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Eddie Goldman corners Scott Coker on drug-testing issue in Mixed Martial Arts
By Zach Arnold | May 10, 2010
Last Wednesday, Eddie Goldman did a great interview with Scott Coker of Strikeforce. It was one of the more news-worthy interviews that I’ve heard so far this year and there were some very revealing answers from Mr. Coker on a significant amount of issues regarding his company and his thoughts on the sport in general.
You can listen to the entire interview here.
I did a transcript of many of the major quotes, so let’s go over some of what Scott said.
The upcoming main event of Brett Rogers vs. Alistair Overeem in St. Louis this Saturday was brought up and you can tell that Scott is very excited about having Overeem fighting for him again.
“I tell you this guy is an amazing athlete, talented MMA fighter. MMA is, you know, his passion and then he started fighting in K-1, in the stand-up league, which you know and I know the best stand-up fighters in the world fight in K-1 and so he goes in there and he did very well. I mean, he beat Badr Hari one time, he lost to Badr Hari one time. … So, for him to be able to compete on that level just standing up it says a lot about how much he’s worked on his stand-up. Alistair’s going to be a dangerous fighter both in submissions and the stand-up.”
Eddie asked Scott if the MMA media had blown the Fedor “will he or won’t he fight for Strikeforce?” story out of proportion.
“No, the way I look at it is you know we have a relationship with M-1 Global and you know they wanted to change some things so you know it took time to work it out and you know like any other relationship that has to be tweaked from time to time, we worked it out and now we’re moving forward, so to me this is just a hiccup in the overall picture, the overall landscape and you know really Fedor wants to fight and M-1 wants Fedor to fight so we’re happy to have them here, especially in our hometown where we’ve had so many great match-ups at the HP Pavilion. We’re happy to have them here and we’re happy to bring him to the fans who have been loyal to us for such a long time.”
The a big note I took away from the interview was when Eddie asked Scott about whether or not he planned on booking the winner of the Fedor/Werdum fight against the winner of the Overeem/Rogers fight. (Besides asking the question, it’s curious that Fedor is being positioned as a challenger while Overeem is the champion.) Coker’s answer is very revealing here.
“You know, I talked to M-1 about that and their position was look, let Alistair fight, let Fedor fight, and then after their fight let’s sit down and let’s discuss the next steps but they didn’t want to have a premature conversation and I don’t blame them because a lot could happen. I mean, a lot of people think you know Brett Rogers is just a walk-through opponent but this guy’s got some heavy hands as we’ve seen in the past and you know in MMA with those little gloves you’re never going to know what’s going to happen.”
When asked if he was going to recruit more heavyweights into Strikeforce, Mr. Coker said that he would bring in a couple of new faces but that recruitment is happening in all their different weight classes on three different levels.
“You know, we talked about bringing in a couple of Europeans, a couple of Americans in the league and I would say that what you’re seeing on May 15th with those two heavyweight fights and the Fedor fight against Fabricio Werdum, I mean I think that’s a very impressive line-up of heavyweights and you know the beauty of all of this is we get to watch it for free on Showtime. So, you know that’s the beauty of it is you can sit back and watch it on TV and not have to pay a PPV fee and see you know some of the best heavyweight fighters in the world. But you know not just the heavyweight division, Eddie, but I think all of the divisions and the weight classes we have we’re going to be looking to improve our fighter base and you know our roster and we’re going to do 3 ways – we’re going to either borrow them, what I mean by borrow them is you know the deal we have with DREAM or maybe we’ll borrow some of their fighters or share some of the fighters is probably a better word. We’re going to build them which is what we’re doing in the challenger series, which I think you know Tyrone Woodley and Luke Rockhold and some of the guys coming out of there are And Tim Kennedy who’s coming out of our Challenger Series and you know they’re doing fatalistic over there and you’ll see them in the big show pretty soon. And you know from there you’ll see those guys move up. And then last when there’s a free agent out there that’s available we’ll be talking to them.”
It was mentioned during the interview that a lot of Strikeforce’s shows will be airing on Showtime and not on PPV. Take a listen to this sales pitch.
“And then you got a hot MMA brand out there on Showtime and you know so it’s a great value. Yeah, it is, for the dollar it’s an amazing value.”
Maybe Strikeforce is a hot brand on Showtime, but it sure isn’t a hot brand on CBS — especially after the Nashville event this past April.
