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Video: Melendez and Thomson on CSN Bay Area to promote Strikeforce 12/19 San Jose event
By Zach Arnold | December 17, 2009
Dave Meltzer claims that ticket sales are not doing well for the show at HP Pavilion. Herschel Walker is currently in San Jose and is expected to address the media about his MMA debut in late January in Florida. Dan Henderson is also expected to appear in front of the media and answer some questions.
Go to full-post view to see the video clip.
CSN Bay Area also had an interview with Herschel Walker on Tuesday, but the video has not been posted online. Walker said that any athlete who takes performance-enhancing drugs should never be allowed to compete in their respective sport ever again.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 6 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Has Strikeforce finally worn out the San Jose market? I wouldn’t be surprised. You can only go to one market so many times before it starts to diminish it’s value. Las Vegas is the exception to that rule. Perhaps New York City could be too, but MMA isn’t legalized there yet…..
Strikeforce won’t be able to get near Vegas. We have seen the UFC keep it’s competitors out time and time again. Without a “go to” location, that only makes Strikeforce’s ability to pull in big gates that much harder.
I think it’s a sign that fans aren’t going to accept Cung Le vs. anyone. Scott Smith shouldn’t be anywhere near a main event. The real main event title fight hasn’t gotten press due them hyping up Le’s return and that Thomson hasn’t fought in ages. If anything this tells Strikeforce they can’t throw anything on in San Jose and expect everyone to care.
“You can only go to one market so many times before it starts to diminish it’s value.”
True. The UFC only sold 6K or so for its last show in Vegas.
“Las Vegas is the exception to that rule.”
Oh. In that case, I don’t know what to make of the UFC’s bad sales.
“I think it’s a sign that fans aren’t going to accept Cung Le vs. anyone.”
I think this is half of it. In my opinion, it was easier for a lot of people to get behind Cung when it looked like he was serious about MMA and was going to make a real run at things. A lot of people discounted his competition, but it did seem like he was being brought along slowly and the competition was getting stiffer. Now with the big layoff and him getting up there in years, I think everyone knows he’s not going to make a serious run to be the best in the world @ 185.
It kind of takes some of the shine off of him, and you’re right…Smith isn’t a super interesting opponent, although I think it’ll be a very entertaining fight.
I don’t care who jizzes all over this show, I felt bored watching it. The LW paper title fight was sloppy as hell and Cung Le’s exhibition gone horribly wrong only caught my interest as he was falling down over and over. The two openers were what interested me both, with the young stars getting dominant wins. Hooray or something.
Still, I watched this, while another WEC card gets ignored forever. Even if Versus gets back on DirecTV, I’m not sure I can pull myself together to watch it on a regular basis. Its in the “IFL Zone” now quite solidly. Heck, I’m not sure the IFL didn’t regularly have better fights than Ratcliff/Cerrone. LOL
I couldn’t catch the WEC fight because it isn’t on DirecTV, but I did see the Strikeforce event. Very good fight event. I thought the Thomson/Melendez fight was great, but yeah Thomson was a little sloppy, mostly because he was gassed and throwing wild punches. Melendez looked okay, but it was a good scrap. Thomson really should have taken it to the ground. Oh well.
In the back of my head, I figured that Scott Smith would be able to catch Le and KAYO him, but figured Le would just have his way with him. Clearly I was correct on both accounts, but man that was a hell of a knockout. It was pretty obvious that Le’s long layoff affected his cardio. Well, that and all of those sidekicks that Smith ate. Le was awesome to watch, once again, but so was Smith in the last round. I bet Scott Coker shat his pants when Le lost. Because, going by that match-making, he wanted to build Le back up into contendership, but……aw, what the hell am I saying? He will still build Le back up, probably starting with a rematch against Smith. Or he will make Le avoid Smith like rape and feed him some cans.
As one-dimensional as Smith is, he is a dangerous opponent who will ALWAYS have his punching power and his almost granite chin to fall back on. But he doesn’t just fall back on them……he solely relies on them. Not good! Imagine if Smith just used a few more combinations, a few low kicks, and the usage of angles with his boxing would do to his game? The man has some great God-given attributes (punching power and chin as I mentioned), but he will always falter because he just doesn’t use anything else, except for the occasional underhooks. Well Mr. Smith, enjoy the Gatti complex…