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Strikeforce 11/3 Oklahoma City show canceled; next show January?
By Zach Arnold | October 12, 2012
Press release
LAS VEGAS– STRIKEFORCE® announced today it is planning its next card set to air live on SHOWTIME in January 2013. Further information on the fight card and location will be announced shortly.
STRIKEFORCE also announced the cancellation of its Nov. 3 event at the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Okla., due to injuries sustained by main event star Frank Mir and co-main event star Luke Rockhold. Refunds for tickets purchased are available at point of sale.
“Due to a series of injuries, we were forced to cancel the upcoming card on Nov. 3, but are already working to put together a stacked card in January,” STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker said.
“While we’re disappointed with the cancellation, we are looking forward to an even bigger STRIKEFORCE event on SHOWTIME early next year,” said Stephen Espinoza, Executive Vice President & General Manager, SHOWTIME Sports®
Topics: Media, MMA, StrikeForce, Zach Arnold | 31 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Zuffa needs to pay every fighter who is being held up for this. There is no reason these fighters should be placed on the backburner for a long time.
Now it is 3 cancelled Zuffa events in a few months. If they havent got a clue that their weak cards and overburdened schedule is an issue now…. then Zuffa is just a ship that will eventually sink. And people know I am not a doom abd gloom UFC fan. But there is a reality starting to sink in that things are being mismanaged….
You and your “the sky is falling” mantra! Enough already, sir! 🙂
I wouldn’t lump Strikeforce in with UFC when it comes to all of this. Strikeforce is an org with maybe a dozen name-ish fighters on their roster, even when they’re talking about a “stacked” card in January it looks ho-hum at best.
The nail should be put in the coffin of Strikeforce sooner rather than later IMO, but for whatever reason they seem to be soldiering on. Get these guys into the UFC already.
To be fair, the sky has never been falling this much. Injuries ravaging the sport causing events to cancel and ratings and ticket sales to plummet. This is a bona fida lull where before we were surging. Things don’t change and it will result in the sport losing ground right when it needs to be doing the opposite.
Not sure why Zuffa and Showtime don’t mutually terminate the contract. That way, Zuffa can consolidate the (relatively few) quality fighters from the Strikeforce roster into the UFC and Showtime gets more money to fund their 24/7 Golden Boy Promotions Boxing shows. I guess Showtime is paying Zuffa pretty decently for the mediocre (at best) cards being held (whenever they are held)…?
From Showtime’s perspective, they get a decent TV card (sometimes) that generates viewership at comparatively low cost. From their perspective, I can see why they wouldn’t rush to kill the contract if they can force it to continue until Forza/SF fufills the number of shows.
I honestly think that you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger Strikeforce fan than myself.
Even now, during it’s pretty much totally depleted, diminished state I’ve remained a fan, but c’mon, it’s dead. There’s absolutely no reason to pretend that it has any sort of future at all. It’s been on life support for months now & it’s time to just issue a DNR order.
Unless this proposed event in January is one final “farewell” type of show, just leave it be.
Zuffa should just absorb whatever fighters it wants from the organization & cut the rest loose.
If the contract with Showtime still has more fights left on it, they should cut Showtime a check for the difference & move on.
As for Ronda, Dana should just quit teasing the fans about her eventually fighting in the UFC & figure that shit out. If he doesn’t feel as if there’s enough talent in women’s MMA to support an entire division, then just feature her in individual “special added attraction” type fights. What’s the big deal? Just get it done.
Has the number of fights an average fighter had a year really increased since a couple of years ago, when this type of crap was not happening?
The rate of main eventers pulling out over the past 6 months has been something like 50 percent!
There is something big going on here…any idea what?
Probably a combination of over training and I bet some guys drug test themselves and find their levels too high to compete.
Over training I don’t buy. Twenty years into the sport suddenly everybody starts over-training? Nobody is telling them to be careful and they themselves are too dumb to stop? Maybe, but why now?
