Filed under: StrikeforceDepending on who you talk to, Strikeforce is either dying a slow death or in need of a life-saving procedure. Either way, things don’t look great for the promotion that just a few months ago, seemed poised to steal some of the U…
Depending on who you talk to, Strikeforce is either dying a slow death or in need of a life-saving procedure. Either way, things don’t look great for the promotion that just a few months ago, seemed poised to steal some of the UFC‘s spotlight.
After being purchased by the UFC’s parent company, the company has seen some of its best parts cherry-picked away for the bigger brand. Its heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem is gone. Its welterweight champion Nick Diaz is gone. Its light-heavyweight champion Dan Henderson is likely to be gone soon enough.
This is good and bad of course. Those transactions are likely to lead to superfights in the UFC, but they are just as likely to damage Strikeforce or put it out of business altogether. Most of this is simple business. Zuffa now has UFC under a brighter spotlight, and so it makes sense to have all its resources available to its bigger promotion. And when it comes to Strikeforce, Zuffa wants shows to turn a profit, and that’s no simple task when events include highly paid fighters. Because of those reasons, it seems logical to move its biggest names to UFC if possible. But what about those who remain?
Saturday night’s World Grand Prix semifinals showed that Strikeforce’s remaining athletes have plenty of fight in them yet, with a series of bouts that delivered. It’s a shame that more people didn’t see them. According to reports from the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati, the event was sparsely populated, though at least those who attended made their share of noise.
My colleague Ariel Helwani reported on fight night that there may have been 1,500 people in the stands. Contrast that to the opening night of the Grand Prix back in February, when the excitement surrounding the tournament drew 11,287 fans to the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, and you can clearly see the dropoff has been fast and precipitous.
Though that is the case, we can’t really blame the fighters. There have been plenty of memorable moments in recent months, from Paul Daley and Nick Diaz producing possibly MMA’s round of the year, to Dan Henderson knocking out Fedor Emelianenko to Miesha Tate upsetting Marloes Coenen.
It was more of the same on Saturday, which boasted an overall event that — fight-for-fight — could rival the excitement level of nearly any card all year.
Just in the main card, there was Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal knocking out Roger Gracie, Luke Rockhold shocking Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, submissions by Pat Healy and Josh Barnett, and Daniel Cormier blasting his way through Antonio Silva.
While in recent Strikeforce events, there still seemed to be a bit of uncertainty about the future, now the promotion’s athletes seem to be a little more sure that they see the end coming. A week prior to the event, Lawal infamously compared the organization to a “dying cancer patient,” saying, “We’re just waiting for it to die, to pass.”
But, he added, “As long as I can get my fights in and they’re still around, I want to get them in.”
That seems to be the prevailing thought of every fighter competing under the banner. Barnett and Cormier lobbied for Strikeforce to name the Grand Prix winner as the heavyweight champion. After all, Overeem essentially vacated the belt when he was moved over to the UFC. The pair never got an answer to their request, but the winner might as well be the de facto champion, and both performed well enough to make you wonder how they would have done against Overeem had he stuck around.
Whether they do or don’t, it’s obvious that the fighters will continue to do what they do. As anyone who has worked at a company in trouble probably knows, it’s not always easy to concentrate on your job when the future is in doubt. At this time next year, anything is possible. Maybe Lorenzo Fertitta finds a way to make the math work and Strikeforce is still running, or maybe Showtime doesn’t want to give up on mixed martial arts and extends its option. Or maybe neither of those things happens, and Strikeforce is just a memory, with its talent absorbed into the exploding UFC.
Either way, the fighters continue to leave us with good memories. It shouldn’t be possible to take away so much talent and not hurt the product, but as Cormier, Rockhold and the rest showed on Saturday night, you can take away the fans and the spotlight, but you can’t take away their pride.
Filed under: StrikeforceAsk Daniel Cormier what he changed about the American Kickboxing Academy’s wrestling program and you’ll get a very simple answer: “Everything.”
It wasn’t so much tweaking as it was ripping it all out and starting from scratch. …
Ask Daniel Cormier what he changed about the American Kickboxing Academy’s wrestling program and you’ll get a very simple answer: “Everything.”
It wasn’t so much tweaking as it was ripping it all out and starting from scratch. Which, according to AKA co-founder and trainer Javier Mendez, is exactly what they needed.
