(Oh for God’s sake, Scott. You can put those things down now.)
While there’s been no official confirmation — yet — the story goes that Strikeforce has one more show scheduled in January, after which Zuffa will shutter the whole operation and add another head in Dana White‘s trophy case. Presumably, the Baldfather has a triple-locked basement room where he goes to sip single-barrel bourbon and contemplate the zombified heads of his former competitors, a quiet time that allows him to reflect on his successes and find some measure of inner peace. You’d think doing the backstroke through piles of money a la Scrooge McDuck would be enough for that, but you’re just a stupid pleb without two nickels to rub together, so what the fuck do you know?
Anywho, while some would say that Strikeforce has hung around long past its expiration date, I’m here to tell you that turning off the lights and canceling Scott Coker’s credit line is just the latest of Zuffa’s missteps when dealing with Strikeforce. Dana White bought a goose that laid golden eggs, killed it to get the magic gold-producing gland, taxidermied the corpse when that didn’t work, stuck his dick in the lukewarm cadaver because Ronda Rousey, and is now looking to decorate his mantle with blood-stained goose down because what are you going to do, this stupid goose is broken.
Brand Recognition
First of all, it bears repeating that Strikeforce pre-dates the UFC (not just Zuffa) by eight years. Strikeforce was putting on kickboxing shows when Dana White was still using GLH after his boxercise classes. This is a brand that’s been established for two decades, and fans, athletes, managers, and athletic commissions knew the brand. Now, the long-acknowledged #2 name in combat sports (at least in North America) is being thrown to the scrap heap because Zuffa was unable or unwilling to use it properly. Silver lining: maybe your Strikeforce merch will be collector’s items?
Roster Control
Let’s face it: no one can keep up with the UFC roster anymore. Joe Silva will occasionally run into a fighter in the Zuffa cafeteria, and will be unable to recognize said fighter’s belly button and clavicle contour. (Silva is 34 inches tall and faces are useless to him for recognition purposes with most human beings. UFC flyweights were added purely because Joe Silva wanted “his people” to be in the show). This is because Zuffa now employs eleventy-hundred fighters and no human brain can contain all that information.
The UFC roster should have ceased getting larger sometime in 2002, solidifying it as a promotion for only the cream of the crop in combat. If they’d had one damn lick of sense at all, the UFC organization would have only kept the top ten or fifteen fighters under contract at the absolute maximum. This way, you could have had six or eight stacked, no-way-you’d-miss-that-show PPV events every year, and every UFC fighter would be a household name. Kids would be collecting and trading UFC cards today, instead of me using them as flashcards to try to keep it straight in my head who these dipshits are.
Side benefit: Zuffa would never have to release a big-name fighter that shows up in Bellator’s next tournament, when they could simply send them down to the D-League. Speaking of which…
Strikeforce (Would Have) Killed the Bellator Star
Bellator is now the consensus pick for the #2 spot in American MMA, and the move to a weekly timeslot at the UFC’s old girlfriend’s place will only help burnish the reputation of Bjorn Rebney‘s little organization that could. Given enough time and resources, Bellator could turn into a legitimate threat to Zuffa, or at least a constant thorn in White’s side — if only by making contract negotiations more complicated. If Dana White’s giant-baby ego hadn’t dictated that Strikeforce be kept away from all things good and right, he could have had a very powerful weapon against any organization trying to steal his thunder, or sign his leftovers.
Imagine this: Bellator announces that they will be moving back to a Wednesday evening timeslot, where fight fans can catch them on Spike to get their weekly fix of KOs and limb-torquing. Zuffa releases a statement within 24 hours that they too will have a weekly show for punchy-kicky-grapplefun, and son of a bitch if it’s not going to be a Wednesday evening program on basic cable. Call it Strikeforce: Bodyblow, and stock that program with guys like BJ Penn, Cung Le, Wanderlei Silva, Frank Mir — the kind of guys who won’t take a belt in the UFC, but fans know and love and love to watch — and suddenly we’d be writing about how Bjorn is old and busted and living in a Winnebago with his dad somewhere in the Dakotas.
Obviously, this works for XFC, Shark Fights, RFA, and whatever the newest kid on the block is calling itself.
Strikeforce is the Best Hype Machine the UFC Could Ask For
A decently-informed MMA fan should never look at a UFC card and say “That fight looks cool, I’m looking forward to seeing this dude back, but who the fuck is this guy?” Any fighter making his UFC debut should have at least three wins in Strikeforce before he has to face the dreaded Octagon-jitters, so at least the fighter has some buzz and the production team has some decent highlights to incoporate while they play that goddamn “Face the Pain” abortion.
Basically, imagine if every UFC rookie had a path more like Daniel Cormier and less like the entire UFC 151 undercard.
Strikeforce Does WMMA Better
Dana White has made it crystal-fucking-clear that he just wants to put the tip of his penis somewhere near Ronda Rousey’s fun place, and it’s a bonus that she’s the most accomplished female fighter that would wreck him, you, and your dad in the cage. Yes, there’s a lot to be desired in Strikeforce’s treatment of women — mostly an extra zero in their paychecks — but Coker and company have been supporting those ladies far longer and far better than Dana White will. If that sounds harsh, I’ll retract this statement if Dana White can name three female fighters that he doesn’t fantasize about facializing.
[RX]