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Strikeforce’s weekend in Houston at the Toyota center
By Zach Arnold | August 21, 2010
Going into Saturday night’s event on Showtime, Dave Meltzer aptly described the problem with the show as “horrible promotion.” That was quite an understatement. After the results from tonight’s event, it might actually benefit the promotion if some fans didn’t see this show.
Outside of the Middleweight title fight between Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Tim Kennedy, everything that could have gone wrong ended up going wrong. Bobby Lashley, who told ESPN2 viewers on MMA Live last Thursday that he had never seen footage of opponent Chad Griggs, ended up losing to Griggs after the fight was stopped (doctor stoppage). Ariel Helwani soon reported after the fight that Lashley was stretchered out of the building. As Steve Cofield astutely stated after the fight, “Can’t wait for Griggs-Batista on PPV.” Paul Heyman actually made the argument on Twitter that Lashley losing will give the promotion an easier out in booking Lashley/Batista on a few levels (expectations-wise plus with athletic commissions.)The worst offender on this night, besides the Texas athletic commission and boxing referee Jon Schorle, was KJ Noons. Noons made quite the wave on Thursday’s Strikeforce conference call with the media. This item courtesy of Ivan Trembow:
In the “conference call highlights” from the Strikeforce conference call that featured Tim Kennedy, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, Jorge Gurgel, and KJ Noons, there was a bit of homophobia that you wouldn’t know about from the transcript, but you can hear it clearly in the actual playback of the conference call.
It relates to the following part. Here’s how it appears in the conference call highlights:
NOONS: “Jorge comes out and puts on great shows, but if you want to watch Jiu-Jitsu, go to a tournament. This is fighting. If you want to see some lame fighting go watch the UFC, go watch something boring as hell. If you want to see something exciting, come Aug. 21 and see a guy who’s been boxing his whole life, and someone who has a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu.. This is what people want to see.”
Noons did not just say “some lame fighting.” He said the phrase “lay and gay” (which he must think is a clever twist on the phrase “lay and pray”), and he used this “lay and gay” phrase more than once. The second time that he said it, one of the other participants in the call (there’s no way of knowing which one) loudly said, “OK, OK, OK” as if to shush Noons.
(Also, for what it’s worth, Noons didn’t just say, “Go watch the UFC” in the passage above. He said, “Go watch Jake Shields or GSP in the UFC.” He was not saying that the UFC in general is boring.)
Having just listened to the actual conference call using the playback information listed below, I just wanted to point out this bit of homophobia from Noons.
Rather than focus on “lay and gay,” the media focused on what they thought Noons was saying about the UFC — so much so that Noons did an interview with Ariel Helwani to ‘clarify’ that remark:
Which leads us to Noons vs. Jorge Gurgel. After Noons took apart Gurgel during their fight, he ended up landing a knee to Gurgel’s head. The fans got pissed and got even angrier when Noons was award the win. Steve Cofield remarked, “Classic Gus (Johnson). The story is the illegal strikes. Not one question about them.” Noons said, after the fight, that he wants to continue boxing (paging Gary Shaw — just like I noted earlier) and that he wanted to box Floyd Mayweather.
After that mess, we had Strikeforce try to bury Jake Shields as running away from the promotion by not wanting to fight Jacare Souza. Jacare ended up being the one bright spot on this night, as his gas tank and boxing have improved and he won the Middleweight title. He’s the company’s best Middleweight, but the process of him getting the title sure has taken a weird route the last few months.
Which led us to the main event featuring King “f*** the fans” Mo versus Rafael Feijao. This fight almost didn’t happen because Scott Coker last May stated that he was considering Feijao vs. Mike Kyle. Yes, *that* Mike Kyle. Well, in the end we’re going to get that match because Feijao beat Mo and took the Middleweight belt. About as disastrous of an outcome for Strikeforce promotionally-speaking as you could possibly get. About as bad as the inimitable Gus Johnson clumsily describing King Mo as “the darker skinned fighter” when trying to tell the viewers at home which fighter was what on their television screens.
This leaves us with likely seeing Mo vs. Mousasi in a “revenge road” fight and Feijao vs. Mike Kyle for Strikeforce’s Light Heavyweight division. Dan Henderson teased on MMA Live that he was going to announce a big fight at 205, but things fell through.
All in a weekend’s amount of work!
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 20 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Noons says some very dumb things indeed. Plus, why the illegal knee on the ground? King Mo and Lashley were over-confident. Jacare – Kennedy nearly put me out. Both Mo and Lashley took some heavy shots.