“He 100 percent revamped the wrestling program,” Mendez said. “When he came over and I saw his ability with teaching, I told our management, I don’t care if this guy develops as a fighter, because worst-case scenario, we got a great wrestling coach. As it looks, we got both: great fighter and great wrestling coach.”
It wasn’t that the San Jose, Calif.-based gym was lacking in wrestlers before Cormier showed up. Between Jon Fitch, Josh Koscheck, and Cain Velasquez, the squad had plenty of guys who had done their time in college wrestling rooms.
What they didn’t have, according to Mendez, was somebody willing to take the lead as a teacher and a coach.
“We didn’t have anybody who really loved the teaching. Koscheck didn’t like it. Fitch didn’t like it. They’re more interested in themselves. Daniel actually loves to teach, and that made him better with technique than anyone else. He’s got a passion for teaching and a knack for it like I’ve never seen.”
It wasn’t that Cormier brought in new ideas, necessarily, but rather that he helped his teammates return to the old ones that had helped get them to where they were.
“I went in, and these guys are good wrestlers,” Cormier said. “Really good wrestlers. Fitch, Kos is an NCAA champion, four-time All-American. Cain’s an All-American three or four times. But what we did is we went back to the basics.”
And by basics, Cormier means they started having wrestling practice again, just like some of them had done in college, and others had done, well, never. As the only two-time Olympic wrestling team member in the gym, Cormier made it his mission to strip everything down and start from the beginning in order to focus on technique above all else, he said.
“We all develop bad habits over the course of our careers, in terms of wrestling and everything else. But we went back and went to the basics, started doing basic wrestling practice. We’d get in there two days a week and we’d do wrestling practice as if we were at Oklahoma State or the Olympic Training Center. No punching, just straight wrestling practice. Not many gyms around the country do that. That’s why you see some of the better wrestlers [in MMA], their skill level diminishes as they move forward.”
Cormier was determined not to be one of those guys as his MMA career advanced. He showed up at AKA with a wealth of wrestling experience, but not much else. Strapping on the gloves and getting on the mats made for a humbling experience at first, he admitted. The first time that he got taken down in sparring by a fighter with no formal wrestling training he realized that this was whole new sport, with entirely different demands.
What really drove that lesson home was taking on Velasquez — the current UFC heavyweight champion — in some seriously one-sided sparring sessions.
“Some days I’d only be able to go a half a round with him, half a five-minute round, and I’d roll under the ring I’d be so exhausted. Well, when I was down on myself, [Velasquez] would come over and talk to me. And Koscheck, you know, most people don’t expect it from him…but he did it. He came to me and told me, ‘You’re getting better, just stay the course and learn.’ And Fitch, Fitch is one of the best leaders you can ever find. Those guys lifted me up when I had hard days, and it’s paying off now.”
At the same time, while Cormier gave his AKA teammates the benefit of his wrestling knowledge, they were equipping him with what he needed to become successful mixed martial artist — and they were doing it whether he liked it or not.
“It’s not like I can just take Cain down any time I want, so I have to stand in the pocket with him and fight him,” Cormier said. “I can take him down, but I can’t just go in there and say, I’m going to take Cain down this time. It doesn’t work that way; he’s a world champion. So I have to stand in front of the best heavyweight in the world and bang with him. I do it on a daily basis.”
Cormier’s gains in the striking department were evident in his bout with Jeff Monson on last weekend’s Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum card. For three rounds he battered the MMA veteran on the feet en route to a unanimous decision.
It was almost enough to make you wonder what all that time working on straight wrestling was for, since Cormier never looked to engage Monson on the mat. That’s a lot of hours invested in takedowns for a guy who relied so much on his right hand.
But then, it’s not like Cormier really needed to improve his wrestling game to begin with. The changes he made at AKA, he did for the other people in the gym. And seeing it pay off for them is reward enough, he said.
“We train wrestling hard and we do it two days a week. At first it was physical. It was real physical and hard and it was hard for us to get through the rest of the week… But the guys love it. They enjoy it, and everybody’s getting better. I saw a kid in the room the other day that couldn’t wrestle to save his life. But by just paying attention, wrestling every week hard, he’s getting a ton better. Now, that’s not me — that’s him. He’s paying attention to everything we’re trying to teach him and he’s learning and committing himself to the sport. Now he’s taking down wrestlers.”
