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Quick thoughts on Showtime broadcast of Strikeforce 4/11 San Jose event
By Zach Arnold | April 11, 2009
– The announcing, for the most part, was completely useless if not downright terrible and unbearable to listen to.
– The aesthetics of the Strikeforce event were ugly. That cage looked hard to see through, and the cage canvas was ugly with that black logo in the center. What an eyesore.
– A comment was made during the second round of the Diaz-Shamrock fight that Nick Diaz’s boxing skills are better than a lot ‘at the top of their game.’ No they’re not, and KJ Noons flat out proved that in the past. I was surprised at how easy Diaz won the stand-up game against Shamrock. In fact, I thought the whole key to the fight would be Frank’s ability to beat him in the stand-up game and it simply didn’t happen. Anyone with a decent-to-good boxing skill set can easily pick Diaz apart.
– I think Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg are great athletes and tough women, but some of the actions that they have done over the last 18 months has made it hard to take women’s MMA seriously. They will profit handsomely soon when they fight, but the health of women’s MMA is in poor shape because it hasn’t been promoted seriously. I hope after both women have their mega-fight in August that they realize that it would be in their best business interests to start using their star power to create new stars and bring in new female talent to cultivate the women’s MMA scene. Otherwise, they won’t be around the industry much longer with no opponents left to fight.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 53 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
I enjoyed Mauro and Pat M, but Gus seemed sober tonight — I like him too, but he seemed less excited for some reason.
I could do without the muscle and skeleton cg — couldn’t they afford to have them render some skin and board shorts? Very strange.
Shamrock’s jab/cross offense was odd as well.
I think this promotion has potential — and hopefully a bit of a better outing next time around. I will keep my eyes peeled.
Mauro Ranallo has consistently been the worst announcer in mma this side of whoever announced the Ken Shamrock vs Fat Bastard fight. His presence is not only superfluous, but takes away from the product with his dumbass corny comments. Only pro wrestling geeks ever defend his work.
It came across as exactly what I expected it to be: a mediocre card filled with “exciting finishes” in generally sloppy mid level MMA.
-Brett Rogers/Abongo was terrible. Sorry, but Rogers barely belongs on a Affliction card right now they way they’re built. Lots of wins, lots of KOs, none against competent world class opposition. Abongo was wild, sloppy, gassed early, and showed nothing technically. Truth is that Bellator’s heavyweight division is better
-Santos/Akano was a freakshow. Almost disturbing to watch. What’s really amazing is that Santos/Carano is the “money fight” and both are massively flawed technically.
-Radach/Smith was a great IFL type middleweight bout between two guys that are not world class. Professor X is well outside the top 25 and is competitive immediately with either one if he was brought in. The talk of Smith’s “superior technical striking” should have been eradicated by the middle part of the first round when it was clear most of the combination punching was coming from Radach, not him.
-Damm didn’t do much to trouble Melendez and he gets a sorta important win. As a rational fan, you had expect this. Better than a 5 round shutout though.
-Shamrock refuses to have knee surgery, which is why he is a immobile striker now. Not only that, but Diaz carried the weight better. Frank/old dudes might be fun for awhile, at least until the steroid and painkiller induced tragedies/neurological damage begins to set in and start removing guys from being able to fight. Diaz might as well fight Lawler win/lose/draw in June. Ready made story to sell the fight, competitive fight on paper. Diaz isn’t a top level middleweight? Wasn’t the whole LESSONS OF 2006 thing that we as fans were supposed to appreciate the overlay of pure sports build over ridiculous matchmaking when it would be effective in making money? People are all for that when the UFC does it with the Shamrock/Tito II/III fights, but when anyone else does, they’re awful promoters who act without the interests of the sport.
Petty bitching, IMO. The show was fun to watch. I had a handful of people over and everyone enjoyed the card. The women’s fight was definitely hard to watch and shouldn’t have happened. The Rogers fight was hilarious but the other 3 fights were all pretty awesome. Overall, a good card and defintely worth the money I already pay for Showtime.
I thought it was a nice exciting card.
I was impressed and perfectly entertained!
The secondd commentator was absolutely horrible though!
I heard it was Pat Militech?!
I only just now caught the Nick diaz fight. Glad he won, I had my doubts.
