Welcome to another edition of Payout Perspective! This week we take a look at Strikeforce’s second show on CBS simply entitled Nashville, which was held at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. The event featured three title fights: Gegard Mousasi vs. Mo Lawal at 205lbs, Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki at 155lbs, and Jake Shields vs. Dan Henderson at 185lbs.
Shields victorious, likely UFC bound
Jake Shields dominated every part of his five round unanimous decision victory over former Pride champion and UFC contender Dan Henderson – aside from the early over-hand right to the side of the head that sent him reeling. He may have lacked the power in his hands to finish the fight in the mount position (which he had numerous times), but he was absolutely impressive on the ground – passing guard, moving in and out of mount, maintaining mount, getting off strikes, and attempting submissions.
You’d think after a fight like that, Strikeforce would be absolutely stoked – its probably not and for many reasons. Ignoring the post-fight brawl for a moment, the Shields victory has now put Strikeforce in a very tough position. Next to Fedor, Dan Henderson, was the promotion’s most prized possession from a marketing standpoint; the organization had hoped to capitalize on tenure with the UFC to generate more interest in its own brand. Shields has derailed any hope of that happening in the near future.
Moreover, because Shields contract is going to expire in the next few months – before he gets a chance to complete the final fight on the deal – he’s the equivalent of a star hockey player going into free agency on the heels of a brilliant contract year. The UFC is going to throw the bank at this kid and his unwillingness to talk about his impending free agency, combined with his open displeasure for the way he was promoted in this last fight, leads me to believe he’ll dart to the UFC the first chance he gets.
If you’re prone to MMA math, Shields is now arguably both the #2 welterweight and middleweight in the world. Thus, he’s of great value to the UFC in terms of giving them a potential challenger to both Georges St-Pierre and Anderson Silva. Why wouldn’t the UFC throw the bank at him, especially if it means it comes at the expense of Strikeforce, Showtime, and CBS (all of whom Dana White has openly acknowledged to be at war with).
Miller vs. Cesar Gracie Camp brawl mars fight night, CBS partnership in serious jeopardy
Miller entered the cage on his own presumably to hype a potential rematch between he and Shields – perhaps as a way to incentivize Shields to sign another contract – but that plan backfired pretty quickly when a brawl broke out between Miller and Shields’ corner crew (including Nick Diaz). I’m not sure anyone could have predicted a brawl was going to break out, but I have to question why on earth there were so many people in the cage after the fight.
It’s not like this is the first time Diaz and co. have been involved in a post-fight scuffle, either (see: EliteXC: Return of the King). It makes me wonder whether anyone was really paying attention and learning from the mistakes made by previous promotions…
Now, it would seem as though the Strikeforce-CBS partnership is in serious jeopardy. The dilemma for major television networks regarding MMA is that, while they’d like to pick up the sport to draw a younger audience, they also do not want to sacrifice their existing audience. Tonights brawl will have done nothing to help that cause, especially considering it happened at the very end of the broadcast and right as viewers were tuning in to watch the nightly news. CBS is likely to get a fair number of complaints over the next week and that’s understandable given what happened.
Will the brawl impact MMA in the long term? It depends on your view of the sport’s position in the overall sports landscape. There are those that are constantly fearful of MMA’s impending fall from grace and they’re probably pretty worried right now – on all fronts. I’m a little more reserved: I tend to think it’ll certainly impact MMA’s pursuits on television (especially where CBS is concerned), but I don’t believe it’ll have an impact on any of MMA’s remaining regulatory pursuits (mainly because New York and Ontario are eventualities at this point).
The UFC owns enough brand equity at this point that it’ll be able to overcome any sort of impaired bargaining power with the networks, which is important because MMA goes as the UFC goes (like it or not). Unfortunately, Strikeforce will probably take the brunt of the fallout for this one, and perhaps rightfully so.
Melendez deals Aoki, Japanese MMA a blow
Gilbert Melendez successfully defended his lightweight title using his wrestling and the cage to batter Shinya Aoki over five rounds. The fight probably didn’t deliver the fantastic result that Strikeforce was hoping for – a great submission or knockout – but it was far from a boring affair.