And you better believe that nobody gets more excited about that turn of events than Cormier — even if you wouldn’t know it if you watched him forego double-legs in favor of switch kicks and Superman punches.
Filed under: StrikeforceChad Griggs knows that Strikeforce officials didn’t sign him to a contract because they were dying to be in the Chad Griggs business. Not at first, anyway.
Offering him a fight with a well-paid prospect like Bobby Lashley last…
Chad Griggs knows that Strikeforce officials didn’t sign him to a contract because they were dying to be in the Chad Griggs business. Not at first, anyway.
Offering him a fight with a well-paid prospect like Bobby Lashley last summer was Strikeforce’s way of giving him a lottery ticket. No one expected his numbers to hit the way they did, which might explain why the organization still seems unsure of what to do with him.
“That’s the joke for us,” Griggs told MMA Fighting after his win over Valentijn Overeem at Strikeforce: Overeem vs. Werdum on Saturday night. “Every time I walk in it’s like, hey, you can’t get rid of me. I won’t go away.”
With the first-round stoppage of Overeem, Griggs won his third straight Strikeforce bout, and his second in a row as a Grand Prix alternate. The win also made some people look at the other victorious heavyweight alternate from Saturday’s event — former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain, Daniel Cormier — and wonder whether Strikeforce should throw those two in the cage together next just to see who’s still standing when it’s over.
Cormier — who was originally slated to face Shane del Rosario in a Grand Prix reserve bout before del Rosario was injured in a car accident — dominated MMA vet Jeff Monson for three rounds on Saturday night, showing off some impressive striking in the process.
But while it was a nice win for his still young career, Cormier doesn’t necessarily think it makes him the clear reserve choice for the tournament just yet. Not as long as Griggs keeps winning his reserve fights as well.
“Right now I think you match up me and Chad or me and Shane, because in reality there’s no clear reserve,” Cormier said. “Who goes into the tournament right now if someone gets hurt? How do you choose? You’ve got three guys going into this, so match two of us up and have us fight whenever the semifinals are. I’d like to fight Chad or Shane to find out who’s the reserve in this tournament. I think it makes sense.”
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said a Griggs-Cormier fight on the semifinal card this fall was a real possibility, but added “we just finished an event, so we haven’t had a chance to sit down and talk about it yet.”
Still, Coker admitted that he wouldn’t mind seeing a fight between the two heavyweights, both of whom have put on exciting performances of late.
Even Cormier’s coach — AKA’s Javier Mendez — likes the idea.
“I think the rightful thing is to have [Cormier] fight Chad Griggs,” Mendez said. “He’s another alternate, so that’s a logical next step. But I don’t know what Strikeforce is going to do. We just have to get Daniel ready for the next step.”
As for Griggs, he said he hasn’t said no to any of Strikeforce’s suggestions yet and it isn’t about to start now. Besides, after stopping Gian Villante in a wild brawl and then punishing Overeem in a first-round TKO win, hasn’t he earned a fight like this by now?
“I feel like I’ve fought two good fights and they were both alternates,” Griggs shrugged. “I had two good performances and stopped my guy in the first round in both of them, so we’ll see how it goes.”
A fight between Griggs and Cormier could not only solidify an established reserve for the Grand Prix, it would also be a nice addition to any Strikeforce fight card now that fans have seen enough of both men to know what they have to offer.
For Griggs, however, going up against a highly-touted former Olympian might seem like just one more bout where he’s not supposed to get his hand raised at the end. Not that those kinds of expectations matter much to him, of course.
“I still feel like they’re looking at me going, this guy got lucky again,” Griggs said. “But hey, I’ll take it. Maybe I’ll just keep being lucky.”
Jeff Monson has cost himself plenty of money over the years. Nobody has to tell him that. It’s not the tattoos. In another line of work being inked from head to toe with everything from anarchy symbols to a Soviet hammer and sickle might be detrimental to your career health.
But Monson is lucky. He’s in the line of work where tattoos are almost part of the uniform. When he fights Daniel Cormier in Strikeforce this Saturday night, it will probably barely merit a mention from the commentary team.