“I can start off by saying, Eddie, it’s unfortunate what happened and I don’t want to give excuses for you know how it went down or this or that. I’ve been in the fight business for 25 years, it’s the first time anything like this has ever happened to me on one of my shows and you know it’s something that we’ve taken measures to fix and it’s not going to happen again. And with saying that, you know I feel bad for the fighters that fought that night because you know this thing overshadowed their efforts and their talent and you know technical ability because I think you saw three real technical fights that night. We didn’t have that barn-burner fight like Gilbert (Melendez) vs. Josh (Thomson) or Fedor/Rogers, but it was three amazing and great fights and you know the situation at the end just took away from that so I feel bad for the fighters who fought that night and really right now we should be talking about that, the fighters instead of the situation after. So you know I feel bad for the fighters. Am I happy about it? Of course not. I do understand that this happens in all sports. I mean, you know, whether it’s football, basketball, boxing, I mean it’s just you know it’s just a situation that will occur from time to time.”
When Mr. Coker mentioned boxing, this gave Eddie a wide opening to ask the question about whether or not Strikeforce would support more stringent drug testing of fighters. Eddie brought up the question in regards to the recent Floyd Mayweather/Shane Mosley bout and how Mayweather demanded USADA-level drug testing with Mosley and both fighters did it going in and out of their fight. Instead of answering the drug question directly (initially), Coker focused on Mayweather. Eddie had asked him if he would support stricter drug testing (including random blood drug testing) for both MMA and kickboxing.
“Well, here’s what I feel. Mayweather, go fight Pacquiao, just go do it. You know, stop the excuses. I sound like a promoter. But you know to me, that’s the fight that I would love to see. and you know to me you’re not the athletic commission. Let the athletic commission do what they do and you know the fighter, go fight and if you feel like you can go beat this guy, go beat him. I mean, you know pound for pound, he’s supposed to be the greatest fighter in the world, so go do it. To me, leave the sanctioning, leave the testing, leave all the administrative stuff to the athletic commissions and that’s what they’re there for. Athletic commissions, Eddie, were created to protect the consumer, the fighter, and the promoter from each other basically, right? So, you know, if there’s an issue with the testing in California, California and Nevada adopt a new program, well you know what? Then that’s what Strikeforce will use. And if they have a national testing procedure that’s implemented in the states we’re promoting in, then that’s what will do. But until that happens, I mean you go to Nevada, I mean you know they run every test in the book and you know maybe the Olympic testing or the cycling testing might be a little bit more stringent but you know that’s not really my expertise and we’ve always been governed by the state athletic commissions and you know when that changes, Eddie, we’ll do it. But right now we’re governed by the commissions.”
Reading the text of this quote does not do justice to the way Mr. Coker sounded while giving this answer. In my opinion, he sounded like he wanted to anywhere else in the world at that time when the question was this. Even though the answer was corporate and milquetoast, it sounded like Scott wanted to run away from answering this as fast as he possibly could.
Eddie asked again in a different manner, this time bringing up how Mayweather asked for Mosley to be tested due to Mosley’s role with BALCO and the issue of EPO. He pointed out that Nevada does urine test but not advanced, significant drug testing to catch up with drug cheats who are 8-10 years ahead of where the state athletic commissions are currently at.
“Well I can say this, Eddie. Do I want top fighters to be on performance-enhancing stimulants and drugs? Of course not. No one wants that. We want the playing field to be fair. You know, that’s our goal as well. But you know when you have different restrictions in different territories and every commission is different, you know it’s sometimes exactly what are they testing for and then what do we test, I mean you know right now I think that maybe there should be a national testing procedure for boxing and MMA across the country and not just regulated by each state and that would I think you know make all the fears and all the you know on a national level go away for each fighter to worry about, ‘Is this guy is on this or is this guy on that?’ And you know Eddie, I’m sure in not just you know in boxing but in all sports I’m sure that you know people are always trying to get that edge to compete at the higher level. It’s been throughout history. Look at Ben Johnson and look at you know some of the great Olympians who have had to return their medals. So, it’s everywhere, even the Tour de France, I mean they’re always accusing Lance (Armstrong) of doing it. But I mean, to me, how do you really know unless they prove through his testing that he’s guilty, how do you really know? I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist, I have no idea.”
“I think that’s an issue that the state commissions or a national commission have to take care of and that’s what they’re there for.”
It was a lackluster answer to two direct questions on a very important issue in the sport right now. Eddie deserves praise for asking it in the manner in which he did.
Eddie asked Scott if he was satisfied with the current direction of Strikeforce and where the company stands nationally. Also, Mr. Coker was asked if he is happy the way the MMA media has covered Strikeforce so far?
“We’ve been really a national product for what, a year now? And we’ve put on some amazing fights and done some I think big, big events and I think that you know the media has been fair. I think they have been giving us a lot of coverage and writing a lot of fair statements. Sometimes the statements are you know like in any fight you know like after the big fights we’ve had with Fedor or Gina and you know we’ve had great stories and then after Nashville people are focused on the situations and you know sometimes it’s not always going to be great, right Eddie, in the media. We do the best we can. And let me just tell you from my position how I look at it is. We’re just going to keep doing great fights and just keep moving forward and you know judge us by the fights in the cage that night and you know we’ll just move forward.”