BJ Penn’s loss last week left an opening for Aoki to assume the number one lightweight status, but the Melendez victory means he’ll likely fall. It also points to a possible flaw in the ranking system whereby most fail to take into account the difference in fighting between the ring and cage (in addition to the numerous rule discrepancies between the US and Japan). Nonetheless, if Shinya Aoki was fighting on behalf of all Japan in this fight, his loss is a blow to the legitimacy of the organizations over there.
Lawal uses wrestling to bring Mousasi back down to earth
Gegard Mousasi, 24, was widely considered to be the best fight prospect not in the UFC, but the Mousasi we all saw in the cage on Saturday was far from what anyone expected. Lawal was able to take down Mousasi with ease and avoid much of his vaunted submission game en route to a decision victory.
The win has some people wondering what all the fuss is about. Mousasi’s performance tonight was certainly not indicative of a top ten light heavyweight, but he didn’t look as sharp on his feet or on the ground as he normally does. While Lawal did get the victory and win the belt, he also looked to be far from a top 10 light heavyweight. Both are great young prospects, but both also have miles to come in their progression.
Nashville improves presentation, commentating still a disappointment
The big issue I had with the first CBS card was its horrible presentation. The camera angles weren’t great and the camera switching was horrible – the ref was often in the way and if he wasn’t, the angle was off or the camera was too tight. Much of that was fixed this time around, so kudos to both Strikeforce and CBS for making the necessary adjustments.
I’ll also say that Strikeforce did a much better job in making this card feel like a Strikeforce card. The UFC wasn’t mentioned nearly as often and they actually made an attempt to promote their next events. Still, the Strikeforce brand is pretty hollow; part of the reason these events lack a theme and a feel is because Strikeforce as a brand lacks an identity.
And despite any improvements on the presentation side, the broadcast still featured shoddy commentating, especially late in the evening as the brawl took place. Gus Johnson saying “sometimes these things happen in MMA” made everyone cringe. Mauro Renallo trying to push Jake Shields out of the way during the second interview was embarrassing, as was his attempt to blame the whole thing on Mayhem Miller (absolving Melendez and Nick Diaz of their involvement).
CBS sells entire advertisement inventory
News broke last week that CBS had managed to sell its entire ad inventory for the event, which was definitely not a bad thing but also not a firm sign/indicator of an increase in interest in the fight or the brand over the first event. So, it’s important to take a look at what was bought and with what kind of frequency these commercials aired. The ad buys are split into regions and what I saw isn’t likely to be what everyone else saw.
Here’s are most of the commercial slots that CBS sold: Full Tilt Poker, Lost Planet 2, Castrol, Dish Network, Taco Bell, Under Armour, Avatar, Street Fighter IV, EA MMA, Nightmare on Elm Street, Degree deodorant, DirecTV, Monster Hunter 3, GameFly, GoDaddy.com, The Losers, Geico, Just for Men Hair Gel, Icy Hot, HD Net Fights, and The Losers.
This commercial set more or less mirrors what we saw from the first show: a heavy emphasis on video games and movies with additional male-oriented product ads thrown into the mix. However, there were no alcohol, major electronics, or other advertisements that might indicate that companies are becoming more comfortable with the idea of MMA on Primetime.
Sponsorship Watch
MMAPayout.com’s sponsorship blue book has been updated.
The event broadcast was sponsored by Full Tilt Poker, EA Sports MMA, Capcom, and the movie The Losers. The event itself was sponsored by Rockstar Energy Drink, Full Tilt, and EA MMA.
I would agree with most every thing here except this line.
“Strikeforce sent Miller allowed into the cage presumably to hype a potential rematch between he and Shields”
Millar was in the cage because he cornered Henderson. Unless you have proof that Strikeforce was staging it you should retract that line.
Kelsey,
I agree with jv above, Miller was cornering Henderson and Coker himself said at the post-fight conference that no one from his staff let Miller in the cage.
From Sherdog:
http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/CBS-Coker-Fighters-React-to-Post-Fight-Brawl-23940
“I can tell you this,” said Coker. “None of my staff brought him in there.”
CBS Response:
“It isn’t something the sport needs and that aspect was disappointing,” said Kahl. “In the same vein, you see it in basketball, you see it in baseball, you see it in football. There’s a lot of emotion and things kind of happen, but it’s not something we want to see happen in the future.”
