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Scott Coker on Bobby Lashley: “Some soul-searching to do” and “the true test happened tonight”
By Zach Arnold | August 22, 2010
There’s a lot said non-verbally during this interview that makes it worth watching. Plus, what Scott Coker actually does say… some of it is cringe-worthy. Wait until you see what he says about KJ Noons and what’s next for Noons. (Hint: Bad behavior gets rewarded.) What he says plays off of the announcement of Nick Diaz defending his 170 pound Welterweight title in October at HP Pavilion. If you hate the way Strikeforce doesn’t enforce the integrity of their weight classes, then Mr. Coker’s comments will make you rip your hair out.
Strikeforce’s one-sided marketing backfires again
The biggest dodge, by far, during the interview is when Ariel Helwani puts him right on the spot (and accurately so) about Chad Griggs, not promoting the guy, and the reasons behind it.
Transcript available in full-page mode.
ARIEL HELWANI: “What an interesting night. If anyone ever wanted an example of how unpredictable MMA can be, just look at tonight and don’t want to really cast a negative spell on the night, but, you know… Three of your most marketable fighters lost tonight. Was this a disappointing night for you?”
SCOTT COKER: “No, not at all, I mean in the cage, anything can happen… as you know. And, you know, to me the better man should win. Some of these guys are my friends, sometimes they’re the favorites, sometimes they’re not, but what, to me, what was about fascinating tonight was you to say to me that Jacare was never going to try one submission in five rounds against Tim Kennedy, I would have never believed it. And, uh, and that’s what happened. He never went to the ground with him and Tim controlled him on the ground, took him down, actually out struck him on the states, but you know what, it was a close fight, it was a technical fight, but the fight went completely differently than what I had thought.
“Bobby Lashley, I think he’s got some soul-searching and when we talk to him next week or tomorrow or Monday, you know we’re going to have that conversation and it’s going to be interesting and you know we’ll support him on what he wants to do.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “How surprised were you by his performance tonight?”
(pausing for a few seconds)
SCOTT COKER: “You know, I think that… with Lashley… the true test, I mean I think the true test happened tonight and so, you know, it’s uh… it’s sometimes good for a fighter and to go out there, test himself, maybe it doesn’t work out, then what’s he going to come back with? How’s he going to come back? And that’s going to be the key, to see if he really wants to be an MMA fighter is you know how’s he going to come back and that’s going to be up to him because we facilitate these fights but he’s going to have to have the desire to do that and I hope he does because, you know what? He’s got physical talent, he just has to put it all together.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Does he have what it takes to be a legitimate MMA fighter?”
SCOTT COKER: “I mean, he’s got a ways to go, obviously, right? I mean, let’s be honest, so… He’s, you know, where he’s at in his path as a martial arts fighter I think is in the beginning stages, you know, but does that mean he should stop? You know, he just have a lot of focus on him because of his WWE background and his collegiate wrestling background but mostly the WWE so people have all these high expectations but to me I’ve always managed those expectations in my mind because he’s just, he only has what, a handful of fights. So, you know what, to me the true test of a martial arts fighter is the character and how he comes back and that’s going to be up to him.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Chad Griggs was relatively unknown going into this fight. Does a part of you now wish he was maybe promoted a little more so that you could have this payoff of the guy who beat Bobby Lashley?”
SCOTT COKER: “You know what? When they get into the ring, it’s up to the fighter, right? And I think that Chad, you know, believe me, our PR team is trying to do as much as they can for every fighter, as much as they can and people gravitate to Bobby because of who he is so it’s not that we said, well you got to talk to him or you can’t talk to him. It’s just that people gravitate toward Lashley because of who he is and his wrestling background and he’s a star. I mean, the guy walks out in the street, everybody knows who this guy is. So, you know, I don’t think that was the case.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “OK, when you were on my show, the MMA Hour, you said you were considering Batista vs. Bobby Lashley. Does that performance tonight ruin those plans or maybe make it more of a case to have that fight now?”
SCOTT COKER: “I mean, here’s the thing is that, you know what? I think that’d be a fun fight to watch and you know we don’t have a deal with Batista. We’re continuing dialogue but you know if we come to a deal, we’d love to promote that.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Close to a deal?”