Frank looks old as fuck
Nick looks like he should loose more fights. Looks like he should get knocked out a lot with his goofy style.
I was impressed with how easily he passed guard, not impressed with his ground game overall. Still a win is a win, Maybe he can fight melendez or Shields.
Despite all of Ranallo’s jokes, the biggest laugh was that comparison of Diaz’s punching skills to a boxer’s… that is just insanely funny in a pathetic sort of way.
One thing I loved from Mumbo Ranallo: “Cooler than the other side of the pillow.”
I just got to disagree with the announcing. I thought it was a breath of fresh air from listening to Goldberg and Rogan.
I agree with the black mat as the fighters came out of each fight with their feet covered with that paint.
But it would was a very entertaining show. For people complaining that the fights were not competitive, just realize that Strikeforce is not trying to spread their talent too thin. Even with this card, the televised card did not have really any boring fights.
You do realise Zach that when you focus ONLY on the negative aspects of a show, without mentioning any positives that also stood out, that you really kill your credability. I was always a fan of yours but it seems like you really are just a whiney, complaining wannabe.
Sad times.
Zach ya know I love ya, but your post reads like 45 Huddle’s one man show last night in the comments.
I’m kind of disturbed with how easily people are brushing off Nick Diaz. Remember when everybody just knew, I mean just knew that Frank was going to dispatch of Nick standing? Nick has some off fights, and the Denny fight was embarrassing. He should have destroyed Denny, but he didn’t.
But the dude has clearly worked on his stand up, and a lot of the signature Nick Diaz hiccups weren’t there. He was using his reach to his advantage, using more movement and actually making use of his speed. I bet on the wrong person last night because I got too down on Nick for the Noons loss and the awful win over Denny. I was wrong. Very wrong.
Nick Diaz has always been a frustrating top talent that doesn’t live up to his potential.
Radach/Smith was fun to watch but nowhere near great. That being said, that was exactly the kind of fight that Strikeforce needed in their first big show to get people other than us internerds talking. It was two guys fighting with a ton of heart, laying it all on the line and we even got a come from behind victory. Let’s face it, it won’t be as important as Griffin/Bonnar by miles, but it was in the same vein as a sloppy bombfest that your average fan loves to watch.
I said quick thoughts, not complete thoughts, in the post title. It’s funny how I am called naive one minute, then called constantly negative and the cynical the next. I just gave a few quick thoughts and boom goes the dynamite.
I do perfectly expect that SF will garner more support because of the sentiment that UFC needs a competitor, and there will always be an anti-UFC contingent online. That’s just how it is.
Alan put my thoughts pretty much into context with his response. I agree with his sentiments.
I thought the crowd was good for yesterday’s show, and it’s obvious that Gina vs. Cyborg will garner great heat for August — but what after that? This promotion now will have to run 12 shows in a timespan of 16 months. And, if they’re going to run buildings like they are in St. Louis, it’s a tough deal even if the building situation is on a % basis with little or no risk.
Is 45 Huddle really an alter ego of mine? People will believe anything.
As far as your sentiments on Diaz and the rest of the fighters on the card… a lot of casual fight fans will mentally think about whether or not any of SF’s pushed talent could hold up against top UFC fighters and the answer is no. It doesn’t mean that SF and other promoters can’t put on enjoyable shows and that the fighters outside of UFC are bad, but the comparisons are natural and inevitable.
On paper, Diaz’s resume sounds great. Still only 25, hasn’t had severe wear and tear on his body, has wins over Takanori Gomi and Frank Shamrock, but where does he go from here? According to Dave Meltzer, there’s talk of putting Diaz against the winner of Joe Riggs/Phil Baroni. Sure, Diaz vs. Riggs would be fun to relive their UFC hospital-attack days, and Baroni could perhaps cut a great promo on Nick, but… something lacking there.
I agree a lot with what Alan said… Of course, I made similar comments in the previous post and were bashed for them. Anyways….
Mauro is so bad it hurts my ears. He makes so many weird comments that just sound unnatural and stupid.