At the end of the day the ratings will tell how CBS reacts, if they are average or bad CBS will use the brawl as the excuse to not continue, if they are good they will keep the line about how the incident was unfortunate but happens in other sports.
IMO, the real screw up for Strikeforce wasn’t getting Shields to agree to some sort of extension, even if it was a high paying rematch clause, because now they have the guy who beat their prized FA as a FA himself. Also, if this brawl story gains traction and picks-up mainstream momentum, they can’t even guarantee Shields/Mayhem II since they don’t even have Shields signed.
The UFC will offer Shields a very good contract IMO and he’ll either sign with the UFC or it will force Strikeforce to add another high payroll guy to their roster.
Meltzer posted the google trends after the show, and Mayhem and Shields did make the top 10, that may not necessarily reflect well for the ratings since Mayhem didn’t even fight on the televised portion of the card.
We will see, again it will all come down to ratings, especially the key demos. I imagine they got people to initially watch, the question will be did those types of matches hold the coveted male demos attention long enough?
This was all written before the PC (hence, the presumably). I’ll update, though.
Still, doesn’t clear Strikeforce of its part in the whole fiasco. Scott and the boys have to take some responsibility in terms of allowing that many people in the cage without proper security. Not to mention it wasn’t just a big group of people, but a big group of foolish people that will throw a punch on a whim.
“Strikeforce Nashville” could not have turned out any better for Zuffa. Strikeforce’s two most-vaunted prospects – Mousasi and King Mo – both looked extremely lackluster. Aoki, the best lightweight outside of Zuffa, was absolutely dominated. Strikeforce’s prized free agent, Hendo, spent four rounds under the mount of a welterweight. Sure, Dana & Co., would love to get Shields – Lord knows they need a fresh challenger for GSP (no one is clamoring for Paul Daley or a rematch with Fitch or Koscheck) – but Shields is not a must-have. I think Dana would be perfectly content to drive up Shields’ asking price and make Strikeforce overpay for talent yet again. The big fight for GSP is still a catch-weight superfight or middleweight title bout with Anderson Silva. Silva just needs to turn in an exciting performance in his next fight and GSP-Silva will be booked.
Kelsey,
Agreed, Strikeforce (also Showtime/CBS production?) take responsibility for letting that many people in the cage and hopefully, this is the last time we see this in MMA.
Would anyone like to pick up on the debate i was having with people claiming Aoki #1? Like i said the other day Aoki isnt number or even close. You dont become #1 by beating overrated fighters. More so when there are a dozen guys who would stomp him in the ground. There is only 1 place in the world were 1 x D fighters can win and thats Japan. Thats why Cro Cop was able to contend, Aoki, Jacare, etc. Yet guys like Maia bust their ass to round out their game and it still isnt enough. Aoki cant strike and cant get anyone down. How would he even be the best fighter in the WEC let alone the world?
This is the problem with the rankings. To many people ranking someone high to lend credibility to their favorite Japanese promotion. Every promotion has a best fighter. BEign the best in one promotion dont make you a better fighter. You are only as skilled as you are. Being the KOTC champ dont make you automatically a top 10 fighter. That needs to be the same for other promotions as well. I hate to use a blanket statement like this but it has a little truth to it. The UFC has and currently is the #1 place for the best fighters in the world. With that being said you have to question the talent of everyone else. Not to say there isnt some top fighters not in the UFC. But UFC fighters should get the benifit of a doubt when gaging skill and rank because they are where the best fight. The good fighters out of the UFC are not getting the same talent thrown at them. Aoki could have fought in the UFC. Same with Fedor. Everyone knows that the reason they are not is its a harder paycheck. They can get paid very well to fight lessor fighters. IF they wanted to be the best they know where they have to fight to do so.
You dont play Division 3 football and expect to be the #1 pick in the NFL draft. You could be the best player but playing verses lessor players makes it impossble to gage your rank compared to others.
