Strikeforce's Laughable Heavyweight Tourney

Michael David Smith wrote that “With Matchmaking, UFC Plays Chess While Others Play Checkers”.  In this case Strikeforce is playing Tic Tac Toe, and not even playing to a draw. They are having a three-round heavyweight tournament with their top eight heavyweight fighters, including Fedor, Overeem and Werdum, but only one of those fighters will fight three times because they are all on the same side of the bracket.

Fedor, Werdum and Overeem are most likely the top three fighters in the organization.  (For the record, we’re still not sold on Werdum. In our view he got lucky against Fedor and that Overeem is going to stand back and punch and kick him for about a minute before the fight is over. But every MMA ranking on the planet disagrees with us, so I guess we’ll have to see what the bettors of the world think when the odds are posted.) Either Barnett or Bigfoot is likely the fourth best.

Scott Coker says he wants exciting fights in every round-  If that’s the case, why is he having two of his best fighters clash in the first round?

What it appears is that he needs to make a lot of money on the first round so that he can afford the second round. If someone who wasn’t insane (or out of cash) was setting up this tournament, he would match up the best fighters (guys on the left) against the worst fighters (guys on the right), in the first round.

This isn’t rocket science, the NCAA does it every year and even the females in the office pool understand the general principle. You want to increase the chances that your marquee fighters get three fights. None of these guys are complete slouches, but it still doesn’t make any sense.

Another reason this doesn’t make any sense is that these are almost all the fighters that Strikeforce has in the heavyweight division, and most of these guys have already fought each other before.  By the end of the tournament, there is unlikely to be any matchup left that anyone would pay to see.  For example, let’s say Overeem wins the whole thing by beating Werdum, Fedor and Barnett.  Who is ever going to pay to watch him fight any of these other guys?

Another reason a short tournament is a terrible idea is that the point of this sport is to injure your opponent. Fighters regularly are given long medical suspensions by the various regulatory bodies. The Heavyweight division is notoriously thin. There are only so many giant human beings out there who are skilled fighters and of them, many are in the UFC.

The alternates for this tournament are even less decorated than the right side of the bracket. Lavar Johnson and Shane Del Rosario have both never fought quality competition. What if someone gets injured in the second round and still manages to win? Is Lavar Johnson going to fight for the strap?

If Strikeforce actually cared about the legitimacy of the belt, they would wait for the winner to heal. The only reason to use an alternate is if they are so short on cash that a six month delay would bankrupt them.

Another extremely fishy point is that Coker wants all the fights to be five rounds.  Having two hundred fifty pound men beat up on each other for three rounds and expecting them to fight again shortly thereafter is stupid.  Five rounds is insane. The only benefit of five round fights is that they don’t have to pay as many guys to fill up a pay-per-view card.

Another issue is drug testing. Barnett has already tested positive thrice. Not the sort of guy you want to count on for a tournament. Sure, he’s testing clean now, but what about if he tests positive before the third fight? Which loser do you bring back? Or do you just bring in an alternate?

Any upsets could also be disastrous. Werdum has beaten a (significantly smaller) Overeem before. While I expect Overeem to punch Werdum’s head off and not bother to fall into his guard like Fedor did, Werdum could pull off a submission.  Bigfoot’s boxing looked pretty crisp in his fight against (Freddie Roach -Trained) Arlovski and Fedor suddenly looks mortal. If they both lost in the first round, one is left with a pretty lackluster field.

For the record, here is what Scott Coker has to say on the matter:

“Very rarely in a tournament does it ever work out where the last two guys are the guys everyone wants to see fight. So I said to my guys, ‘What about this scenario: let them fight in the semi-finals, and let them get it on, and whoever wins moves forward.’ …Let’s say Fedor does get past ‘Bigfoot’ and then Alistair wins that fight, then we’re guaranteed to see a big fight.”

This is one of the most dishonest statements we’ve seen come out of a CEO’s mouth since Lehman went under. Sure that’s the fight that everyone wants to see. Another way to make it happen would be to just have them fight each other because you are the CEO of Strikeforce (although it usually seems like Fedor and Overeem have more say than he does).

Then again the left side of the bracket are the fights that should have happened anyway if they didn’t have the tournament. Overeem fights the number one contender, then the winner of Fedor-Bigfoot, then the best of a bad lot.  Even if this is just some slick marketing to make a bunch of bad fights meaningful, it is ridiculous to have the Finale be the winner of the competitive bracket versus, at best, the fifth best fighter in the organization.

Let’s face it. Strikeforce tried to compete with the UFC and they have failed miserably.  Their other weight classes are barren. Even Sherdog, which has always been inexplicably generous to their fighters in the rankings, has been ranking their non-heavyweight champions 8 or 9 in their respective weight classes. Their best upcoming matchup is Nick Diaz against Evangelista “Same Stupid Nickname as My Wife” Santos.

The only other division with decent fighters that Strikeforce has is the ladies’ division, in which Mr. Santos’ wife has been demolishing opponents with the same amount of suspense as when the UCONN Lady Huskies play an opponent that is not in the top three.

In short, all signs point to Strikeforce being completely done for after this tournament is over. Hopefully their decent fighters will then sign with the UFC and we can stop paying for so many pay-per-views and see if any of these guys are really any good.  It was nice while it lasted, but I think what we are about to see is what the business world calls an “orderly winding down.”