The problem with Gus is that he isn’t that much of a MMA Fan. That much is obvious. People can bash on Mike Goldberg all they want, but from Ultimate Japan (where he started), he went from just an announcer, to a guy who really follows the sport. I just don’t get the sense Gus is or ever will do that. He has too many other things on his plate to make it a priority. Actually, he kind of reminds me of the guy from the WEC. Both have good voices, but are just useless in the booth.
Pat Miletich was the best of the bunch. He had small issues, but really surprised me with how good he was.
I think the problem with Strikeforce to a degree is the real lack of talent depth on their cards. Take Melendez/Damm for example. It’s easy to see now that Damm had no business in there. That KO was a direct result of him being gassed (shor tnotice). No matter how good a fighter is, if they are gassed, they will look like a shell of themselves. He couldn’t even keep his hands up into the 6th minute of the fight.
Now, if Strikeforce had any sort of an undercard, they would have been able to take one of those fights and put it on the main card. Sadly, that isn’t the case. They have the weakest undercards I have seen of any major MMA organization in a long time. I understand it saves money, but when a guy gets injured, the TV card should not suffer. Take the last UFC Fight Night for example. There was an injury on to the TUF 8 Lightweight winner. Instead, we got Tyson Griffin vs. Rafael Dos Anjos.
Overall, it was an entertaining card. However, people giving it a 9 out of 10 on other websites are kind of out of their mind, and not really keeping things in perspective. When a company desn’t have to prove who the best in the world is like the UFC or DREAM…. It’s much easier to cherry pick exciting fighters and just put on exciting fights… Despite all of their downfalls. I still enjoyed the card, but I also know where it is in the pecking order of the sport. Which right now isn’t overly high.
On a side note, Jordan Breem talked about this on Beatdown After The Bell, and I think it needs repeating. He was annoyed with how Showtime was handling MMA. Basically, they talk to you like you have never seen the sport. At some point they need to stop that. MMA on TV has been around for a while. We don’t need to be talked to like 2nd graders.
The show last night had some exciting fights but the fighters strikeforce has are way inferior to those of the UFC, dream, Affliction, ect. I don’t think they have a fighter that can even crack top 10 in their respective weight division except Lawler. The show was OK but It doesn’t make me want to get Showtime to see the next card.
A few more comments….
1. Kids at MMA events is bad enough. Kids with their father in the post fight interview is just down right bad. Please stop it immediately.
2. It is being rumored that Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum 2 could be for the SF Title in June. While it is a solid fight, this would be the SECOND SF Title Fight in a row where the challenger is coming off a loss and getting a title shot. That trend has to stop ASAP.
“They will profit handsomely soon when they fight, but the health of women’s MMA is in poor shape because it hasn’t been promoted seriously.”
But women’s MMA is in better shape than it has ever been. It’s still building up, which is to be expected. This is the first chance they have at a megafight. First and it’s happening. I’m not sure how you spin that into such a negative.
I think his point is kind of “What’s Next?”
So they put on Carano vs. Cyborg. The winner is the queen of the ladies in America. Then she is left with exactly what? She has no known challengers that anybody knows about. No mega fights. Basically left with nothing.
Strikeforce, or anybody else, has done nothing to really promote Women’s MMA. They are promoting two female fighters for a collison course, and after that happens, they haven’t done the ground work for anybody to care what happens after that fight.
The argument you’re making (and others are as well) is that because Carano vs. Cyborg will likely main event the August SF show that it will create buzz and energy for developing women’s MMA.
The argument I’m making is that once that fight is over, if they don’t end up in a re-match then who else do they have to face? The depth in women’s MMA is very poor and because there isn’t a strong grass roots scene for female fighters, you have a dramatic drop-off from the top to bottom.
It’s great that the two women will cash in for their fight, but then what? It’s going to take several years to grow women’s MMA, if it ever truly develops, and it will require promoters to seriously promote it. It does not mean all female MMA shows, but are promoters willing to book 2 or 3 female fights per big show in order to develop a good roster?
Plus, there is the issue of weight classes. Carano and Cyborg are realistically at 150 or higher, and talent like Akano, Baszler are 140 or 145. The talent pool is already shallow as it is, and if SF goes ahead with plans to create a women’s belt for Gina/Cyborg winner, what weight class is it at? Is it an open-weight title? There’s a lot of questions to be asked here.
