use Tournaments because over the years they have not. IFL, Elite XC, WFA, Affliction, etc. IMO it is a tool that should only be used to establish a name when you dont have one. Basically KOTC level events to put a bunch of fighters in the cage and the winner will make a name for himself. Just like Dustin Hazelette did at Exteme Challenge. He wasnt the favorite but won the tourny and the UFC contract that went to the winner.
Yes casual fans love tournaments. Thats because they dont care about the future of the sport only for instant gratification. They never work. Look at the Super 6 Diego mentioned. Showtime promoted a tournament the fans didnt get. Just about the entire list of fighters got replaced. The event where finally all the top boxers would face each other didnt happen.
The problem is fighters dont like to rush back after a loss. Few do most dont. So all these top names who lose in this event will likely not fight before the tournament is over. So litterally the winner has no one to fight. Then you have the problem of the champ losing in the tournament and keeping his belt. Sound familiar? It should because it happened in Pride all the time. This discredits the belt and the Promotion.
The last tournament the UFC ran was at 155. It ended in shambles and they scrapped the entire 155 division for years.
JV, i suggest you educate yourself on the history of the sport before you try taking down to someone else on the subject. I can literally run off dozens of rematches in Pride alone due mainly because they give away all their best fights in tournaments. Yes, tournaments where conditions are different than normal fights. Some fights cant even before promoted to draw their max potential. These fights are wasted.
Fact is these are fights that should be happening in SF to begin with. But SF has refused and are unable to put the fights on required of them. So now they are going to slap a fancy “tournament” label on it to get people to over look the poor management and lack of product control. They are a fight promotion that can not put on the fights people want. Just them promising a HW tournament involving fights they have been unable to produce is laughable. Reminds me of Pride when they promised every year for half a decade they were coming to America. Or K-1 when they promised over and over Tyson was fighting. Sf couldnt produce a MW tournament and i dont buy the commission excuse. The Commission wouldnt allow a single night tourny but they shouyld have still done round one that event and spread the tournament out if they really wanted to. Coker has done a horrible job and amde a mess trying to grow SF. Now he is just sending out press releases to distract the consumer for realizing his mismanagement.
The UFC dont need a tournament to get Brock to fight Cain or Cain to fight Santos. Because they dont give leverage to Fedor and M1 and they dont allow their champs to fight over seas and not defend the belt.
>”JV, i suggest you educate yourself on the history of the sport before you try taking down to someone else on the subject.”
>”If i meant the UFC obviously i would have said so. I said top Orgs dont use Tournaments because over the years they have not. IFL, Elite XC, WFA, Affliction, etc.”
LOL. I think you forgot Nemesis and Shine fights in your list of top organizations.
It doesn’t seem just a little bit odd to you to say this is the proper way to run a company and then list a bunch of companies that operated that way and are all now out of business? I guess Affliction could have done a 4 man tournament but they weren’t around long enough to do an 8 man tournament.
The top organizations right now are UFC, Strikeforce, Dream, M1, Bellator, SRC. Of them the only ones that don’t do tournaments any more are the UFC.
Stan, Nick, mmaguru:
Golden Glory has publicly stated that if SF has a tournament, Alistair and Kharitonov would take part.
M-1 knows about the tournament and is part of the re-negotiations. Here is Fedor trainer Voronov a month ago:
“Voronov: What i can say finally Fedor will be fight and its happened very soon.He is in a great shape and ready to fight.Next week we will find out Fedor’s Schedule for Strikeforce.Will see what happened,at this moment we have Negotiation with Strikeforce.I hope we signed new contract withe Strikeforce grand prix.8 heavy weights fighters included Fedor will be fighting for Strikeforce heavy weight Belt.”
M-1 has spent 6 months renegotiating after every fight on his current contract that I am assuming was a legal contract, so what makes you think this will be any different. They were happy with the first contract last year, but did not honor it without putting on one hell of a dog and pony show.
Jose,
I do believe they are intent on trying to put on a HW tournament, but I hope that they will come to their senses and decide otherwise. Just as Nick has stated, what will stop M1 from renegotiating after each round delaying the whole thing, sending Overeem to Japan again, etc. etc. It’s just bad business sense for Coker to even consider it IMHO.