Terrible reffing tonight. The ref in the Lashley fight stopped the fight when he had mount to check the cut then restarted them standing? Is this 2003? Shouldn’t that be day 1 ref training shit?
He didn’t stand ’em up to check the cut. He stood ’em up because Lashley was stalling, and once they were up he decided to have the cut checked by the doctor. Ballsy call on the standup. The only other time I have seen a guy stood up from the mount is when Yuji Shimada did it to Paulo Filho.
I’m all for letting guys work on the ground, but I don’t believe that there should be any position that is immune to standups. Standups from the mount are extremely rare and should remain so, but if the guy is not working and does not respond to the refs instructions to get busy, he should be stood up regardless of position. Guys should not be allowed to stall, regardless of what position they are in. Lashley was gassed and scared shitless of standing with the guy, and was obviously trying to ride out the round. Still not sure if I liked the call, but I think it is defensible.
I previously coined the phrase “gay and pray” and the pc version “hug and hope” which is popular with fighters like Couture and Coleman.
Thanks for your contribution to the evolution of the English language *eye roll*
Zach…God forbid Strikeforce pulls off on a good/decent show where the judging,refs,commentators,etc.were”good”at
best then you wouldnt have anything to complain about!
YES!…the judging,refs sucked! UFC got the same problem..what else is new? YES!…the commentators need work Goldberg & Rogan are no better its just that your so used to hearing them it dosnt phase you anymore!In fact I cant remember the last time you mma writers complained about those two!
YES!…Strikeforce fighters and the show itself may not be as good as the UFC but they put on the best fighters & shows possible provided what they have to work with and you really need to remember that while you watch & write about them!This card wasnt as bad as you made it out to be! and thats the problem with you mma journalists and fans in general.You love the fighters/promotions when they do a good job but you turn your back and dump all over them when they dont preform to your likings.
For fighters/promoters,Being consistent in this sport is the real challenge for them and I would expect you mma writers to already know that by now and take this into consideration before you write this type of one sided nonsense.
KJ Noons gets a title shot because he beat… Conor Heun and Jorge Gurgel within three months… and then he can’t make weight for the Gurgel fight, so Scott Coker says to him afterwards, hey, you wanna fight for the 170 belt instead of 155 belt? Could you imagine this happening in the UFC — no, you couldn’t. And if it did, the media would be rightly ripping them to shreds for doing so.
Where did I criticize Mauro Ranallo or Frank Shamrock here? I gave specific examples of the ridiculousness on Saturday night with Gus Johnson. It was not a blanket criticism. And for the record, I think Bellator’s crew is the best right now but UFC’s crew is certainly good at doing their job.
The answer is no, no they don’t put the best shows on possible. You are saying this coming off of last week’s 4-woman 135-pound tournament in which they decided to have matches determined the day before the show.
Best fighters? You tell me if Strikeforce had the desire to put a rocket up Chad Griggs’ ass (proverbially-speaking) or if that fight was booked so Lashley would win and heat up a fight with vaunted MMA expert Dave Batista, who once reportedly got into a fight with Booker T while in WWE.
Listen — you’re acting as if I don’t know any of the fighters on any of these cards and that I’m short-changing them. I’m not. There’s some good talent being booked, but there’s also some fighters that shouldn’t be booked and there’s good talent that’s being mismanaged and not always treated fairly.
You say consistency is important — OK, I agree with you. Why can’t Strikeforce be as consistent as Bellator? (And I’ve said, on the record, that Bellator feels like a promotion – in my opinion – that is in trouble.)
[quote]Best fighters? You tell me if Strikeforce had the desire to put a rocket up Chad Griggs’ ass (proverbially-speaking) or if that fight was booked so Lashley would win and heat up a fight with vaunted MMA expert Dave Batista, who once reportedly got into a fight with Booker T while in WWE.[/quote]
Was it an attempt to boost Lashley’s record? Yes, otherwise they wouldn’t have agreed. In the end it was a failure. But alternately, ask yourself – why is the MMA media demanding that Strikeforce book Lashley in lousy fights? They’re falling right into the trap that his management wanted – Lashley either gets a “big fight” or he fights nobodies. How is it then that people complain today that he was in over his head? He sucks, he always sucked, he may have been in thrown fights (watch that bout in MFC; how legit did that look?), and having him get exposed is a good thing for the sport, even if its bad for Strikeforce.
Does Bellator really seem more consistent to you? What is consistent about Whisper Goodman fighting Hector Lombard? How does signing Josh Neer for a one off catchweight fight with Eddie Alvarez make a lick of sense?