Wow Zach, off your meds last night or what? LOL
I actually DID run out of my Paxil yesterday & missed my ride to the pharmacy, but I still found last night to be an exceptionally entertaining night of fights. With the exception of the main event on HBO, which I found to be much too predictable of a result given Williams’ physical advantages, his youth, Winky’s long lay off & his career long lack of power.
Seriously though, this is, by far, my fav combat sports site & in all likelihood ( other than Fightnews & BoxRec because of the immediacy of their content ) my single most visited spot on the ‘net PERIOD throughout my daily routine. So, I actually am a wee bit taken aback by how negative your response was to the Showtime event.
Not that our opinions don’t often differ, but …
Like I said, me, I had a great time last night. This, after having a really shitty day, so someone must have done something right.
Getting to the technical stuff first, yeah, the show’s production & in particular the directing, DEFINITELY had it’s ham fisted moments.
– While I could probably look at Gina’s kisser all day long, plenty of others may not feel that way & whomever was making the calls in the truck made the transition from fawning to obsessive regarding her fairly early on in the broadcast.
– Yep, I’m as sick of Tito Ortiz pimping out his rather homely face everywhere as everyone else is.
MMA promotions worldwide should impose a moratorium on allowing him ringside until he’s made himself relavent again in some manner.
– The announcing team was OK IMO & did an all right job for the most part. But, it had a slapped together on the fly feel about it to me.
– Clearly, I’m the only one that actually sort of liked those strange cg graphics. And, I’ve got no prob with that.
Onto the fights:
– Rogers/Abongo.
Sure, it left a lot to be desired in the skills department & neither man is by any means world class. But, with the victor’s size, power & killer instinct, he might just bridge that gap quicker than we think with the right match ups down the road.
Abongo?
I can’t see him ever getting beyond the small show headliner/big show undercard level given his display last night. But, can he soak up some punishment or what?!!
And, is it just me or does anyone else out there think that Herb Dean was perhaps just a bit too empathetic with his fellow dred wearer over the hair grabbing? I saw one legit grab & the rest were entanglements with Rogers’ gloves IMO.
– Cyborg/Akano.
The less said about this contest the better I suppose. Though, call me a perve, but Akano’s legs looked hot as hell to me.
Which, just clearly illustrates the fact that right now, women’s MMA is all about sex appeal & very little else.
Gina is Gina & if she didn’t have that face & that body, we’d have never heard of her despite her decent skills.
And, let’s face it, if Chris Cyborg didn’t look as if she also might be a Brazilian bikini beach vollyball champ on the side, there’s no way in hell she’d be in the spotlight as Gina’s ideal superfight opponent. Any doubts about that?
– Melendez/Damm.
Obviously, a broken leg takes Thompson out of the picture for a good while, but really, Coker should be ashamed of himself for jumping aboard Dana’s interim title bandwagon.
Boxing does it to absolutely ridiculous levels & now, so does MMA.
Other than that, the only thing worth mentioning about this particular mismatch was the odd fact that for the third or fourth time in a brief span of time we’ve seen some REALLY scary/bizarre reactions to KOs from prone fighters lately.
– Smith/Radich.
Given his style & the ,by now, almost strangely comical amounts of abuse that he absorbs during his fights, Scott Smith is very likely not destined for a long career in this sport. But, damn it let’s give credit where it’s due, he’s as close to the Arturo Gatti of MMA as we’re ever likely to see.
He may not ever win a world title like Gatti did, but with his resiliancy & that right hand of his, he’ll always be a legit danger to.
Maybe 99 times out of a hundred, he’d never get close enough or survive long enough to plant that right hand on Anderson Silva’s chin, but on the one occasion that he might … ?
And, more realistically, although he might just be target practice for Cung Le for a while , if Smith’s corner can keep him patched up & clear headed long enough to land on Le, I have serious doubts as too whether the former San Shou great would survive. Given his age, his part time fighter status, limited MMA experience & his age. Not to mention his comparative performance against Frank Shamrock last year side by side with Nick Diaz’s. Which, may mean absolutely nothing or could mean a LOT.
Which, brings us to the main event. Which I’ll get to in just a bit …
This is a viable alternative to UFC and hopefully they will raise the bar by bringing in Overeem.