What M1 has wanted is a platform to promote M1. The 4 shows they are getting from Showtime are far more than they really could have dreamed for. If they don’t honour the agreement then Showtime can pull those shows with out really hurting SF. If Fedor won’t continue you replace him with a reserve fighter and his reputation is destroyed.
His reputation took a big hit when they negotiated off of CBS and he tapped in 69 seconds on Showtime. It still didn’t stop from another 6 month negotiation.
I’d suggest an alternative path for SF – build up your fighters to title contention by doing the following:
January
Big Foot vs Barnett
Del Rosario vs Lavar Johnson
February
Kharitonov vs Fedor
Daniel Cormier vs Chad Griggs
March
Rogers vs Arlovski (try to build one of these guys back up)
April
Winner of Del Rosario/Lavar Johnson vs Daniel Cormier/Chad Griggs
May
Werdum vs Overeem for the Title
Winner of Big Foot/Barnett vs Kharitonov/Fedor for next title shot
June
Winner of (Del Rosario/Lavar Johnson vs Daniel Cormier vs Chad Griggs) vs (Rogers vs Arlovski)
July/August
Winner of Werdum/Overeem vs (Big Foot/Barnett vs Kharitonov/Fedor) for the title on CBS
This is just for starters. You can simply fill in some other fights with the losers of the initial fights.
Somewhere on one of these posts it was mentioned that Fedor ducked out of the Pride tournament. For the record, he didn’t want to take part in it because his brother Aleks was in the tournament. He wasn’t trying to duck any of the fighters or get more money out of Pride. He just didn’t want to be in a situation where he would have to face his brother.
He also had trouble with his hand, but I’m sure if he really wanted to he could have fought through that.
Jose,
Good info on Fedor. It sounds like he’s up for the tourney format, so hopefully we will get to see him fight more than once in 2011. Can you imagine? That’s all I want for Christmas.
guru,
I like your matchups, I think that would work just as well as a tournament format – I don’t know that it’s better, it’s just a different way to go about it. The only issue is Barnett, who is not going to be ready until later in the year.
At the end of the day, we want to know that fights are scheduled, and that the winners of those fights have a path to the title. A tournament format does that, so does having title eliminators – which is essentially what mmaguru is suggesting. What makes this whole thing fall apart is when fighters drop out of their second or third fight for whatever reason. If that happens, you just have to put in someone else and keep going.
My biggest issue with the SF HW ranks is that their belt was held hostage for years, and that there is no clear path to title contention. If SF fixes those issues, either with a tournament format, or by having specified title eliminators and forcing their champions to defend, then I think they will have vastly improved their product.
Agreed Diego,
Was not aware of Barnett’s situation. I assumed his 1 year was up.
Somewhere on one of these posts it was mentioned that Fedor ducked out of the Pride tournament. For the record, he didn’t want to take part in it because his brother Aleks was in the tournament. He wasn’t trying to duck any of the fighters or get more money out of Pride. He just didn’t want to be in a situation where he would have to face his brother. He also had trouble with his hand, but I’m sure if he really wanted to he could have fought through that. Jose, Good info on Fedor. It sounds like he’s up for the tourney format, so hopefully we will get to see him fight more than once in 2011. Can you imagine? That’s all I want for Christmas.
In terms of scheduling,
I believe the GP, if it happens, may start in Feb. or March and go on until the end of the year, where the finalists will headline a PPV. There could be a PPV for the semis but not 100% on that yet.
Cormier will fight on Jan. 7 and I hear Shane will be be back around Jan. or Feb.
JV
Are you claiming these companies went under because they didnt run a tournament? Dont resort to stupidity to try to win a debate. They all went under due to poor business decisions. For example Affliction payed Arlovski 1.5 million when the next highest bidder was 150K. Sylvia was payed 750K when the highest bid was around 100K. They threw away millions on each fight card which limited the amount of time they had to work and establish their brand. Similar incompetence has doomed all the MMA promotions.
Diego
That is not true. Fedor didnt skip out because he wanted to avoid his brother. Fedor claimed his hand was broken. Fedor was known to use injuries to get out of or postpone fights. Even Pride officials didnt believe him and demanded Fedor come to Japan and be examined by their doctor. He refused and decided he would use his own Doctor. Pride officials went and met Fedors Dr and then allowed him to miss the tournament. Then they tried to give him time to “heal” and give him a bye into the next round and they still couldnt get him to enter.
