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Scott Coker’s recent comments indicate Strikeforce has ideas but not necessarily the execution to implement them; Update: Kazuo Misaki takes Sengoku booking in August
By Zach Arnold | June 20, 2010
Update (6/20): Kazuo Misaki vs. Jorge Santiago in August. So much for him in the Middleweight tournament.
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June 17th
I was watching a video interview Scott Coker did with Sherdog and when it comes to spinning something, he sometimes sounds like he’s the least convinced man in the room when making a pitch.
One of the curious things he said in the interview is that he was considering Feijao vs. King Mo for August for the 205-pound title. If you recall after the St. Louis event when Feijao won, Mr. Coker was on camera telling Ariel Helwani that Feijao would likely face Mike Kyle in a re-match. Now Feijao’s good enough a month later for a title shot?
Also up in the air is whether or not the August show will stay in Houston. The proposed building for the Houston show is the big-sized Toyota Center. If Strikeforce has to move that show to another city or another building, how are they going to gain traction in such a short time frame? Think about it this way — when UFC announced that ticket sales in Salt Lake City were in the crapper, they promptly booked a date in San Diego at the SD Sports Arena. Josh Gross can call the building a dump, but the building did host a WEC show with Urijah Faber and it did fairly well business-wise for Zuffa. Who do you have more confidence in as far as moving a show to a new city and new building and getting the job done — UFC or Showtime/Strikeforce? Obviously, UFC.
When the issue of Jake Shields came up, I don’t want to say Scott waved the white flag but… OK, he did. He said he gave some numbers to “the Dad” (Jake’s father who is his manager) and his Dad apparently feels he’s worth more and all Scott would say about describing the situation is that “it’s interesting.”
And then he promptly said that he was ready to do an 8-man Middleweight tournament. Scott got very excited about this prospect, which goes to show you what the odds of Shields staying are. He noted that Dan Henderson, Robbie Lawler, Jacare Souza, and Kazuo Misaki (of all people) would get invites. Also noted was the winner of the Scott Smith vs. Cung Le fight on June 26th in San Jose. Let’s think about this for a moment — Cung Le isn’t exactly a guy who appears to be wanting to fight full-time and that’s what an 8-man Middleweight tournament would require. So, he lost to Scott Smith late last year and now if he beats Scott Smith in the match it would be him and not Smith in this proposed tournament? Ridiculous. (You obviously have to throw Tim Kennedy in the Middleweight tournament mix.)
For the sake of argument, let’s say that Smith makes it and that Kennedy is in as well. Henderson, Lawler, Jacare, Misaki, Smith, Kennedy, and room for two more entries. Mr. Coker seemed pretty focused on Babalu fighting at 205 despite Babalu stating in a pre-match interview a month ago that he was going to make Middleweight. Guess plans cahnged there. Scott remained adamant that he wanted Babalu to face Mo, but there’s the issue of whether or not the California State Athletic Commission will medically suspend Babalu and if that suspension is long enough to prevent a match from happening in August. So, if Babalu isn’t in the tournament, you probably insert Matt Lindland in for a final slot.
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 13 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Strikeforce is in a position right now that if a fighter wins his last fight, he is automatically in consideration for a title shot. And sadly, they don’t have the money to fix this problem anytime soon. Doing away with credible undercards strikes at the heart of this issue. They are not building up any sort of talent for tomorrow. Some fans were tricked into thinking Coker was doing good things by borrowing talent from Japan…. But that was more of a quick fix. During that time, he should have been filling up his cards with more talent and letting the fights decide who rises to the top.
King Mo has no challengers left. He is unlikely to fight Babalu or Henderson. Not like either deserved a title shot, but it was the best they can do. So now they look to Cavalcante, who still has the stigma of losing to Mike Kyle. Coker during the post fight press conference looked like a fool when he was saying he was going to make Lawal/Babalu and then Loretta Hunt told him Babalu was in the back saying it won’t happen. If Dana White can’t make teammates fight each other, Coker certainly won’t be able to.
And Noons being talked about for both a LW & WW Title shot after having a tough time with Heun is…. laughable. He looked average at best in there and would get wrecked by Melendez. It’s not even a fight worth booking.
As for the Middleweight Tournament. And you can write this down, put it in your pocket, and read it during the finals of this tournament….
It is stupid for Strikeforce to put on a 8-man tournament.