As far as Renallo being awful, I like the presence and energy he adds to the broadcast. Miletich is great, just wish Gus had some more energy.
Plus, I dont feel the announcer team was one sided, as in the UFC where Goldberg and Rogan call shots that are not even on the screen.
I hope Strikeforce builds on this show and gets better. It will only make UFC book better cards in the future.
so your only early thoughts were negative ones Zach? I just suggest you start to call a spade a spade. Like I said, Im a fan of this site and all your work in the past, but it’s important to APPEAR to be fair.
“I bet on the wrong person last night because I got too down on Nick for the Noons loss and the awful win over Denny. I was wrong. Very wrong.”
No, you were completely right about Diaz. He’d get destroyed by a lot of good fighters. You just severely overestimated Frank Shamrock.
He looked absolutely terrible in the Cung Le fight. Rewatch it, Frank lands almost nothing, the entire fight consists of Cung Le outpointed him and Frank playing up to the crowd with smiles and high fives. Renzo was also soundly beating him before Frank took the easy way out.
I enjoyed this show, and I really think SF could have a big future as a #2 MMA show. They seem to draw good crowds and clearly they do not have the best fighters in the world, but they know how to put on entertaining fights.
Not all was good, that Cyborg fight was a disgrace. I really cannot see any future for womens MMA until there is a bigger talent pool. Yeah, let Cybor and Carano fight but then what?
“The argument I’m making is that once that fight is over, if they don’t end up in a re-match then who else do they have to face? The depth in women’s MMA is very poor and because there isn’t a strong grass roots scene for female fighters, you have a dramatic drop-off from the top to bottom.”
You could have said the exact same thing before EXC put Cyborg on CBS. After all, it was just Carano at that point. Now it’s Carano vs Cyborg, then it’ll be those two versus others, and so on and so forth. There are other women out there who can and will fight. Yes if Strikeforce drops the ball then there will be nothing to follow up with. If they don’t drop the ball, there will be. I don’t see much reason to take the pessimistic view. I mean, I’m sure Strikeforce likes money Carano is their biggest star. Math ain’t hard to do.
I would rename the article to something like: “My hit piece on Showtime broadcast of Strikeforce 4/11 San Jose event” because that would be a more fair assessment of what you meant to do.
Did you really went as far as to complain about the sponsors in the canvas? That’s so absolutely small and petty it’s actually pretty funny.
“- The aesthetics of the Strikeforce event were ugly. THAT CAGE LOOKED HARD TO SEE THROUGH, and the cage canvas was ugly with that black logo in the center. What an eyesore.”
I was not aware that the spectator view of the cage had anything to do with the Showtime broadcast. That is beyond nitpicking if you ask me.
As far as cage visibility goes, I was happy that they didn’t shroud the packed venue in darkness like typical MMA events on TV. It looked really lively in there.
zach your “thoughts” are growing tiresome. The event was a complete success by any reasonable standards. I still wonder if you ever actually enjoy yourself.
“And, let’s face it, if Chris Cyborg didn’t look as if she also might be a Brazilian bikini beach vollyball champ on the side, there’s no way in hell she’d be in the spotlight as Gina’s ideal superfight opponent. Any doubts about that?”
I think that’ll be the first and last time it’s every said that Cyborg got somewhere because of her looks, LOL.
Leslie,
Hey, I never said she’d be a threat to win any TOP MODEL competitions with her face. But, then again, I doubt that too many eyes are on her face when she’s wearing next to nothing on the scales either.
Now me personally, I prefer the more rounded look of women like Gina or Akano last night, but I know many believe a body like Chris Cyborg’s is just “slammin'”. Which, I believe adds MUCH to her appeal as Carano’s superfight opponent.
I sincerely doubt many people are looking at Cyborg as wank material. Then again, you never know, people were into Chyna.
– Onto Diaz/Shamrock.
Nope, there’s no way that I can make the argument that Shamrock was more over-matched than that poor girl Akano
was last night, so Diaz didn’t win the mismatch of the night. But, to my eyes Shammy looked just about as hapless as Rodrigo “Damn, did you get the plate number of that car that just hit me?!!” ( sorry, I couldn’t help myself *insert shameface icon here* ) did. So …
Honestly though, I’ve always felt that Frank has built a legendary career out of some pretty thin credentials going all the way back to his UFC run over a decade ago.
