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Business as Usual: Cris Cyborg, World Champion, Still Can’t Get a Damn Fight

(Weird. The “cover your ears and rock back and forth while humming to yourself” defense worked so well in training.)

Inactive and without a fight booked since her squashing of Jan Finney last June, 145-pound Strikeforce women’s champion Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santos is desperate to return to competition — so desperate that she had reportedly been negotiating for gigs with the WWE and a Brazilian fight promotion in recent months. Now she’s moved onto the public-pleading stage of her frustration. Here’s what she had to say yesterday via Twitter:

Hi My dear fans, want to fight too soon, but not dependent on me. This very difficult to renegotiate with scott. They’re not appreciating all I did for the event. I am very sad, but I will not give up. God has another purpose in my life…Maybe I fight the world jiujtsu not going to be the way you like with many punches…but I will give my best to make you guys like it.

Alright, Cris, here’s the deal…

(Weird. The “cover your ears and rock back and forth while humming to yourself” defense worked so well in training.)

Alright, Cris, here’s the deal…

First off, Scott Coker has an acute case of senioritis at this point. It’s not that he doesn’t appreciate you, it’s that he’s completely checked out of the job. Even in the pre-buyout era, the amount of power that Coker actually wielded to get things done was debatable. But right now? By all accounts, the UFC is running the show while Scott Coker sits alone in an office in San Jose, doing absolutely jack-shit. (And we’re not knocking jack-shit. It’s nice work if you can get it.)

The thing is, women’s MMA is simply not a priority for the people who currently run Strikeforce. There’s a good chance it never will be. But even in a perfect world for Cyborg — if Coker was calling the shots in some capacity, and wanted to book a fight for her — there’s still no logical opponent for the champ, and booking Santos in another squash match isn’t worth much from a business perspective.

A small part of the blame for that can be put on Strikeforce for not putting more effort into finding and building up contenders at 145. The larger reality might be that the ideal candidate doesn’t exist. A true 145′er with a good record and a recognizable name who’s as dangerous as Cyborg? (Or at least fairly credible and good-looking enough to put on a poster?) Gina Carano was the last fighter who fit that description. Erin Toughill was a good option as well, but her Strikeforce debut never materialized for one reason or another.

Cris Cyborg’s prime competitive years are wasting away and there’s absolutely nothing she can do about it, which is a tragedy. I hope that one day she’s looked back on as a pioneer of the sport. Unfortunately, she exists in a moment when there’s no logical place for a 145-pound female badass in MMA.

And So It Begins: UFC Guts Strikeforce Front Office

(“OK, if we didn’t call your name, it means we had no idea you even worked here. Anyway, you’re fired too.”)

Kind of like the husband who assures his loving wife he’s only going to have “a couple of beers” with the boys after work, we suspect when Dana White told us back in March that Zuffa, LLC was “not planning any changes” inside Strikeforce he probably really believed it at the very moment the words came out of his mouth. But just as that husband somehow ends his night trying to explain there was no way he could’ve known that 14-year-old prostitute was actually an undercover policewoman, so too does it turn out White’s definition of “business as usual” actually means, “in two months we’re going to lay off 85 percent of you guys.”

(“OK, if we didn’t call your name, it means we had no idea you even worked here. Anyway, you’re fired too.”)

And like the wife stranded at home with the baby and the bottle and the bail money, we kinda knew all along this night wasn’t going to end well, didn’t we? That’s why it comes as a shock to absolutely no one this week that reports say of the 12 employees who worked in the Strikeforce front office at the time of the Zuffa sale, just two full-timers now remain. It was clear weeks ago that the UFC had effectively taken over Strikeforce’s media relations and this week that Scott Coker had been quietly demoted to Executive VP of Something-Or-Other, so these new revelations just feel like another incidental step toward a sad divorce. Unless you used to work for Strikeforce, in which case – if you’ll excuse our language – these new revelations probably feel like a huge dick in the ass.

According to MMA Fighting’s Mike Chiappetta: “The highest-profile of the layoffs was matchmaker Rich Chou, who Coker once said was the man most likely to replace him and run the organization some day. Chou was replaced by former WEC matchmaker Sean Shelby.”