No, it’s not the tattoos that have cost Monson. Instead, it’s him. It’s the things he believes. Or rather, the things he does and says because of the things he believes. For these, he has probably paid a small fortune over the years, in ancillary income if not in fight purses.
“As far as sponsorships and making money? One hundred percent, it’s cost me,” said Monson. “I’ve had sponsors tell me they don’t want any part of it because of the things I say. I had stuff set up with a nutrition company and clothing company and stuff that I’ve lost because of it, and it’s cost me a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to live with yourself. Some things are just right and wrong.”
In case the tattoos didn’t give it away, Monson freely identifies himself as an anarchist. Not that he thinks most people truly understand what that means, at least to him.
“It has such a bad connotation, like being an insurgent or a terrorist or a communist or something,” he said. “To me, it gets portrayed as something that it’s not. Anarchy is a society where everyone is free. Everyone has equal rights. Everyone has a voice.”
It’s not that he wants to live in a state of constant chaos and violence, he insisted, but rather in one where people decide amongst themselves how to live, without a government cracking the whip to keep them in line. He wants a peaceful orderly society, but he doesn’t want authority figures making sure it stays that way.
In other words, he wants a society that doesn’t exist and that some would argue can never exist, but he wants it anyway. When simply wanting it or marching in support of it — as he did in Paris a few weeks ago — doesn’t feel like enough, he believes in taking action. And here’s where the real trouble starts.
Take the incident at the Washington state Capitol building. It started when military convoys wanted to bring equipment through OIympia on its way to a port to get shipped overseas to Iraq, Monson said.
“The people of Olympia said no, we don’t support this, we don’t support the war,” he explained. “But the city council and the mayor, they overrode that, which shows you right there that we don’t have a true democracy. We’re supposed to have a representative democracy, where the people we elect are representing us, but how are they representing us if they’re not listening to what the people want?”
In protest, Monson spray-painted his message on the Capitol building late one afternoon. The anarchy symbol. The words “No war.” General pleas for peace.
It’s not that he thought it would immediately end the war in Iraq and bring about his ideal anarchist society, he said, but he wanted lawmakers to see it on their way to work the next morning. When the photos of Monson doing the spray-painting were published in ESPN the Magazine, law enforcement officials saw it too, and he had a problem on his hands.
Monson entered an Alford plea to charges of malicious mischief and was given work release and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution. He also got himself known in MMA circles for the wrong reasons. Major organizations weren’t exactly clamoring to take on a middle-aged heavyweight with legal problems and far-left political beliefs. Whether it was his personal baggage or simply the natural progression of the fight business, that’s debatable. But in a few short years he went from fighting for the UFC heavyweight title to competing on one small promotion after another, most of his fights visible only on the internet if at all.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘I watched your fight against [Tim] Sylvia in the UFC. What have you been up to since then?’ And I’m like, well, I’ve had about 25 fights since then. If you’re not on TV, nobody knows.
“It’s definitely frustrating, because in some of my recent fights I’ve beaten guys who are tough, who have wins over guys who are in the UFC, so it’s not like they’re easy fights. I’m not fighting just to be known or anything, but I am fighting to get a title. And if nobody knows what you’re doing, it’s tough to get a shot at a title.”
Now Monson is finally back in the big leagues with Strikeforce, and has the opportunity to make a big impression against the undefeated Cormier, a former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain. But at 40 years old, time is running out on Monson, and he knows it. He might only have a couple good years left in him, so he has to make the most of them, he said.
“I want to win this fight obviously, but then my plan is to drop to 205 [pounds] and make a run at the title. My weight is pretty low already – right now it’s under 230 [pounds] – so cutting to 205 would be no big deal. I want to win this fight, see what happens from there, but drop down and make my run at a title. …That’s the only reason I fight. That’s it. The only reason I fight is to win a Strikeforce or UFC title. If there was no possibility that that would happen, I’d retire today.”
Then again, a part of him thought he’d already be retired. Two years ago when people asked him how much longer he’d continue fighting, he told them two more years. Then he fought five times in 2009 and nine times in 2010. The fight with Cormier will be his fourth this year, so it’s not as if he’s slowing down.
At the same time, he knows he can’t keep up that pace forever. He’s already fought well beyond the point where most fighters stop being competitive, and he doesn’t want to be another one of the guys who stays too long in a sport that offers few rewards for second place.