While he was as impressive as hell in many of those wins against men that were generally a lot larger than he was, Kevin Jackson was what? 3 or 4-0 when he beat him?
Jon Lober’s ONLY decent credential was a previous victory over Shamrock in Frank’s first true MMA contest ( his entire pancrase career was during the open hand strikes only era, if I’m not mistaken ).
When “Gumby” gave him a good go of it, he was as green as his namesake.
Same thing with Tito & it was touch & go there until Ortiz gassed so badly.
Then came that odd period in which he left the UFC for infrequent contests against the likes of Elvis Sinosic & a couple of K-1 rules matches that I’m not sure even counted on his record ( I’m doing this without consulting Sherdog’s stats, so I apologize if I’ve missed anything ).
After which came his retirement, after which he’s done absolutely nothing but hand pick his opponents & has still only managed to go 2-3 in the process. With his only victories coming at the expense of an old, pudgy member of the Gracie clan that had never had a pro fight in his life. A match that should have been billed as an exhibition bout at best.
Leaving his only decent recent accomplishment in the cage being his victory over Baroni. A limited, one dimentional .500 fighter ( who’s now a welterweight after being forced off the ‘roids by more stringent testing ).
Still, the man deserves BIG kudos for bringing a lot of positive press & attention to MMA back at a time when it really needed it & for his ability to sell his fights & put asses in seats.
That being said, dispite all the time & effort that I’ve just taken to deminish Shamrock’s skills & career accomplishments, Nick Diaz deserves “props” for last night’s comprehensive beat down victory.
A wee bit of showboating aside, he took care of business in a brutally methodical manner that didn’t allow Frank even a moment’s hope. Displaying to him & everyone who witnessed it just how superior he is to “The Legend”.
I see that many are still on Nick’s ass about the KJ Noons loss, but I think we’ve seen a lot of focus & positive changes since then & believe that as he fills out & matures, we’ll see many good, perhaps great things from him down the line.
Nick had surgery on his eyebrows so he wouldn’t bleed as much! Clearly there was blood getting into his eyes that messed up his vision for that fight.
On the real, Noons has proven to be a quick and powerful striker, which might always be Diaz’s achilles heel.
I would still pick guys like Sanchez, Sherk, & Noons (all Lightweights) over Diaz (a Welterweight). And many of the UFC Welterweights would put a hurting on him.
Diaz has a unique style, but all of a sudden with this win, people are talking about him like he is a changed fighter. I just don’t see it. That is one thing I can’t stand about MMA on TV. Put a guy on the main event, and his win all of a sudden becomes more important, no matter the context of the fight.
I saw the same Nick Diaz that I saw in the UFC. He puts up solid fights, but will never be top of the food chain.
With that said, I don’t buy into this talk about him improving with age and maturing. An athlete only has so much competition in their body. ESPN had a very good article in the last month about guys like Lebron and Kobe. The basic idea is that them coming to the NBA early really didn’t extend their career, it just shifted it by 4 years. And they are seeing injuries that their counterparts typically don’t see until later in their careers.
I think the same thing applies to Nick Diaz. The guy is already has over 25 fights, and a lot of them wars. He does triathlons. I would be shocked to even see him being a semi-major player by the time he is 30. The body just can’t handle it (unless their name is Randy Couture or Bernard Hopkins).
“Leslie,
Hey, I never said she’d be a threat to win any TOP MODEL competitions with her face. But, then again, I doubt that too many eyes are on her face when she’s wearing next to nothing on the scales either.
Now me personally, I prefer the more rounded look of women like Gina or Akano last night, but I know many believe a body like Chris Cyborg’s is just “slammin’”. Which, I believe adds MUCH to her appeal as Carano’s superfight opponent.”
There’s nothing about Cyborg that screams “Sex Sells” and the only reason you seem to be saying this is that she has a vagina and is in shape (like most every other MMA fighter).
