The State of Strikeforce
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Now that the dust has settled in the wake of this past
Saturday’s Strikeforce event in San
Jose, California it is
hard to rule the event anything but a huge success for the company.
Those that were skeptical of two women headlining a
show from members of the media to critical fans of the sport and even fighters
on the actual card were all silenced when the numbers came in on Tuesday
afternoon with an amazing 856,000 viewers tuning into the main event on
Showtime (the highest rated MMA fight in Showtime history).
The fight was an exciting 4:59 of action where the two
personalities were so ‘over’ to the San
Jose audience that the slightest bit of offense was
guaranteed to generate a massive response. The audience was clamoring for a Carano
victory and despite the fight stopped in the fashion it was, I didn’t feel this
fight at all diminished the talents nor drawing ability of Carano moving
forward (despite that backwards thinking writers that have added the ‘Kimbo’
tag to Carano). The reality of the situation is that a rematch between these
two will be even bigger than the first fight and should be saved by Strikeforce
for a bigger platform for either network television or pay per view in the U.S
(the show did air on PPV in Canada,
however numbers are not available).
Strikeforce is in a very unique spot right now as three
of their four biggest active stars right now (Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos, Fedor
Emelianenko and Gegard Mousasi) are foreign talent that do not possess the standard
‘charisma’ that generally connects with a North American audience. These are
three talents whose skills are their biggest asset and all have a unique
ability to connect in their own right through this avenue. We have seen in
boxing how difficult it has been for foreign talent to draw on this side of the
ocean with the state of the heavyweight division being a prime example of this
and the supposed ‘need’ to have a strong American heavyweight in the division
to draw.
In the case of Cyborg, she is going to need the right
opponent in order to deliver the type of numbers expected from her. No one in
female MMA aside from Gina Carano is going to be able to duplicate the audience
that was done this past Saturday and that is why a heavy focus needs to be
placed on other women during this developmental phase in women’s mixed martial
arts and get fans accustomed with names such as Tara LaRosa, Erin Toughill,
Marloes Coenen, Sarah Kaufman and Kaitlin Young.
In the case of Carano, the woman is so marketable and
so popular right now that putting her in the cage with anyone is going to do
very well especially now that you have the story to tell of Carano recovering
from her first loss and how she responds. In a perfect world a deal is struck
with CBS for an early 2010 broadcast and you can get Cyborg and Carano set for
that show and the audience and publicity leading into that rematch will dwarf
that of this past fight.
Fedor Emelianenko is the wildcat in the Strikeforce
mix. Cyborg and Carano have one another as a natural feud that people are
willing to pay to see but the opponents the general public are salivating to
see Fedor fight are locked up with the UFC. There is no gigantic demand to see
Fedor fight Alistair Overeem, Brett Rogers or Fabricio Werdum. The first fight
by Fedor will be the easiest to promote because you are introducing him to a
new audience and the allure of just seeing Fedor fight may be enough.
Affliction did an adequate but not great job promoting Fedor and still
generated approximately 100,000 buys per fight with ‘The Last Emperor’ with his
fights with Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, who at least were bringing years of
UFC exposure to the table, something that none of the Strikeforce heavyweights
have in their back pocket. If promoted correctly a build to a Fedor Vs Overeem
fight for the title could do moderate business but I don’t see that doing more
than either the Sylvia or Arlovski fights and would need a strong co-feature to
draw with if it were to go the pay per view route.
Gegard Mousasi had a star making performance this past
Saturday night where he made Renato Babalu Sobral look out of his depth with
the 24-year old phenom. Mousasi could be the key to opening up Strikeforce’s
relatively thin light heavyweight division and putting a star in that division.
The problem is depth and finding talent to match with Mousasi that the general
public will buy into.
As a fan, I’m very excited about some of the upcoming
possibilities for the promotion but conversely as someone that has followed
every promotion that decided to run before they could walk I am always leery of
promotions getting too ambitious too quickly. Next year Strikeforce plans to
run 18 shows between their big cards and their Challenger Series events, which
is a huge undertaking for this promotion. The three stars listed above have to
be able to carry their own weight in this promotion in 2010 along with Nick
Diaz while question marks surround the futures of Cung Le and Frank Shamrock
and to a degree talent such as Jake Shields and Robbie Lawler becoming draws.
Scott Coker and company have put a ton on the table
and the next 12-months will prove what the returns on investment will be to
create a viable alternative national promotion in the Mixed Martial Arts
landscape.
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