It was shocking to hear that the UFC was going to allow Strikeforce to continue in 2012, and on Showtime no less.
When the UFC bought their rival it seemed inevitable that they were going to be absorbed into the massive MMA machine. Instead, they are going to die a slow death.
One of the major announcements just recently made was that Strikeforce’s heavyweight division is going to dissolve. This is detrimental to the company as it was arguably their best division. Losing it along with most of their champions leaving to go to the UFC really hurts their product.
Dana White, the president of the company, and the UFC are smart. Some fans would be outraged at the demolition of a company like Strikeforce if it happened all at once. That is why White and company are taking it apart piece by piece under the nose of most fans.
It isn’t even the first time it’s happened. Sometime after the UFC had taken over the WEC, they started cutting weight classes. First they started with heavyweight and light heavyweight. Then they cut middleweights and welterweights. By that time the WEC was a shell of its former self, it was putting on great fights but only attracting hardcore fans with its fights in the lightweight, featherweight and bantamweight divisions.
After a failed pay-per-view attempt with the WEC brand, the UFC and White quickly merged the two companies together.
Whether White wanted to keep the WEC separate and create a PPV model for the brand or whether he planned on merging the two together is unknown. The only thing fans can see is the results.
And the results show that the WEC is no more and that it started when some of the weight classes began disappearing.
It was so slow and subtle most fans probably didn’t notice.
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