When asked about the Nashville fights that aired on CBS, Mr. Coker dropped this amazing line.
“I think that you know they were definitely technical fights and sometimes, you know, that’s the fight that you have and you know sometimes they’re going to be KOs, sometimes they’re going to be submissions, it just ended up being, I would have never thought that we had three 5-rounders go the distance if you were to ask me before the fight.”
Finally, Eddie asked Scott about the prospects of keeping Jake Shields under the Strikeforce banner. Shields totally disrespected Strikeforce by appearing a week after his fight at the Zuffa PPV on 4/24 in Sacramento with Dana White at cage side.
“I think that we’re going to reach out again maybe in the next couple of days but you know we’re in our negotiation period and we’re going to negotiate, so, we’ll see what happens.”
Trying to put on a happy face, Mr. Coker closed out the interview this way.
“You know what Eddie? Things always work out the way they’re supposed to.”
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 10 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
1) So basically Coker isn’t even sure if he can get Fedor to fight for him again. And he especially isn’t sure if he can get him to fight Overeem if he beats Rogers. Notice how none of his language indicates that Fedor is a sure thing past this one fight.
2) Coker has nothing planned or going for any of his divisions, especially for the HW division once Fedor/Overeem happens.
3) White made Coker look foolish. White fired Daley on his show during the post fight press conference. And Coker just said after his card that he hadn’t seen it yet. Looked completely weak.
4) Did Coker learn nothing from what the UFC went through? The UFC does leave it up to the commissions…. When the commissions are around to drug test. But when they aren’t, the UFC handles it themselves. Coker has his thumb up his behind on this one.
5) Coker’s first words after being asked about his compay were not “YES, WE ARE DOIGNG GREAT”. That is not a good sign. He doesn’t think he is doing well.
6) Did realize he could have 3 title fights go the distance? Has he not seen UFC 33? Did he not look at what fights he put together and the history of those fighters?
7) He sounds pathetically weak on the Jake Shields topic.
Eddie G’s NHB podcast is a must listen for any fan of combat sports boxing, MMA and even collegiate wrestling
Eddie works without restriction or ties to any promoter or organization. So, its nice change to hear perspective and or interviews on topics concerning Combat sports
Good stuff
My only criticism of his show has to do with the “correspondents” he surrounds himself with. John Perretti is insane and Bob Carson is a blubbering idiot. (Having said that, I confess to occasionally listening to Carson’s show when the guest is one I want to hear.)
Eddie used to, of course; The IFL paid him to be a shill for awhile.
M-1 gets along with nobody. It is uncanny.
It’s Showtime refuse to work with them as does Golden Glory. So of course the problem is GG handles Overeem.
Bas Boon and Vadim have a lot of bad blood. I’ve spoken with both about working with each other and both were pretty much pig-headed about it; they wanted apologies but said if they saw dollar signs they would do business (of course).
Coker needs some help, big time. No way you put on 3 title fights without considering they might suck the life out of the room.
A person in touch with reality would say…
“It’s my fault, I should have tried to get a woman’s fight, a freakshow or celebrity and a heavy weight fight for that card. Its on national tv, and you know a lot of people who have never watched mma before will be tuning in, its completely ignorant of me to expect that anyone would be excited about the lay and pray, and stay away action we had that night.”
“I am thankful for the positives of that night, even though it was not planned, but thank god something exciting finally happened AFTER the fights with Shields actually hitting mayhem a couple times, at least that generated some publicity for us”
I don’t understand why Coker wouldn’t come out and just say he wants better testing. He (and everyone else) know that it’s up to the commissions, and they move slower than molasses so he could ask for better testing and it would have no real impact on anything, because if the commissions ever decide to improve testing, it will take a while.
If Zuffa said thye wanted a national testing program everyone would tell them to set it up because they can afford it.
Business isn’t booming enough for SF for people to expect Strikeforce to set it up on their own, and the commissions are not going to act quickly, so why not score some very easy credit and scream that he wants better testing?
Let me spell out all that for you: Strikeforce isn’t doing any testing of their own. If Missouri isn’t testing Overeem, no one is. Someone could write 2000 words on these very simple facts, then go investigate what Missouri’s testing procedure is (hint: THEY DON’T), and have themselves an article if they wanted to.
[…] making drug testing more stringent in Mixed Martial Arts. Give credit where credit is due — Eddie Goldman was the one who put him on the spot. We posted the transcript of Mr. Coker’s comments on the site and the reaction we got was […]
[…] We already know what Dana White’s stance has been on drug testing in MMA. “The Government tests the fighters” or “leave it to the athletic commissions.” Fine, that’s what I would expect from your average, run-of-the-mill fight promoter to say. (Like Scott Coker.) […]