Injuries can easily happen. The more fighters they have, the easier it will be for this to happen. They need to stick to a strong 4-man tournament. Souza, Kennedy and 2 more guys.
Plus, I don’t see any way that Cung Le or Frank Shamrock will enter the tournament. And by the time this thing ends, we will be into 2011. Henderson & Lindland are already looking old. I can’t see them being much of a factor a year from now.
Thats a good point about the money and building up guys.
Just paying established prices for used name brand guys must eat up a good chunk of their limited finances.
The best way to get the most mileage out of the limited money they’ve got is to MAKE guys that they find themselves INTO stars.
They need some better scouts down Brazil way IMO.
UFC got some kind of connection a year or two ago and all of a sudden they’re importing a gang of Braz world beaters that nobody heard of before.
Fertile ground down there IMO.
Then there’s always the problem of building a guy up and UFC buys him out from under you.
Thats when you realize that those messed up cut throat UFC contracts are actually like that for a reason.
🙂
A 4 man tourney is adequate for them, I think. Hell, do another one night tournament. Wouldn’t be the first time they have in California.
As for them not having anyone to fight King Mo…Feijao is a perfectly adequate opponent. Maybe no one has noticed, but King Mo has 7 career fights. A couple of those were complete wastes of time against total tomato cans (Naito, Kawamura, Kerr). Feijao is fine.
Agreed. It’s actually a disservice to Mo to be champion right now when he should be working his way up in terms of opponents. Luckily for him SF has no one in his weight class so he can get the moderately easy fights you’d want to be giving him if you repped him.
I think the overall point by Zach though is about the bizarre booking in SF. A month ago Feijao was going to fight a meaningless fight vs Mike Kyle and now he’s the #1 contender.
But in regards to the booking: Does it matter? No one is going to give a crap if Feijao and Kyle fight for the #1 contendership. In fact, they’re likely to pan it. You might as well just do this fight and skip the unnecessary and stupid “eliminator”.
SD Sports Arena is a dump…I went to the WEC there. It was a good sized crowd and SD is a good location for a 2nd tier show. I’m sure the WEC show was and this show will be papered like crazy. I scored free tix for the WEC show.
If they do an 8 man tourney, Misaki makes sense. He’s a top 25 middle weight and a good test.
Luke Rockhold would be a great number 8 for that tournament and who ever emerged from that tournament would cement themselves as a top 5 type talent…But I suppose the whole tournament idea is just hypothetical unless Showtime is willing to get behind it.
Top 5 type for beating a bunch of guys that are from 9-15?
Middleweight isn’t exactly the deepest division…A lot of people have Vitor top 5 for wins over Lindland and Terry Martin in the weight class. I think 3 wins against 3 Top 25 fighters in succession is a pretty good resume. I mean Jake Shields became a top 5 fighter at the weight fighting the same guys the winner of the tourney would for the most part.
Lindland was as high as #2 in the world at the time of Vitor’s win. Then he beat Franklin who is usually ranked right in the top 3 when thinking of 185.
Shields beat Lawler who was as high as 6 in the world at the time. Hendo went down when he was #2 or #3 on most lists out there.
None of the guys will be even remotely near those heights entering the tournament…
Isn’t that how Hardy & Florian got their rankings?
“Think about it this way — when UFC announced that ticket sales in Salt Lake City were in the crapper, …”
Hehehe
Whenever I picture my Mormon buddies and the concept of attempting book a show on a sunday in Utah I get the giggles.
🙂
As far as strikeforce, its definitely a game of mix and match for the best results possible right now.
I dont really have a problem with it.
Not right now.
They’ve got some pretty good pieces to play with.
And the matchmaking is usually logical enough on a one on one basis despite the general lack of an overall arc.
Sometimes I actually get irritated by UFC’s constant belt race and how one loss knocks you back 5 pegs.
If/when strikeforce gets more established then I’ll start to expect more overall consistency from the matchmaking.
BTW: I also like the idea of Misaki in a SF tournament.
I’d like to see him establish a presense over here and more activity from him since he’s on the silent treatment in Japan.
One of the few larger Japanese fellas that can really hang with the elite worldwide fighters.
That I know of at least.
I’d hate to see him waste all that potential sitting in the corner for a few of his prime years.
I really wonder what the endgame is in all of this. There have been a lot of articles over the last year calling Strikeforce out on all their bullshit, but nothing changes and Showtime doesn’t seem to be pulling the plug anytime soon – so I don’t know why we keep discussing it.