Filed under: Strikeforce
CINCINNATI — When Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker first announced plans for a heavyweight Grand Prix, it seemed almost recklessly ambitious. Eight well known — and, in some cases, mercurial — heavyweights all vying against one another in a single-elimination tournament to crown one king.
Only now the Strikeforce heavyweight champion has left the building. Alistair Overeem got dropped from the tournament and signed to the UFC, so the four fighters who are left behind have to figure out for themselves exactly what’s at stake when the Grand Prix lurches onward this Saturday night.
As Josh Barnett pointed out, the winner now gets “a nice, shiny belt,” so there’s that. But aside from the hardware, what else is at stake? The answer to that depends on who you ask.
For Antonio Silva, who was slated to get a crack at the Strikeforce heavyweight champ in the semifinal round before Overeem declared himself unfit for the September 10 date, the change of opponent was a letdown. Or at least, that’s how he felt until he considered it from Overeem’s perspective, he said.
“I was very sad and disappointed in the beginning, but today I think he did the right thing going to the UFC,” Silva said via a translator. Even without Overeem in the tournament, Silva said, winning out over a field that included fighters like Fedor Emelianenko and Sergei Kharitonov would be “a big accomplishment.”
But for others, like Barnett, the tournament title doesn’t add all that much to an already high-stakes pursuit.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but for me it’s the same thing that’s always at stake, and that’s my own personal pride,” Barnett said. “I’m not walking out there to get my [expletive] beat by anybody. The way I see it, it always comes down to, so you think you can kick my [expletive], huh? Then let’s go. I don’t think you can, but I want you to try. I want to crush everything about you. I want you to come in there so full of life and thinking about all these things that are going to happen for you, all these doors that are going to open and your life is going to get better, then I’m going to step on it, crush it, destroy it, and leave you in a smoldering heap with all your dreams dead.”
You know, he deadpanned, the kind of thing that “me and the Dalai Lama have talked about a lot.”
For Daniel Cormier, the Grand Prix alternate who took Overeem’s spot, simply being in the tournament is still something of a surprise.
“I didn’t think I’d have the chance to fight in the tournament,” Cormier said. “I looked it as such a big thing, a big event, that I would never have imagined anybody being out of the tournament. I thought they’d do anything in their power to stay in the tournament.”
Of course, for Cormier the tournament still offers plenty of upside. He’s the least experienced fighter in the field, and a win over any of the big names left in the bracket would instantly elevate his status.
For more seasoned competitors like Barnett and Kharitonov, there might be more to lose than gain. These are uncertain times for all Strikeforce fighters in general, and that’s no less true for the Grand Prix participants. Of the four men to lose in the quarterfinal round, only one — Fabricio Werdum — is still employed by the organization.
Just as no one knows what the winner of the tournament will have actually won (aside from that shiny belt), it’s similarly unclear what will become of those who fall short. That’s why the best approach might be the one Kharitonov is taking.
“I’m here to win,” he said through a translator. “That’s what matters the most.”
Too bad that strategy can only work for one man.
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