Brain,
Aoki submitted Eddie Alvarez double-quick. And Eddie is definitely a top five fighter and in my opinion was #3 behind Penn and Aoki (before they both lost). Look at Aoki’s resume. Just because you don’t like him does not mean he’s not a top fighter. Yes, he’s a one trick pony, but dude, it’s a hell of a trick, like a dog that speaks English or something. Comparing Aoki’s competition to division 3 football is simply wrong. Among some of the people he’s beaten:
Alvarez
Hansen (2-1)
Vitor Ribeiro
JZ Cavalcante (1-0-1)
And all of those guys were highly ranked when he beat them.
Who did BJ Penn beat lately:
Florian
Sanchez
Stevenson
Pulver
I’m not knocking Penn – I believe that he was the #1 155er in the world – but look at the list of fighters both guys have beaten and really is it so hard to say that Aoki belonged behind Penn at #2? Who would you have put in Aoki’s place (before these past few weeks obviously)? Sherk?
Please list for me the “dozen guys who would stomp [Aoki] in the ground”.
And for you to claim that Aoki and Fedor won’t fight in the UFC because they are afraid and don’t want to fight tough guys and prefer to “get paid very well to fight lessor fighters” is simply ignorant. For you to claim that “everyone knows it” is downright arrogant. You seem to know it, but I’m not sure a lot of other people agree. Some fighters just don’t want to give up all control of their careers to Dana White – can you blame them? Fedor has had a brilliant career, anything else is icing on the cake. If he wants to spend time with his wife and daughter in Stary Oskol instead of dancing at the end of Dana’s rope, that’s his choice. If Aoki prefers to fight in Japan, where he can ink lucrative endorsements that he won’t get in the US due to his lack of English, that’s also his choice. Stop dissing fighters just because they don’t belong to your favorite organization. Fighters have to make the choices that are best for them, and for foreign fighters especially, that doesn’t always involve the UFC.
Diego,
Very thorough post. I think there is misinformation out there that if you fight for the UFC you will be making more money. First, only the top 10 or so draws in the UFC get a cut of the PPVs in their contract (if that), that’s where the real money is. Second, fighters in the UFC are extremely restricted with respect to where they can get additional money from other sources.
If you are a good top 20 guy but not quite in the top 5 your probably better off outside the UFC where you can fight in different organizations and not have to face the marketing restrictions imposed on you from the UFC.
With all that said, I think the potential to make more money is definitely with the UFC if the fighter will be in the title hunt.
MMAGuru – would you email me? Thanks
the one big think the UFC has going for it at this point with some of the non-big draws is stability, they are running a lot of shows, at minimum one a month, and the way they are going you can be sure they will be around.
Strikeforce/Showtime/CBS went all in on this card…. they lost BIG on every level.
Good point Stan. I don’t think this Strikeforce card was as bad as the last UFC card, but the UFC runs so many cards that they can easily gloss over a bad showing, where as Strikeforce doesn’t have that luxury. SF has to deliver every time if they want to keep growing. We’ll see what the fallout is going forward, but it feels like this is a setback – despite the fact that there was nothing wrong with any of the performances per say. They were no different than the GSP-Hardy bout. Just a little slow for the casual fan.
Diego
Im not going to argue who would win verses who. I am very confident in my abilites to scout talent and breakdown fights. I just argued with someone the other day on the Striekforce Ad article on here. They go on to tell me how great Aoki is and i disagreed and he goes on to lose. If he was that great why didn he lose the first fight he had with people claiming he was #1. Kind of ironic.
What do you think i guy like Varner would do to Aoki? Varner has as good of wrestling creds as Gilbert if not better. Much better boxing with more power. Aoki would have been KOed. Aoki needs to go back to Japan where he can wear his illegal fly paper pants again and fight over rated fighters.
“It also points to a possible flaw in the ranking system whereby most fail to take into account the difference in fighting between the ring and cage (in addition to the numerous rule discrepancies between the US and Japan)”
This written by Mr Philpott is correct but i feel one of many reasons. The difference between rules and ring has effect with some styles of fighters. But not all. But there is many other reason why the dont have success when crossing over. The biggest is lack of talent development system. Wnady Silva held the Pride belt for 6 years. Thats unheard of anywhere in MMA history. Fedor did the same thing. Same for Gomi. Fighters dont stay the best in the world that long. It dont happen. But when there is no route for talent to enter in it is natural to have the same guys leading your divisions. The UFC could have Chuck Liddell as champ is they wanted for many years to come. Its as simply as keeping the same OLD fighters around. Also there was gimme fights. Its one thing to give a new prospect easy fights to build them to a curtain point. But when you do with your top draws it help to cement those guys in the minds of the public because you get another win and impressive finish. But it leads to over estimations in abilites.