“As you get older, some things happen,” Monson said. “You’re not as fast. Maybe it takes you longer to recover. But good things come of it too. This is a brand new sport, and we forget that. What was baseball like twenty years after it was mainstream? It’s the same with us. In twenty years, these fights are going to be dinosaur fights. So I’m still learning new stuff and taking care of my body better. But I’m not going to do it if I can’t compete anymore. I’m not going to do it for a paycheck or just to walk around and say I’m an MMA fighter. If I can’t compete, that’ll be my last fight.”
The irony is, in order to get that shot at a major title, he has to go through the proper channels. He has to take what is, in the MMA world, about as corporate a gig as one can get. Fighting under the Zuffa banner means working for the man, in a sense. Not that he hasn’t already thought this one through, of course.
“I’m like everybody else. I live in a capitalist system, so that’s what I have to do. … I may not like it or agree it, but that’s our society. I’m trying to change it, but I’m not a hypocrite either. I know that I have to earn money to pay bills. I just happen to have a job that I enjoy, and I do feel blessed. If I could make any job for myself, this would be one of them.
“At the same time, these people paying me to fight, they’re making a hell of a lot more off the fighters than they’re paying them. They’re doing it to make a profit. In essence, they’re stealing from me. It’s like someone working in a shoe factory making shoes, that person doesn’t get paid what those shoes are worth. They get paid a fraction of it. They get paid the minimum they can get paid and stay living and employed and keep them from quitting. They’re wage slaves, just like I’m a wage slave.”
Again, probably not exactly what the bosses want to hear from a man who hopes to one day hold one of their major titles, but that’s Monson. That’s how he’s always been. He’s made his way in the sport for more than a decade without worrying too much about what other people want to hear. Why change now?
Jeff Monson has cost himself plenty of money over the years. Nobody has to tell him that. It’s not the tattoos. In another line of work being inked from head to toe with everything from anarchy symbols to a Soviet hammer and sickle might be detrimental to your career health.
But Monson is lucky. He’s in the line of work where tattoos are almost part of the uniform. When he fights Daniel Cormier in Strikeforce this Saturday night, it will probably barely merit a mention from the commentary team.
No, it’s not the tattoos that have cost Monson. Instead, it’s him. It’s the things he believes. Or rather, the things he does and says because of the things he believes. For these, he has probably paid a small fortune over the years, in ancillary income if not in fight purses.
“As far as sponsorships and making money? One hundred percent, it’s cost me,” said Monson. “I’ve had sponsors tell me they don’t want any part of it because of the things I say. I had stuff set up with a nutrition company and clothing company and stuff that I’ve lost because of it, and it’s cost me a lot of money. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to live with yourself. Some things are just right and wrong.”
In case the tattoos didn’t give it away, Monson freely identifies himself as an anarchist. Not that he thinks most people truly understand what that means, at least to him.
“It has such a bad connotation, like being an insurgent or a terrorist or a communist or something,” he said. “To me, it gets portrayed as something that it’s not. Anarchy is a society where everyone is free. Everyone has equal rights. Everyone has a voice.”
It’s not that he wants to live in a state of constant chaos and violence, he insisted, but rather in one where people decide amongst themselves how to live, without a government cracking the whip to keep them in line. He wants a peaceful orderly society, but he doesn’t want authority figures making sure it stays that way.
In other words, he wants a society that doesn’t exist and that some would argue can never exist, but he wants it anyway. When simply wanting it or marching in support of it — as he did in Paris a few weeks ago — doesn’t feel like enough, he believes in taking action. And here’s where the real trouble starts.
Take the incident at the Washington state Capitol building. It started when military convoys wanted to bring equipment through OIympia on its way to a port to get shipped overseas to Iraq, Monson said.
“The people of Olympia said no, we don’t support this, we don’t support the war,” he explained. “But the city council and the mayor, they overrode that, which shows you right there that we don’t have a true democracy. We’re supposed to have a representative democracy, where the people we elect are representing us, but how are they representing us if they’re not listening to what the people want?”
In protest, Monson spray-painted his message on the Capitol building late one afternoon. The anarchy symbol. The words “No war.” General pleas for peace.
It’s not that he thought it would immediately end the war in Iraq and bring about his ideal anarchist society, he said, but he wanted lawmakers to see it on their way to work the next morning. When the photos of Monson doing the spray-painting were published in ESPN the Magazine, law enforcement officials saw it too, and he had a problem on his hands.
