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Strikeforce August card in Houston shapes up
By Zach Arnold | July 14, 2010
A look at what the main card is based on Tuesday’s press conference:
- SF Light Heavyweight title match: King Mo vs. Feijao
- SF Middleweight Title match: Jacare vs. Tim Kennedy
- KJ Noons vs. Jorge Gurgel
- Bobby Lashley vs. TBA
- Fifth match TBA
That fifth match should be Erin Toughill vs. Shana Olsen to determine a #1 contender for Cris Cyborg’s 145-pound title. If it isn’t, it will indicate a couple of things:
- a) The promotion has zero confidence in Toughill or least lacks confidence in giving her PR
- b) They don’t think a non-Cyborg women’s fight deserves a main card slot on Showtime/CBS. They did the same thing last Fall in Chicago when they had Marloes Coenen face Roxy Modafferi in a non-televised match to determine a #1 contender for Cyborg three months later in Miami.
The promotion’s 8/13 event at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix has one match announced — Joe Riggs vs. Louis Taylor in a catch-weight bout of 182 pounds. (Ugh.) The show will also feature a one-night four-woman 135-pound tournament to determine a #1 contender for the winner of the Sarah Kaufman/Roxy Modafferi 7/23 Everett title fight. The 7/23 show is headlined by Shane Del Rosario vs. Lolohea Mahe and unfortunately also has Mike Kyle on the televised portion of the card
Jeremy Botter at Heavy.com reports that Strikeforce wants to book Bobby Lashley vs. Dave Batista (ex-WWE wrestler) on PPV.
That’s the report from Matt Erickson at MMA Fighting who said that the tournament would have featured Robbie Lawler, Matt Lindland, Tim Kennedy, and Jacare. There’s a few fascinating things about this. As Mr. Coker stated on Sherdog radio two weeks ago, he wanted to do an 8-man Middleweight tournament. He considered breaking it up into two separate 4-man tournaments in order to get suspended guys like Nick Diaz into the mix. He also said he would consider both a title match and a tournament. Then, a week later the promotion announces a title match between Tim Kennedy & Jacare with no tournament. If Matt’s report is true that Strikeforce considered a 4-man tournament, then they were essentially trying to compromise with what they had talked about as opposed to what has ended up getting booked.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 11 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I cannot believe they wanted to do a one-night tournament. Do they not realize the best they could hope for a commission approving would be some half-assed deal with limited time for fights like the YAMMA disaster? And beyond that, the fans do not want one night tournaments, as they remember or at least have heard about how crappy the SEG UFC shows with tourneys would be a lot of times when a guy would fight once, get hurt, and have to be replaced by some guy you don’t care about coming in as an alternate. And they hardly have a roster deep enough to have any good alternates. What if Cung Le was in it, got told by doctors they won’t allow him to continue because of a cut and gets replaced by some unknown prelim guy who ends up winning it all? That would be a disaster. But then again, this company sure loves those.
That’s a pretty lousy card that will draw nothing. Tim Kennedy and Jacare is an interesting fight I’d watch, but both men appeal to such a tiny minority of fans it isn’t even funny, so this as a title fight means nothing when they’ve done such a poor job showing fans why they should care about either man winning their championship. They really should do a multi-show tournament to build this. And while Cavalcante is a good fighter and they’re dying for him to be their Brazilian killer ala Anderson Silva, they’re putting him in the main event for a title shot when nobody knows who the hell he is. I know they had to throw something together on the fly after Babalu refused to fight Lawal, but this is ridiculous: He had one fight against a guy who isn’t even a top 10 LHW even if you only ranked Strikeforce fighters and he’s main eventing? Honestly Gurgel-Noons is most worthy to get the main event status because at least people know who both of them are. Which is sad since we’re talking about a guy famous for being in Rich Franklin’s entourage versus a guy famous for having Nick Diaz go psycho on he and his father.
And they might as well run Batista-Lashley. It’s not like anybody has any respect for this promotion anyway, they might as well do freakshow fights to attract eyeballs. Maybe they can run an amateur fight between a BP employee versus a Louisiana fisherman to open the show.
Bear in mind that reports came out that the Texas state athletic commission would not approve a one night tournament.
That should have pushed them to spread it out over a few cards. MW is a division where they actually have some so, and a tournament would actually build intrigue towards future cards. A 1 night tournament would be blowing their wad, and could end up disastrously if someone gets hurt.
Do it with the 135 pound women because they are unknowns and aren’t going to be selling the seats for a future show. An 8 man tournament spread over 3 cards with their MWs might actually be good matchmaking and build up future cards.
Why not simply find a state that has a more MMA-friendly commission and do the one-night tournament there?
And this thing about putting the #1 female contender fight on the dark undercard is so stupid it can’t be anybody else but Strikeforce doing it. So you’ve got this champion whose main appeal is that she seems unbeatable, and in some ways seems more like a man than a woman. How do you market somebody like that??? Hmmmmm. I know, you build up an underdog challenger that everybody can get behind! Otherwise, there is no point in even having this fight. It’s already generally understood that Toughill is the #1 contender in that weight class. And since that class has a dearth of talented fighters naturally suited to the weight, why not just save Olsen for the winner of Toughill-Cyborg instead of just wasting one of Toughill or Olsen on a fight nobody will see? Can’t we just get one competitor to the UFC that’s competently run? How hard would that be?
Keep in mind they did not announce Toughill vs Olsen yesterday. Since there has been conflict in the past between Erin and Strikeforce over a)exposing her to fans before she faces Cyborg and b)actually putting that match on TV, I wouldn’t be surprised if she refuses the match if it’s not on TV. Again, Stikeforce shoots themselves in the foot.
That fight is the second most interesting to me on the card. If Shana isn’t fighting, I’ll be pissed.
A couple of months ago they were talking about saving Shana for later because she has potential. I thought they might bring in Yoko Takahashi because she’s a good but not a top fighter and she’s in her late 30s but she would put on a good show. I think they will move the fight so it can be on TV.
They expect to sell out a 18,000 seat arena with that piece of crap card?
I am not sure if you guys are aware, but Coker is still planning an 8-man tournament, this time around October for a #1 contender spot. Strikeforce is not shying away from GP’s.
The other rumored fight for this card was Kharitonov vs Silva.
Genuinely interested in how SF plan’s to fill the Dodge Theater in Phoenix/ promote a Joe Riggs vs. Louis Taylor fight as a main event
HA!
This is SO fucking funny,…because I didn’t even KNOW they had a show scheduled at the Dodge Theater here in Phoenix!
I just might buy cheap ass tickets and move to better seats when something like 1,200 fans show up!(It seats about 5,500 people, depending on the event & seating arrangement). If they can’t draw a decent amount to a smaller venue like that, it will be one of the few things that could make them look any worse.