SCOTT COKER: “(pauses) In dialogue. Yeah, so.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Jorge Gurgel and KJ Noons, a little controversial with the hit after the bell or at least it seemed to be and what appeared to be an illegal knee. What’s your take on those two situations? Were they dirt or was it just maybe the referee not jumping in at the right time? Your thoughts?”
SCOTT COKER: “I mean, what I saw when it happened, it was like bang bang, so he didn’t have time to stop and he got caught. And it’s up to the fighter to protect themselves as well, right? Protect themselves at all. But it wasn’t anything malicious, I mean KJ’s not a dirty fighter and Jorge Gurgel was up here and he was very, I mean, I felt for him because obviously that had, you know, he got hurt and it effected his second round but you know what? He didn’t want to use it as an excuse, right? And that’s, to me, that’s class and true martial arts spirit, you know? But… KJ, you know, if that shot bang bang, if it didn’t happen would it have been a different second round? Maybe, but maybe would have stopped him later anyway? You never know. And then at the end of the fight when they went to the ground the knee strike, I didn’t think the knee hit, you know, and so you know to me he was already hurt. I mean, the fight should have been stopped.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “KJ Noons’ next fight. Will it be at 170 perhaps against Nick Diaz or perhaps maybe against Gilbert Melendez for the 155 pound title?”
SCOTT COKER: “I mean, that’s really going to be up to KJ. You know, we’re going to give him a choice. If he wants to fight Nick Diaz, let’s do it. If he wants to fight Gilbert, let’s do it.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “He has his shot at either title right now?”
SCOTT COKER: “We’re going to let him, not so much pick, but we’re going to have a conversation with his manager and say, look, I mean it was tough for KJ to make the weight cut and get down to 155. So, we’re going to say, look, if you don’t make the cut, come and fight. I mean, him and Nick Diaz is going to be one of the biggest fights in the rematches that has happened I think in a long time and that’s going to be an amazing fight when it does happen and him and Gilbert would be, you know, I could see it now in my mind what kind of fight that would be and it would be amazing.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “You’re about to kickoff a Middleweight tournament. Will the winner of that tournament fight Jacare next or is there perhaps another #1 contender out there?”
SCOTT COKER: “Well, the thing is, you know, when we talk about that tournament, it’s, you know, all the stars have to align perfectly in order for that tournament to happen and so we’re, you know, we’ll have to wait and see what happens but the nice thing about the 185 pound weight class in Strikeforce is that it’s very deep, we have a lot of great fighters, and I look forward to you know stirring the pot, sort of speak, and so you know I think we’ll have another announcement next week on that 185-pound weight class.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “And you have a new Light Heavyweight champion. Feijao beats King Mo. King Mo obviously a lot of promise, this was his first title defense, did not look as good as he did against Gegard Mousasi and Feijao seems to be putting it all together now. Considering what happened to him 14 months ago when he lost in pretty shocking fashion to Mike Kyle, you surprised to see him now as your champion?”
SCOTT COKER: “I am and I tell you, I knew he was dangerous because he had the power and he had a good stand-up striking, a good stand-up. But so did Gegard Mousasi and then, you know, I think King Mo you know basically negated the stand-up by taking him down. So, I was surprised a little bit but you know what? We’re proud to have him as a champion and then that’s another division at 205 now we can just mix it up and let these guys all fight each other. It’s going to be fantastic.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “Any chance Mike Kyle vs. Feijao II’s the next fight for Feijao?”
SCOTT COKER: “I don’t think that will be the next fight, but that’s a fight maybe down the line, we’ll put Kyle in the mix, but you know we have Dan Henderson and we have Gegard, who’ll come back at the beginning of the year and we also have Babalu at 205 so we’re going to have some good fights. I’m looking forward to it.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “We’ve been waiting to ask you this question for some time. A man by the name of Paul Heyman was on my radio show this past Monday and he mentioned that he had a meeting with you last week in New York.”
SCOTT COKER: “Did he say what it was about?”