And look, that’s just business. At the time of the purchase maybe the UFC had actually convinced itself that Strikeforce could continue to run as a separate entity – that’s sort of what it says every time, after all – but the truth is that’s just not practical. If there’s one thing we know for sure about the honchos at Zuffa, it’s that they like to run things a certain way. Their way. They also don’t seem like the type of dudes who are going to be amenable to changes or outside ideas. Fact is, Strikeforce peeps weren’t part of Dana’s crew and if you’re not part of the crew, well …

As if we needed one sad detail to act as a microcosm here, there’s this: According to the report, even as Zuffa continues to tighten its grip on Strikeforce from its Las Vegas-based offices Coker – who now appears to hold the same rank in the company as Chuck Liddell – continues to work out of San Jose.

Put your glasses on, Scott. See that stuff on the wall? That’s the writing. It’s been there for awhile now.

Video: A Glimpse Inside the Zuffa Fighter Summit

(Video courtesy of YouTube/CharlieSpaniard)

UFC welterweight Charlie Brenneman decided to video blog from the Zuffa Fighter Summit the past couple of days to give us mortals a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at this yearly meeting of extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen.

In the clip above UFC president Dana White opines about his bitter nemeses — the much maligned “so called MMA media,” offers suggestions on how to make money after retirement and recommends that his employees embrace social media as a free tool to increase their star power.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/CharlieSpaniard)

“You can continue to make money even when it’s done. My best example is a guy like Chuck Liddell. You know, Chuck Liddell is still famous. People still pay him to come do stuff, whether it’s signings or openings of their business or whatever it is, that guy’s still making a lot of money,” White pointed out. “It’s because he used everything he could. He became big; he became famous…Use social media. You’re going to learn how to do it while you’re here. It’s incredible and it costs you nothing. It doesn’t cost you a dime. It’s free.”

In a message that may or may not have been directed at Nick Diaz, White told fighters that although it isn’t the most exciting part of the job, fulfilling media requirements and PR responsibilities is a requirement of being a UFC fighter, unless the interview is for an outlet that isn’t considered what the promotion considers as being, “real media.”

“Believe me, [doing PR] is part of the deal. You have to do the PR…When we first started this thing… You guys won’t be doing interviews with fucking Hamster Weekly any more,” White explained. “We actually have some real media and when she goes through everything with you today, hopefully you guys will realize it and get it through your head how important it is…”

Hamster Weekly is going to be pissed about this latest development. We feel your pain, HW.

At the end of the video UFC heavyweight Pat Barry shared his thoughts on the most significant news that came out of the three-day event.

“The insurance for the fighters [was the highlight of the summit]. I think that we’ve been needing that since I got into the sport, man. I know like myself, and a lot of other guys [need it]. The top guys in the sport are making top dollars, but when you’re first coming up like I’m still doing now, you’re not getting extraordinary amounts of money. When we get injured outside of the ring — which is where the majority of injuries happen is in practice — that has to come out of pocket. A lot of us don’t have insurance either, so sometimes we have to fight, make a payday and then use that payday to pay off what we had to get taken care of by the doctors, man. So that’s the highlight of the [summit] for me, man. It’s the insurance for fighters outside of fighting. That’s the greatest part of it.”

Business as Usual Update: Former Strikeforce President and CEO Scott Coker Quietly Demoted to Executive VP and General Manager

(Chael Sonnen will be skipping the 9:25 lecture to play blackjack)

An interesting tidbit to come out of this week’s UFC Fighter Summit is that former Strikeforce president and CEO Scott Coker has been quietly demoted to the role of executive vice president and general manager of the recently Zuffa-purchased promotion.

(Chael Sonnen will be skipping the 9:25 lecture to play blackjack)

No official announcement was made about the title change and its unclear if Coker’s role with the promotion will change as a result, however the agenda for the week-long event revealed the news that managed slipped under the media radar.

The question is, will someone like former WEC GM and current UFC VP of community relations, Reed Harris be named as Coker’s successor or will UFC president Dana White’s title become “UFC and Strikeforce president?” I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.