With proper match making you can hide aging in your fighters. I dont think this was the interntion of Prdie durign their run but it was more of a “stick with what is working” formula. The same you have seen in Pro wrestling over the last 15 years of using the same wrestlers from the 80’s. Hogan, Flair, Sting, Stiener, etc. All of which are still going. Pride was a pro wrestling company who got into MMA. To pull this off like wrestling does you have to block the new generation of fighters from getting to your old stars. This is what Pride did.
I hate to keep harping on Pride since they have been over for a few years now but that is the heart of this debate. Dream and Sengoku havent been around enough to really see what route they will take, sport or spectacle. I like all MMA promotions. I favor the UFC because they are the only ones who run in a responsible manner. Others seem to have a “success or take everyone down with us” attitude that hurts the sport i care about
I agree with Mr. Smasher – Japanese MMA has fallen far, far behind American MMA. Further, Zuffa’s menagerie of talent is so great that I judge top-10 lists chalk-full of non-Zuffa fighters with a high degree of skepticism. With the exception of Fedor and Shields, I’m not sure if any non-Zuffa fighters belong in the top 10 rankings above featherweight.
Case in-point – lightweights. For some reason, lightweights who compete in Japan get a tremendous amount of street cred from hardcore fans and certain segments of the media that covers MMA (**cough**Sherdog**cough**). However, many of these guys would struggle mightily in the UFC’s 155 division because they do not have a well-rounded game. The UFC’s top 10 lightweights – Edgar, Penn, Florian, Maynard, Tyson Griffin, Jim Miller, Sotiropoulos, Joe Stevenson, Sherk, Nate Diaz – are all well-rounded fighters. More importantly, each of these fighters have sufficient wrestling and submissions to dictate where the fight will take place. If you put, say, Kawajiri in the cage against Gray Maynard, Kawajiri might get the better of the early stand-up exchange, but Maynard would have the ability to dump Kawajiri on his back at any time. Of all the Japanese circuit fighters, Eddie Alvarez likely have the best overall game, but his boxing and wrestling isn’t anywhere near as good as the top 5 UFC lightweights. Go watch Alvarez’s brawls w/ Kawajiri and Hansen and compare his footwork and head movement (or lack thereof) to Kenny Florian’s in his fight with Gomi or the boxing displayed in the Penn-Edgar fight; its not even close.
Very good post Tom. Japan has always avoided wrestlers to some degree. They simply, as a culture, dont care for it in their MMA. When they do bring in high level wrestlers its guys who have absolutely no MMA back ground. Rulon Gardner, Joe Warren, King Mo, etc. Sometimes these guys pan out over there but they are very limited. You cant avoid one of the most important ans effective aspects of MMA and expect to have success when confronted with it down the road.
Until Japanese MMA starts developing talent or at least scouting for the up and coming prospects they will always be looked at like a circus act. There isnt even an attempt in Japan to run MMA like a sport. To run it as a legit sporting competition they need to always be bring in the best talent every single year. If you bring in prospects you weed out the fighters who cant hack it anymore. If you dont bring them in then the weak fighters remain and cheapen the product.
Brain,
Like I mentioned to you previously, Aoki’s high ranking was due to his quality wins over ranked fighters, regardless of what an individual thinks of rankings. In fact, I had Melendez (like many others did) beating Aoki due to Melendez being a nightmare matchup for Aoki. Aoki’s loss to another top 10 LW does not make him an overrated or terrible fighter, everyone loses. Tough to argue your point across though when your proof of why someone is overrated is based on your own individual scouting ability.
It really doesn’t matter if you do get bumped up to #1 because you will have to beat top rated fighters to maintain that position. In this case, Aoki lost so he got bumped back down the top 10 list. He still has great W’s on his record and is considered a good LW fighter. His fight with Kawajiri will be even more telling, IMO.
“Others seem to have a “success or take everyone down with us” attitude that hurts the sport i care about”
Actually, it’s the UFC who have that attitude. SF is willing to co-promote with dream, and it sounds like Bellator as well. If Zuffa were willing to co-promote we wouldn’t have to have these ridiculous “who would beat whom” arguments all the time.