“And for the record, I think Bellator’s crew is the best right now but UFC’s crew is certainly good at doing their job.”
Wow. All I can say to that is GAME SET MATCH. THAT IS ALL.
ZA once again…. consistent as always. 🙂 Enjoy reading your editorials moreso than anyone else on the net and have been for a long time.
Strikeforce’s card yesterday illustrated 3 problems that continue to plague their company.
1) Putting too much promotion into fighters who are not very good.
2) Promoting fights based on ONE fighter instead of both of them. It sets up a win/lose scenario that if the fight doesn’t go the way they want…. Henderson/Shields or Lashley/Griggs… They are left looking bad.
Jordan Breem tried to make the point that fans treat the UFC and SF differently when the underdog wins. He was bringing up GSP/Serra 1 as an example. The problem is that Serra WAS hyped for that fight through an entire season of TUF. Very different then Griggs who was completely unknown and had no business on the main card either.
3) Putting fighters in big fights before the fans are ready for it. Cavalcante was too close to his loss to Mike Kyle to be receiving a title shot. So him winning the belt hurts the division more then helps it. The other downfall is that because the Kyle fight was so close, now they are basically forced to do that rematch. And nobody thinks that is a credible fight in any sort of way.
Coker seems clueless at this point. They continue to throw away any sort of draw they have been bad matchmaking. Who are they left with? Nick Diaz? I see some people pushing him now. Yet he couldn’t get a good gate for his fight because people don’t care outside of a hardcore fanbase.
The Johnson comment about
the darker skinned guy” was awkward, but only because we live in a racially sensitive country. Not because he said anything wrong in and of itself. It seems wrong, but it really isn’t. If he was a white announcer, folks would be in an uproar, for nothing.
Lay and, pray has been the popular phrase. Gay and, pray? Comparing grappling to “looking like two guys are having sex” is common on the internet chat boards and, among fans who don;t like, or understand grappling. A large percentage of MMA fans want to see an intense brawl.
King Mo seems to be thinking he’s a boxer, rather than how to adapt those boxing skills he learns to an MMA fight. He’s still in the learning stage of MMA, despite his tremendous wrestling skills.
I liked the interplay between Gus and, Frank, especially when Gus asked him about what he meant by keeping his head level. Frank gives a realistic commentary on the tactics and, skills of the fighters, while the other two, especially Mauro, want to do the “ra,ra”, “this is the greatest” type of commentary. Gus and, Frank have the potential to be a good team. I’d have Mauro do interviews.
People making a big deal out of the Johnson ‘darker skinned’ comment are asinine. Joe Rogan flat out says ‘the black guy’ and openly mocks Goldy for identifying fighters of different race by the color of their shorts all the time and no one whines about it.
It’s stupid to get upset about it.
If it’s the easiest way to distinguish two people do it. There was a fight in Virginia last year where a judge scored the fight wrong because he had the fighters confused. One was white and one was black. Accuracy should be the most important thing.
I thought it was funny.
I didn’t know it was Guy. I thought it was Mauro just being Mauro.
They do wear red and blue gloves though if its too nerve wracking or legally risky to use familiarities.
Maybe he should have said the African American, because that sounds more natural.
My take on Strikeforce and the fallout from last nights, because everyone loves a cheap plug!
http://www.mmabay.co.uk/2010/08/22/the-sunday-supplement-strikeforce-is-getting-harder-to-defend/
I have literally no problem with someone saying “the darker skinned fighter”. It’s the most obvious way to distinguish, esepecially when they were both wearing black shorts with white trim.
Exactly, calling someone the darker/lighter skinned fighter, the white guy, the black guy, or whatever else, is a complete non-issue as far as I’m concerned.
I’m not sure if it’s a bigger deal in the US or not though.
I could care less about KJ Noons making homosexual slurs. He is a fighter; what do you expect out of him? 99.9% of mma fans neither know nor care about this; I would say Zach Arnold, Ivan Trembow, Jordan Breen, and maybe 15 other people on Earth care about what Noons said; the rest don’t look to some imbecile fighter for life guidance or as a role model. James Toney calls mma gay, he calls most other fighters gay, he is an incredible bigot, but who the fuck cares? These are fighters, and their job is to be stupid and get punched in the head.
45: In re: hype behind Serra, I disagree with you. Serra was like a 9-1 underdog; he only got the title shot (which he in no way deserved) because he won a controversial and horrid split decision against Lytle; nobody ever thought Serra had a shot to win, and the only reason they did the gimmick of giving the winner a title shot was to make the show seem more relevant.
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