The steroid theory is interesting. But a lot of these guys who fail–don’t strike me as steroid type. And, if they pass the testing for the next fight, why didn’t they train that way all along?
The change is health insurance.
Before Zuffa provided insurance, when guys got injured in training they would fight injured and then claim the injury happened in the cage. With insurance, the fighters can get injuries addressed without having to step into the cage and fight injured.
So before the injuries sustained during the fight are covered, but ones from training weren’t?
I thought that before neither was covered, but now both are.
The Zuffa-era UFC has always had ‘event insurance’ that covers injuries incurred during the actual fight cards. It’s the insurance between fights that is new.
In that light, a recent comment by Dana White makes more sense. He said that before, there wasn’t a flood of injury claims after the fights, so the idea of guys fighting through injuries doesn’t make sense.
Wouldn’t the guys today still be missing out on the huge paycheck from the actual fight? The insurance just covers the treatment of the injuries, right, does not compensate them their fight salary?
One approach that I haven’t heard advocated much is having the entire card or over half a card booked in one division. That way, if your main eventer pulls out, you have 2 to 3 guys ready to go.
Condit was able to step in for Diaz, Mir for Overeem. Neither situation was ideal, but a replacement was not something horrible or hard to put together.
I love this idea. I have thought the same thing before. I have no clue why they dont do this. Even if they featured 2 weight classes per card it would work. Plus they could make a bigger or smaller cage accordingly.
In the “when it rains, it pours” category:
http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/10/12/3495262/ufc-jake-shields-suspended-six-months-prohibited-substance-dave-herman-mma-news
Jake Shields busted, out 6 months.
I bet it’s because of something stupid like Whey Protein or something like that from GNC.
Watch it’s something dumber than that, like an energy drink or sports drink (some state athletic commissions have banned the on-site usage of energy/sports drinks).
I heard it was elevated T/E levels…
Welcome to the flooding….
http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2012/10/12/3494660/jeremy-stephens-arrest-details-emerge-victim-of-alleged-assult
How can White get behind a guy like this?
http://www.mmatorch.com/artman2/publish/UFC_2/article_5604.shtml
The highlight & lowlight of Jeremy Stephens’ career.
My other favorite mma site is selling a ‘Free Jeremy’ t-shirt?!?!
And the courts wil figure out the entire situation with Stephens. But lets be honest…. If the cops accused Jon Fitch of this behavior, I probably wouldn’t belive it.
But what the police are claiming Stephens of doing and the personality he shows in the UFC…. They sort of match.
Because he screams loud, and sticks out his tongue?
Also, there are two sides to every story. Three if you wanna go the he said, she said, truth route.
He has a punk attitude. It is written all over his body language. It is in every mannerism he showcases. A blind man could see it.
Yes, a blind man could see this, 45 Huddle.
Could it be as simple a second hand smoke induced inactive marijuana metabolites.
That would be lame enough for me.
^
That would be with reference to Shields and his notorious pothead buddies of course.
I don’t want to make any determinations regarding his guilt or innocence in this matter, but judging by the info that’s come out today, the authorities actions seem a LOT more justified than they did last week when this initially went down. And, the fact that Stephen’s is still sitting in a jail cell awaiting his hearing instead of out on that $100,000 bond speaks volumes.
Seems to me, that once Dana & the boys got further details of what actually went down & the severity of the charges, they backed off on springing him. I mean, they’ve obviously got deep, DEEP pockets so that bail is nothing they couldn’t cover if they REALLY still believed in their boy. So…
Looks to me like the future may not be so bright for Stephens. Which it ABSOLUTELY shouldn’t be if he’s even guilty of half of the level of violence & stupidity that he’s charged with.
Eddie Alvarez. BOSS.
*PEACOCK STRUT WALK PERFORMED BY THE GAIJIN*
I guess Jiu Jitsu works okay after all.
Watching Fat Nog makes me sad, I don’t think he’ll ever be the same after the arm break. The Big Nog that had Mir on the verge of unconsciousness would have broken his foot off in Pee Wee’s ass and took his arm home with him in 3 minutes.