You also mention that Japan avoids wrestlers – that is simply false. They don’t have a culture of wrestling like we do in the US, but they don’t avoid putting wrestlers in the ring. Kid Yamamoto was an olympic wrestler, Eddie Alvarez was a high school wrestler and could have done more with it except that he went directly to MMA after high school. Pride had Kevin Randelman, Mark Coleman, Dan Henderson and Mark Kerr who were the premier wrestlers in MMA back then (missing just Randy Couture and Matt Hughes who were in the UFC). I just don’t see where you get that Japan avoids wrestlers. You mention three inexperienced wrestlers and completely ignore everyone else.
Do you want to know what happened Saturday night? Melendez won and Aoki lost. That’s it. This was not a referendum on Japanese MMA. Aoki lost. If Aoki wants to act like all of Japan lost it’s because he’s an arrogant bastard and he believes that his countrymen share his pain (I doubt Kawajiri and Sakurai give a damn).
And again, if Dana would co-promote, we wouldn’t be having this issue. And if all of the top 10 fighters are already in the UFC, then it will only take one or two co-promotions for him to wipe out his competition. Frankie Edgar can knockout Melendez while BJ or Kenny pummel Eddie Alvarez, GSP can beat Jake Shields (or Nick Diaz I guess, whoever the hell is fighting at 170 that day out of the Cesar Gracie camp), Anderson Silva can dance around in front of Jake Shields for 5 rounds, Shogun or Machida (should be Shogun IMO but that’s a different thread) can pummel King Mo or Mousasi or both, and Brock can obliterate Fedor. You can do that in two maybe three shows max and then no other organization has a claim on any talent and you’re done. Yet somehow, people keep blaming SF, Dream and Sengoku for having the gall to keep putting on shows and messing up the rankings rather than just folding and letting the UFC have a monopoly.
Oh yeah and:
“Im not going to argue who would win verses who.”
“What do you think a guy like Varner would do to Aoki?”
Huh? I thought you weren’t going to argue that. And honestly, I don’t know what Varner would do to Aoki and neither does anyone else because Dana won’t let that fight happen.
Lastly, how much money did you make on the fight? The only way you know that you’re good at handicapping fights is if you consistently make money betting the fights. Do you make money betting on MMA? Start posting your bets so we can all benefit. I know I’m down about $500 so far this year (but most of that was the damn NCAA tourney) and I could use a few good tips.
I dont bet real money often. Whn i have i did real well until i bet on someone im bias towards like a training partner. But i have won the pick’em and betting on mmaplayground before they banned me for telling everyone that Santos was going to beat down Cro Cop. (Croatian mods) I also won betting events on Stonecoldbillyray forum which consists of only 10+ year hardcore fans of the sport. As for a tip. I think Daley vs Kos is a good bet if you get him above +200. Daley moves well around the cage and Kos is slow and flat footed. Shooting on someone so mobile is very rough when they are faster. Daley is short so shooting a TD under his punches is going to be a challange. On the ground it should be all Kos. But i dont think he is going to get him there without a fight. Kos has already been hurt or KOed by Hazelett, Alves, and the Brazilian that KOed him.
Back to the UFC. Why would they co promote? So they can let all the Jonny come latelys piggyback all their hard work now that there is money to be made? Where were they when MMA was dieing? Also, why would the UFC partner/associate with them then ruin their own image when SF turns around and embarraces the sport like they did this week? SF co promoted with M1 and just recently M1 was about to hit the road? SF almost lost their ass.
The fights you want to see would happen if these small promotions would just disappear. Thats what happen when Pride went under. The fights everyone wanted for years that Pride refused to do finally happened. Like Chuch vs Silva. If you co promote with SF and dream and Belatore. What next? KOTC promotes their guy as a top fighter and the public believes it and then the UFC has to cut KOTC in. Then everyone of the 5000 promotions in the world want to do the same thing. Co Promotion is not a smart thing to do for the leader in any line of work. Its a tool for the small guys to join to take on larger guys.
The only way handicapping matters is by betting real money. Still, I’ll take your Daley pick under consideration.