Does purchase by Zuffa mean the end of Strikeforce?
The UFC/Strikeforce split is all about contracts. Once they’re fulfilled with Showtime, I’m told a WEC type merger is planned….
The UFC/Strikeforce split is all about contracts. Once they’re fulfilled with Showtime, I’m told a WEC type merger is planned.
Read entire twitter… (Josh Gross)
UFC President Dana White has made it clear he intends to take the UFC to a global stage. With its biggest North American competitor out of the way and major Japanese MMA promotions all going down the drain, this is a huge step towards making that plan a reality.
On the flip side, it also means less variety for MMA fans, many of whom feel that healthy competition helps to better the sport by offering fighters more options on where to earn a living and ply their trade.
Though White maintains Strikeforce will continue to operate independently, there’s no way he plans to keep it alive any longer than he needs to.Once all of Strikeforce’s contractual obligations are taken care of, it’s likely the company will be killed off and all the best parts will be moved to the UFC.
After all, White is not so much in the MMA business as he is in the UFC business.
When it reaches this point, it will be interesting to see what happens to the fighters and staff who downright despise White and vice versa, like Josh Barnett, Paul Daley, Frank Shamrock and Pat Miletich.
Beyond the instances of pure hate, there’s also Nick Diaz and Fedor Emelianenko.
White has always said he’s a fan of Diaz as a fighter, but says that the Strikeforce welterweight kingpin needs to play the game more, which presumable means at the least no brawling in hospital emergency rooms or on national television.
For Emelianenko to ever step foot in the octagon, he would need to lose his management team. M-1 Global is unyielding on signing a deal for co-promotion for all events featuring Emelianenko. White bluntly stated That s— might work in Russia, but not here.
For now, we’ll have to see how everything plays out. Strikeforce is still promoting shows, including its upcoming April 9 event headlined by a welterweight title fight between Diaz and Daley.
Why, behind the scenes, can Strikeforce not be ordered by Zuffa to release certain fighters ‘of its own accord’ and then those fighters suddenly and immediately be offered UFC contracts?
The reason is Showtime. The broadcaster’s relationship with, and investment in, the Strikeforce company and product means they will never countenance an asset-stripping of Strikeforce by the UFC for as long as a broadcast deal is in place. They would be left with an empty shell of a show that would be almost pointless to air.
Strikeforce’s deal with Showtime has two years left to run and so for the next two years, Strikeforce effectively becomes what the WEC used to be, and it serves to block another promotion making a home on the Showtime network in key slots currently occupied by Strikeforce.
Showtime has little love for the UFC, or at least its outspoken president Dana White, and the feeling is mutual. Unless it makes serious business sense, Zuffa-owned MMA programming will be gone from the Showtime network when the current Strikeforce deal expires.
In two years, Strikeforce will cease to exist. As soon as Showtime are out of the picture it will be absorbed into the UFC and the brand name will be laid to rest, possibly even ending up on the gravestone that Dana White has in his Zuffa office, inscribed with the names of other rival promotions who stepped up to challenge the UFC’s dominance.
The theory has been posited that Strikeforce will be kept alive indefinitely as a B-league, proving ground and rest home but Zuffa has never done that before – the WEC could have been used for that – and there is little likelihood they will this time. Far better, for them, to kill a rival brand completely than keep it alive.
It is impossible to ignore similarities between the way Dana White runs his business and the way Vince McMahon, owner of the WWE, runs his. This UFC acquisition of Strikeforce bears an eerie resemblance to the time World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) bought out their chief competitor in 2001, World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
The results were disastrous.
One of the main issues was the roster. A lot of the top stars in WCW refused to jump ship because of the previous issues they had with the bossman, Vince. And any stars that were left were immediately going to be perceived as second rate because, let’s face it, if they were the cream of the crop, they would be with the top organization.
Which is the problem the UFC is currently facing. They absolutely can not run Strikeforce as a separate entity. Fans will not accept the fighters in Strikeforce as having any value because, if they did, they would be fighting for the UFC.
I see no scenario in which Strikeforce could ever run their promotion, as it stands right now, and not be perceived as second rate.
A complete merger isn’t just the best option, it’s the only option. Professional wrestling taught us that.