ARIEL HELWANI: “He was a little bit quiet on that front so that’s what we’re here. We want to know what that meeting was about and does Paul Heyman have a future in Strikeforce?”
SCOTT COKER: “I mean, Paul and I have been friends for a long time and, uh, you know we just had a nice dinner, a nice chat. But, you know, we’ll see. I mean Paul and I have been talking about doing a couple of things together and you know if it works out, we’ll do it, and I think we’ll do it, I think it’s going to happen.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “What kind of capacity?”
SCOTT COKER: “Uh… we’ll talk about that…”
ARIEL HELWANI: “C’mon Scott, give us a little info. Will he be a promoter type? Would he be a behind-the-scenes kind of guy? He’s a very creative mind.”
SCOTT COKER: “Yeah, I mean, he’s a very creative mind and you know what? We’ll have an announcement probably in a couple of weeks.”
ARIEL HELWANI: “So, perhaps, Paul Heyman is headed to Strikeforce after all?”
SCOTT COKER: “Well, he’s not going to fight. I don’t think he wants to fight at, you know, at 205 or anything, but…”
ARIEL HELWANI: “A management perspective?”
SCOTT COKER: “Not even management. Yeah.”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 12 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Poor Strikeforce… another mediocre event, and the results not going as the promoters intended.
Now I’m looking forward to the rankings hilarity as Feijao takes his spot on all the internet lists that had
Lawal and Mousasi in their Top 10. Those 3 guys belong on the outskirts of the Top 25 – until they start facing ranked opponents, i.e. not each other!
It’s definitely an odd scenario. Rafael was not in the top25 of BloodyElbow’s rankings prior to last night and is not far removed from the Mike Kyle beatdown. I would say that Mo, Rafael, and Mousasi all take a hit after last night. After all, Mousasi was just dominated for 5 rounds against Mo, only for Mo to get schooled himself.
So in terms of rankings, I think Nog, Silva, and Jones may make their way above those three, but let’s not discredit them completely.
The Strikeforce champion should be #9 or #10 in the world tops. And that is just being nice by putting their champion there by saying that they have a few decent fighters.
But is Lawal any different then 10 other UFC prospects at this point? Does he deserve to be in the Top 10?
I’ve been saying for a while… And this proves it…. That Mousasi didn’t deserve to be ranked that high because he never beat anybody better then Babalu. And now Mo and Cavalcante winning doesn’t push them up higher….
But I fully expect 3 Strikeforce guys in the Top 10 soon as LHW. It is a joke.
I don’t think anyone should give them a pass because they have a belt. Screw that. None of them are top ten. If someone there can clean house, then we can talk.
Honestly, I’d rather see Mo fight for the middleweight belt. Physically he’s better built for that weight class and he would be a fantastic clash of styles with the present “champion” for Strikeforce. Hell, with a couple big wins he’d be a great challenger for Silva.
“…and is not far removed from the Mike Kyle beatdown. “
Kyle isn’t a reliable athlete, but he does seem at least heavy handed.
If he catches you clean, he could probably put down a lot of guys.
And thats practically cavelcantes only loss.
Thats really not so bad.
AA has been put down worse than that more than a few times
Also every single one of feijao’s wins (and his DQ) is by strikes.
Thats kind of cool.
Gegard is also a pretty good striker, just unprepared for american wrestling like a lot of japan-centric fighters.
(plus still coming up in weight)
Gegard/Feijou will be an exciting fight IMO.
AS far as ranking, I’d say somewhere around 7 or 8+.
They’re comparable to mid pack UFC guys.
I’d say all three of them would beat Matty and probably Cane these days.
Although unfortunately for their ranking, UFC has a pretty good collection of elites right now who’d have to be solidly ahead of them.
alan, you are right, but that is never going to happen with the way people make rankings.
It seems obvious now that all 3 are ranked a little too high, but the rankings have too much inertia, and very few people will actually slide mousasi down the rankings without him losing again.
I agree that this video needs to watched instead of read through a transcript. You can tell he doesn’t even believe what he is saying.
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“I’ve always managed those expectations in my mind because he’s just, he only has what, a handful of fights.”