I agree on all said above buy Zach, The announcing was just terrable.All 3 were just bad but Pat Miletich made a total and complete ass out of himself. Hears a few things I remember him saying off the top of my head that any MMA fan who knows anyting would know is just total bull shit.That Smith and Radach were at the tops of the MW devision and on Anderson Silva’s level. Saying strike Force on showtime was the biggest thing to happen to mma in 10 years. Lets not forget Gilbert Melendez has the hardest and most brutal GNP he has ever saw? PLEASE PAT just stop now
As for the production value it was average to below average at times. The camera work and angles were just so bad at times while watching the fights. The human models showing mma moves and explaing them over and over needs to just go from all mma in the future.Stop trying to sell mma off. I hate when they have to explain what MMA is on a TV broadcast its not 2005 anymore people get it or they don’t !!!
It seems this is what most think also who write or talk mma from Jordan Breen and TJ on Sherdog they bolth on Beatdwon after the bell last ntight talked about how bad it was to Luke Thomas on his show. please Strike Force and MR Coker make the needed changes. THe fights were great but to me it felt just like Elite XC under a new name !!!!
“The human models showing mma moves and explaing them over and over needs to just go from all mma in the future.”
I didn’t care for that part either.
It was actually a little disgusting the way they didn’t have any skin and raw bloody looking muscles all exposed.
Hopefully it passes quickly into MMA’s historical footnotes with Kerri Casem’s celebrity spotting and EXC’s dragon.
“The aesthetics of the Strikeforce event were ugly. That cage looked hard to see through, and the cage canvas was ugly with that black logo in the center. What an eyesore”
Did you ever said something like that about those butt-ugly WEC cages?
The argument I’m making is that once that fight is over, if they don’t end up in a re-match then who else do they have to face?
You’re missing the point, Zach. I’d expect you to be better at this with the pro wres background and everything. Carano is the headliner and if she beats Cyborg, it will be seen as a sort of final validation of her obliterating the toughest opponent out there. The idea then being that Carano can carry any fight she is in. Worst case scenario, its a single big fight that will draw viewers in and allow them to expose other fighters in their organization and hopefully get some of the rub off on them also.
I personally agree with those saying to just run Frank/Tito now. Frank may be washed up but there’s clear precedent that you can make it something that will interest casual fans. Have that build up a Tito/Babalu fight.
Also; Who is a better fight than Werdum for Overeem among free agent heavyweights? Would we rather really see Monson or Rothwell because they won their last fight? People underrate Werdum because of the loss to Dos Santos and forget that he’s a very capable gatekeeper. I would bet on him over Overeem any day of the week.
Never has a woman in combat sports really been a long term thing for a promoter or organization. What you are saying would be true if it was a male fighter. With a woman, it feels more like this is kind of the end of the story line and then people will get bored with it. I could be wrong, but history is on my side (until proven otherwise).
As for Overeem/Werdum…. I don’t really care who the next best option is. For Strikeforce to keep on giving title shots to guys coming off losses is not very good. It’s one thing for a guy like Arlovski to lose to Sylvia and then get a rematch. That is probably the only time I find it okay for a guy coming off a loss to get a title shot.
Werdum needs a win under his belt before he gets a shot at that title. Without that, those Strikeforce belts, will quickly become a joke.
As a comparison, since the year 2007 in the UFC… Fighters coming off losses to get title fights:
1. Heavyweight: 1 of 4 (Couture/Sylvia)
2. Light Heavyweight: 0 for 3
3. Middleweight: 1 of 4 (Silva/Henderson)
4. Welterweight: 0 of 5
5. Lightweight: 0 for 4
2 of 20. And one of them is Dan Henderson, who was coming off a loss in a higher weight class. He had won his last fight at Middleweight.
Add in the upcoming title fights for 2009…. Silva/Leitas, Evans/Machida, Lesnar/Mir, GSP/Alves, & Penn/Florian.
BJ Penn coming off a loss to GSP. So really, if you take away the fact the fighters moved up in weight class for title shots, it is 1 of 25. 4% compared to 66%…. Of course there is a short historty of Strikeforce, but not exactly a great way to start off being on the national stage.
Strikeforce, since signing onto Showtime, is 2 for 3… Assuming Babalu/Rafael and Overeem/Werdum go through.
I don’t understand why people hold the UFC to such a high standard, but a company who is now on Showtime is getting such a free pass.