Monson entered an Alford plea to charges of malicious mischief and was given work release and ordered to pay over $20,000 in restitution. He also got himself known in MMA circles for the wrong reasons. Major organizations weren’t exactly clamoring to take on a middle-aged heavyweight with legal problems and far-left political beliefs. Whether it was his personal baggage or simply the natural progression of the fight business, that’s debatable. But in a few short years he went from fighting for the UFC heavyweight title to competing on one small promotion after another, most of his fights visible only on the internet if at all.
“I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say, ‘I watched your fight against [Tim] Sylvia in the UFC. What have you been up to since then?’ And I’m like, well, I’ve had about 25 fights since then. If you’re not on TV, nobody knows.
“It’s definitely frustrating, because in some of my recent fights I’ve beaten guys who are tough, who have wins over guys who are in the UFC, so it’s not like they’re easy fights. I’m not fighting just to be known or anything, but I am fighting to get a title. And if nobody knows what you’re doing, it’s tough to get a shot at a title.”
Now Monson is finally back in the big leagues with Strikeforce, and has the opportunity to make a big impression against the undefeated Cormier, a former U.S. Olympic wrestling team captain. But at 40 years old, time is running out on Monson, and he knows it. He might only have a couple good years left in him, so he has to make the most of them, he said.
“I want to win this fight obviously, but then my plan is to drop to 205 [pounds] and make a run at the title. My weight is pretty low already – right now it’s under 230 [pounds] – so cutting to 205 would be no big deal. I want to win this fight, see what happens from there, but drop down and make my run at a title. …That’s the only reason I fight. That’s it. The only reason I fight is to win a Strikeforce or UFC title. If there was no possibility that that would happen, I’d retire today.”
Then again, a part of him thought he’d already be retired. Two years ago when people asked him how much longer he’d continue fighting, he told them two more years. Then he fought five times in 2009 and nine times in 2010. The fight with Cormier will be his fourth this year, so it’s not as if he’s slowing down.
At the same time, he knows he can’t keep up that pace forever. He’s already fought well beyond the point where most fighters stop being competitive, and he doesn’t want to be another one of the guys who stays too long in a sport that offers few rewards for second place.
“As you get older, some things happen,” Monson said. “You’re not as fast. Maybe it takes you longer to recover. But good things come of it too. This is a brand new sport, and we forget that. What was baseball like twenty years after it was mainstream? It’s the same with us. In twenty years, these fights are going to be dinosaur fights. So I’m still learning new stuff and taking care of my body better. But I’m not going to do it if I can’t compete anymore. I’m not going to do it for a paycheck or just to walk around and say I’m an MMA fighter. If I can’t compete, that’ll be my last fight.”
The irony is, in order to get that shot at a major title, he has to go through the proper channels. He has to take what is, in the MMA world, about as corporate a gig as one can get. Fighting under the Zuffa banner means working for the man, in a sense. Not that he hasn’t already thought this one through, of course.
“I’m like everybody else. I live in a capitalist system, so that’s what I have to do. … I may not like it or agree it, but that’s our society. I’m trying to change it, but I’m not a hypocrite either. I know that I have to earn money to pay bills. I just happen to have a job that I enjoy, and I do feel blessed. If I could make any job for myself, this would be one of them.
“At the same time, these people paying me to fight, they’re making a hell of a lot more off the fighters than they’re paying them. They’re doing it to make a profit. In essence, they’re stealing from me. It’s like someone working in a shoe factory making shoes, that person doesn’t get paid what those shoes are worth. They get paid a fraction of it. They get paid the minimum they can get paid and stay living and employed and keep them from quitting. They’re wage slaves, just like I’m a wage slave.”
Again, probably not exactly what the bosses want to hear from a man who hopes to one day hold one of their major titles, but that’s Monson. That’s how he’s always been. He’s made his way in the sport for more than a decade without worrying too much about what other people want to hear. Why change now?
Depending on who you talk to, Strikeforce is either dying a slow death or in need of a life-saving procedure. Either way, things don’t look great for the promotion that just a few months ago, seemed poised to steal some of the UFC‘s spotlight.
Ask 
Chad Griggs knows that 
Jeff Monson