So why 2 weeks ago were you trying to sell us on the idea of Lashley vs. Batista on PPV?
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If Lashley at least lost to Rosario, they could have pushed him based on that fight. There is nothing they can do with the guy that beat Lashley. Which is why their matchmaking looks so bad.
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KJ Noons gets a choice on which title he can fight for? And all of this based on a win over a complete UFC washout in Jorge Gurgel? You have to be kidding me. He is not a Welterweight and has no business even fighting in that weight division. I can see him getting a shot at Melendez because their divisions are so weak…. But really doesn’t deserve it based on his win. The logical thing to do would have been to see Noons/Thomson for the #1 contender shot. But once again Strikeforce has no ability to get their fighters to fight anybody meaningful time and time again.
So they make no effort to sign Jay Hieron, who is somewhat of a legit Welterweight…. But then give the title shot option to Noons. This is better then comedy hour at my local club.
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Stars align for the tournament to happen?
You mean like getting fighters to agree to have fights not count towards their contract? Or have fighters agree that if they win the tournament, they are a “tournament champion” and are under that clause? Or even have fighters fight tough fights?
I could smell the BS coming through my screen when he was talking about that one.
The funny thing is that some SF fanboys try and talk about how deep of a division it is…. But yet they really have nobody lined up for Souza’s first challenger. Can’t be that stacked if that’s the case.
*****
How does Mike Kyle not earn the title shot? He was passed over for the title shot already by somebody who he beat. And Cavalcante had no big wins to really leap frog him in the rankings. And now Cavalcante is the champion…
They just afraid to have a UFC reject in their title fight and have Mike Kyle as their LHW Champion? come on Coker. Your not even trying to bring any sort of credibility to your organization.
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I’m a huge Paul Heyman fan. Huge ECW fan back in the day. But keep that man away from MMA. After I watched his interview with Ariel, he would be horrible in MMA.
He was talking about how they should have fed Kimbo complete cans until he got a title shot. About how if he ran the NYY’s, he would fire Jeter & A-Rod and start fresh. The man has a wonderful creative mind that works well in fantasy land. It has no place in real sports.
King Mo losing was bad for Strikeforce, since he’s a pretty marketable guy who has star potential, and now they’ve got an unknown Brazilian with their belt, who is probably UFC bound as soon as his deal ends since he’s tight with so many of their fighters.
But I don’t think Lashley losing is a disaster. The guy clearly didn’t give a crap about being built up to eventually fight for the title. He was the anti-Jon Jones, where instead of stepping up competition every fight, he seemed to step down competition. He had his chance to fight some medium-sized names in the HW division and passed. So since nobody was going to take the Batista fight that seriously, nor was it going to be anywhere near as successful as Herschel Walker’s fight, who cares if he’s coming off a loss fighting a n00b. If you want to see the fight you want to see it for the freak show of two ex-pro wrestlers shooting: a passive-aggressive gentle giant versus a bodybuilder who handles rejection by women even worse than Randy Orton. The war to settle the score II~!
Lashley losing might not be that big of a deal.
Sure us “hardcore” MMA fans saw what happened and noted its significance in the larger picture.
But I think a big part Lashley’s appeal was with wrasslin fans.
I dont know much about wrasslin, but I’ve spoken to Kimbo fans before.
If wrasslin fans have a similar attention span and concern for reality, which I suspect that they do, then they already justified and disregarded that unpleasant scenario from their inner checklist before the last round of the show was over.
Lashley just needs to win the next one (anyone seen bo cantrell around?) and they can chalk it up to the drama of the storyline.
Luke did get his hand cut off first before he came back in return of the jedi.
People are going to shit on Strikeforce no matter what comes. I watched the fights today and I don’t know why people are bitching; it is a great outlet for high-quality fighters to get paid. I think Jacare is easily a top 10 185er and would give Anderson real problems, and I have no doubts he would crush Jake Shields. King Mo is still learning the sport but he is going to be a star eventually; he probably should stick to 185 if he can make the weight.
Great questions from Ariel. Now when is he going to do a real interview with a certain promoter?
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