The Strikeforce belts are already jokes. Why should anyone take them seriously? Might as well just make the best fights then. The whole thing about Werdum not being worthy because he’s coming off a loss is weak sauce anyways, because Overeem got his heavyweight title bout a couple months after losing to Kharitonov. They don’t mean anything and probably won’t for awhile.
The thing about women’s fighting is just what Coker is thinking, not what I agree with. The internet is the one who deemed him a genius for packing cards full of meaningless fights with ex-TUFers and Luke Stewart, and proclaimed that he was getting backrubs from Dana White and should be the model all other promoters follow. I never did any of that and still find a lot of it laughable.
The promotional territorialism is just ridiculous. I could care less what promoter puts on a fight and I can’t understand why anyone would think’s its even important. I like fights, I enjoy good matchups and Strikeforce did a pretty good job of that with the talent available to them. The important thing for me is always how these athletes are developing and how they deal with the style matchups they’re placed in.
The fact that most fans debate the promotion angle shows how little respect they have for these athletes. No one doubts that the UFC will always be the #1 promotion… so move on. Most MMA commentary is horrendous and the production hasn’t improved much for anyone.
Womens MMA will never be taken seriously until the star attractions and the promoters treat it like a true sport. I agree with Dana and would not want to get involved with a womens league when there are so few top tier talent and those the 2 of the biggests stars fail to make weight in a huge way. I wish it weren’t so, but womens MMA will remain a niche until there are consistent quality professional talent to fill a roster.
Pretty good show, exciting and fulfilling and cant wait for the next one.
I don’t see the problem with Ortiz-Shamrock since they are both coming off losses. It’s obviously not a title fight, but do it now or it may never happen.
So is Le still the Strikeforce champ? When is he coming back? Seems like the natural progression would be for him to take on Nick Diaz. That might be a cool fight with 2 unusual guys.
Werdum-Overeem, if it were to take place, would be the first HW fight in a while with the potential to impact the rankings. I’d like to see it, and it doesn’t matter much to me if a “belt” is on the line.
“The promotional territorialism is just ridiculous. I could care less what promoter puts on a fight and I can’t understand why anyone would think’s its even important.”
A common misconception.
If Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett were in the UFC, they would be fighting each other right now. Instead, they are in Affliction. Not only do we not know if they will fight each other next, we don’t even know when their next fights are going to be. Who they are being promoted by…. matters!
Why has Joachim Hansen not fought since winning the DREAM Title? He is having issues with their promotion. DREAM has had many issues with fighters. They haven’t paid some fighters on time. They knew about Murillo Rua’s opponent change for 2 weeks, and only told him a day before the fight after he was already in Japan. Once again, the promotion matters. DREAM doesn’t have a great track record in their shorter history.
As for debating the promotional angle…. Is it any different then Yankees vs. Red Sox? Johnny Damon switches teams, and is booed like crazy by the people who use to love him? Are all those Boston people not fans anymore? I would say they are.
Strikeforce Champions:
Heavyweight: Alistair Overeem – Nov. ’07
Light Heavyweight: Renato Sobral – Nov. ’08
Middleweight: Cung Le – March ’08
Welterweight: VACANT
Lightweight: Josh Thomson – June ’08
The dates next to the names are their last title fight. I don’t think Le is coming back for at least 3 or 4 months.
I take it the Lawler/Shields fight will be for the vacant Strikeforce welterweight title? And maybe they will “seal” (meaning eliminate) the EXC welterweight title once and for all.
Incorrect. Lawler/Shields is at 182 pounds, and is for no title.
“If Fedor Emelianenko and Josh Barnett were in the UFC, they would be fighting each other right now. “
Source?
They’d probably have Fedor fight Kongo and Barnett would be fighting O’Brien on the untelevised undercard since he wronged Zuffa in the past.
Very Good point above Huddle it really does matter who promotes fighters and fights in mma today. At this point we get to see Fedor and all the other top Affliction fighters fight what 1 maybe 2 times a year if we a lucky now ? And Thats just bullshit if you ask me. Top fighters in Affliction would be fighting 3 to 4 times a year on average if they were in the UFC
“Incorrect. Lawler/Shields is at 182 pounds, and is for no title.”
Ah, my bad. So Shields is going up then? Ah well, it is a very good fight on paper.