Once Fedor got his leverage Pride was unable to get him into the GPs. It was this same hand injury that pushed his Cro Cop fight back for over a year.
JV Are you claiming these companies went under because they didnt run a tournament? Dont resort to stupidity to try to win a debate. They all went under due to poor business decisions. For example Affliction payed Arlovski 1.5 million when the next highest bidder was 150K. Sylvia was payed 750K when the highest bid was around 100K. They threw away millions on each fight card which limited the amount of time they had to work and establish their brand. Similar incompetence has doomed all the MMA promotions. Diego That is not true. Fedor didnt skip out because he wanted to avoid his brother. Fedor claimed his hand was broken. Fedor was known to use injuries to get out of or postpone fights. Even Pride officials didnt believe him and demanded Fedor come to Japan and be examined by their doctor. He refused and decided he would use his own Doctor. Pride officials went and met Fedors Dr and then allowed him to miss the tournament. Then they tried to give him time to “heal” and give him a bye into the next round and they still couldnt get him to enter. Once Fedor got his leverage Pride was unable to get him into the GPs. It was this same hand injury that pushed his Cro Cop fight back for over a year.
Brain and Marisol,
I think you misread JV’s post. The point that jv was making was to counter Brain’s point that the “top” MMA orgs don’t run tournament, when the “top” orgs Brain was mentioning are all bankrupt. JV was contrasting the criticism that Brain was directing towards tournaments (and SF) to the praise he was heaping on not running tournaments (and a bunch of defunct organizations). He never said that the reason they went under was because they didn’t run tournaments, he was just pointing out that of the examples you are using of companies who have not run tournaments all of them are now gone and therefore it is not a strong argument to make. I agree with him. Even if you disagree there’s no need to call someone stupid – or accuse them of “resorting to stupidity” which is the same thing.
As for Fedor, who knows. I know that he has had hand problems throughout his entire career, I also know that he won’t fight his brother, and yes, that he is managed by very difficult people. I’m sure a combination of the three was responsible for his missing the tournament.
There are no guarantees and a couple of these guys are dangerous and unmarketable. What the hell happens if they have this on PPV w/ Bigfoot/Sergei in the finals? They will probably sell a lot of PPV’s. When the UFC guarantees a title shot, it’s never guaranteed, but almost always going to put something that has a legitimate chance to make money win or lose. Seems like they are taking more risky bets on fights.
Diego
I know what he was saying. He was trying to discredit my statement with something that had nothing to do with the topic. Tournaments has nothing to do with these companies going under. Outside of mismanagement of funds most of these companies would have done well. They already had as big a fan base as SF and being touted as #2 behind the UFC. Same as SF without the gimmick of tournaments.
As for Fedor. Him and his brother were on opposite sides of the tournament bracket. They would only have fought in the finals which was about a year away. Fedor and his brother dont get along as well as people think. This is not the reason Fedor dodged the event. If this is what caused Fedor to miss the tournament dont you think Pride would have not put Aleks in? Why lose Fedor who is hugely popular in Japan at the time because you pout Aleks in? Im sure this was discussed and Fedor would have fought his brother in the finals if he had to.
Then again he may have told them he would fight Aleks because he knew he was going to duck the event anyway and didnt want Aleks to be taken out for no reason. Of course we will never know for sure. BUt you can see by the inactivity of Fedor he tries to fight as little as possible. Which is why he always claimed injury before. He didnt want to lose his leverage/lose a fight.
I thought jv’s comments were on topic. You can’t use as an example a bunch of companies that are bankrupt in order to bolster an argument that what Strikeforce is doing is wrong because they are doing something those bankrupt companies didn’t. It doesn’t make sense.
Nick,
I doubt there will be a PPV next year unless the right guys make it to the finals.
Why only set it up so if the right guys win you profit? They could make two or three fights that no matter who wins you have a marketable fight between the winners. That seems more logical than taking a chance at your best fighters losing and the tournament championship being determined on the undercard of a Showtime card.
Jose,
I’m sure Golden Glory and Fedor’s people are well aware of the tournament concept, but talking about how great it during negotiations etc. are different than actually coming to terms to an agreement to participate in it, any public statements before deals are finalized are negotiating tactics.