MMAPayout reported a few weeks ago of a potential Strikeforce Heavyweight tournament taking place this year, and it appears that more supporting information is starting to leak regarding the tournament.
Sherdog reports that Fedor Emelianenko and Antonio “Pezao” Silva is scheduled to take place on Feb. 12 in the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey along with other potential match-ups rumored for the upcoming events.
As speculated, Strikeforce will indeed hold an eight-man heavyweight tournament in 2011, and Emelianenko-Silva and Arlovski-Barnett are set to serve as quarterfinal bouts. Though the remaining combatants could not be confirmed, a third quarterfinal matchup between Fabricio Werdum and Brett Rogers is expected to take place in Columbus, Ohio, on a planned March 5 event.
A fourth and final tournament bout is also set to take place on the March card. Semi-final and final bouts would then be held later in the year at to-be-announced events.
The promotion will also hold two alternate bouts in case injury sidelines competitors in the main draw. Potential contestants could include “Challengers” series standouts Lavar Johnson, Daniel Cormier and Shane del Rosario.
MMAJunkie also reported on the tournament, though stating that Werdum vs Rogers may be off and a potential official announcement could be made in the next couple of days.
A third quarterfinal matchup between Fabricio Werdum (14-4-1 MMA, 3-0 SF) and Brett Rogers (11-2 MMA, 2-2 SF) reported as in the works for a March 5 event in Columbus, Ohio, is said to be off, sources said, though Werdum recently told MMAjunkie.com Radio he plans to compete at the spring event.
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker declined to comment on the reported fights, though he said an “important announcement” about the tournament is due by Tuesday.
M-1 Global’s parent company and Russian website, MixFight released an official announcement stating that M-1 Global, Strikeforce, and Showtime have come to an agreement good for multiple years. They also state that fighters such as Alistair Overeem, Fabricio Werdum, Josh Barnett, Andrei Arlovski, Sergei Kharitonov and Brett Rogers (along with Fedor and Silva).
The release quotes Showtime Sports’ Ken Hershman, who according to the release, is thrilled to kickoff the year with a new deal and continuing to offer the best fighter in MMA history to it’s Showtime customers:
I could not imagine a more successful start in 2011. Fedor – a man widely known in fan circles around the globe. It is our great honor to continue cooperation with M- 1 Global and Strikeforce, through which our subscribers can enjoy fighting the best fighter in MMA history.
M-1 Global president Vadim Finkelstein shared some exciting and ambitious goals the parties involved have for 2011.
I am very pleased to collaborate with Showtime and Strikeforce, as well as Mr. Coker and Mr. Hershman. Together we can create a tournament that should go down in history as the greatest MMA tournament in the heavyweight division. The result of co-promotion between M-1, Strikeforce and Showtime will result in the development and growth in popularity of MMA across the world. This sport is beyond the scope of individual organizations. Our partnership enables us to arrange fights the best fighters in the world with each other. This new agreement will benefit everyone – especially the fans, who want to see Fedor fight as often as possible.
Fedor also shared his excitement in participating in the Strikeforce Heavyweight tournament.
After the fight with Werdum, I trained hard, I can not wait until I am inside the cage again. Strikeforce has in its ranks the best heavyweights in the world, and through co-promotion with M-1 Global, I have the opportunity to meet with them in a tournament format.
Payout Perspective:
There have been rumblings for a few months regarding the proposed HW tournament being proposed by Strikeforce. MMAPayout sources were able to confirm back then that the tournament was going to happen. The only questions in hand was the start of the tournament due to the M-1 negotiations and ironing out who will participate. Josh Barnett must be cleared by the CSAC to be allowed to fight again while the contract negotiations with M-1 Global, Strikeforce and Showtime had to be finalized by this week in order to meet the new February date, since the original January 29 date was not met.
The only other question is when will Overeem fight, since he is rumored to participate in the tournament coming off the incredible achievement of winning the K-1 2010 World GP and defeating former UFC prospect Todd Duffe in the NYE Dynamite event in Japan. He has said in the last few weeks that he would like to go on vacation after participating in the FEG events over in Japan, and would like to fight for Strikeforce again around May/June, though we are not sure if those plans are still in tact considering the first round of the HW GP should be over after the March 5th even in the Columbus, Ohio event.
Details regarding the new deal should be announced shortly, which was said to include an M-1 Challengers TV deal as well with Showtime. The official announcement from Strikeforce should be coming in the next few days.
Junkie has already reported that it will be Sergei Kharitonov facing Arlovski. They would not know if Barnett would be licensed until eight days prior to the show. That is too big a risk to take.
Jeremy,
Yes, although Barnett could fight on the March show, which Werdum is scheduled to fight Rogers, though we will see how that unfolds. Too much new info all hitting at once, looks like we all have to get sync’ed up.
Thank’s for clarifying that though.
=)
Now that the where, the who and the when is falling into place. I am starting to wonder about the promotion for this tournament. This is a spendy enterprise but it can also turn into a gold mine. To get all the mileage they can they need to get the promotion right. Which brings up the questions.
– Coker was talking about SF 2.0 in his Helwani interview. What is that and does it get busted out here.
– Heyman was supposed to come on board after he got some contractual stuff out of the way. (The Lesnar book?) Will he be helping to promote the tournament?
– Do they get the new TV show out in time to be of value? It sounds like not for round one. Maybe round two?
– Will they do some fight camp 360 stuff like they did for Fedor vs Rogers?
– New sponsors? Will EA Sports use this as an opportunity to try and breath life back into the game?
– Will Sherdog be streaming the prelims?
BTW if you read gokhantherebel ‘s tweets it sounds like he is fighting Rogers. as a piece of this. Maybe in a reserve match or exhibition match.
Can’t wait for this tourney. I think if they pull it off well, it could be an absolutely huge boost for SF. Getting Fedor fighting is definitely huge, but the tourney as a whole is something everyone wants to see.
I’m pretty excited about this now that they are announcing dates and matchups but a lot of moving pieces need to fall into place for this to work. I’ll keep my fingers crossed – especially because I’m planning on going to Izod to catch Fedor live for the first time in my life. I hope they pull these fights off, I hope Barnett gets licensed and manages to get slotted in somehow and I hope Overeem chooses to focus on this rather than fighting in Japan.
I will have a new writeup on this soon…
=)