The first round of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix was a couple of weeks ago and it was well received and provided a vicious knockout of former UFC Champ Andrei Arlovski by Pride veteran Sergei Kharitonov, as well as the incredible upset of Fedor Emelianenko by Antonio "Big Foot" Silva. It was the second loss in a row for Fedor, both coming after ten straight years without a loss. After the excitement delivered by these two fights, Strikeforce was gaining quite a bit of momentum. The next installment of the tournament was supposed to feature Strikeforce Heavyweight Champion Alistair Overeem against the man who beat him five years ago and beat Fedor in June, Fabricio Werdum. The other fight would pit perennial top ranked heavyweight Josh Barnett against Brett Rogers. The date was supposed to be on April 9, 2010 and all the card needed was a venue.
Now, Strikeforce has decided to postpone the tournament until June 18 and is instead going to have a welterweight title bout between Nick Diaz, who just fought for Strikeforce in late January, and UFC castoff Paul Daley on April 9. Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said that this gives them more time to promote the fights and sets up for the semi-finals to be in September and the finals in December. Coker is delusional.
This puts the winners from the first batch of fights on hold for seven months, a rather long layoff for fighters. This also gives the winners of the potential June fights a pretty short layoff of about two months, dependent on health issues. If a winner isn't allowed to fight for medical concerns, then the next round wouldn't be able to happen until October and would push the finals into next year, a year after the tournament started.
Coker is also mistaken in thinking the extra time to promote it is a good thing. There was a ton of buzz after the first fights and Strikeforce is crazy not to take advantage of that immediately. They will never top the UFC, but they can be a solid second source for mixed martial arts. The heavyweight Grand Prix was something different that the UFC would never use, so it set Strikeforce apart as something besides a place for prospects and UFC castoffs. It makes so much more sense to roll the momentum from the February fights into the early April ones. If those went well, they could have done the semi-finals in late summer/early fall and the finals in December with ease.
Instead, Strikeforce is going to have to compete with the UFC during their peak season. June should see a Brock Lesnar fight; a potential light heavyweight title match involving a combination of Shogun Rua, Jon Jones, Rashad Evans, and Rampage Jackson; the UFC's first card in Brazil in the Zuffa era; and a possible Anderson Silva-GSP fight. Strikeforce is going to be lost in the shuffle of the annual summer MMA dominance of the UFC. By running the Grand Prix in early April, late-August/early September, and early/mid-December, Strikeforce could be running with minimal opposition.
Strikeforce has the opportunity to do something special to set it apart from the UFC for a spell. They have a heavyweight division that is arguably as good as that in the UFC and if they were running the Grand Prix more coherently (I didn't even get into the absurd rules and injury replacements), could do something really special for the sport. Even Dana White said he was intrigued by the tournament, and that dude never gives compliments to the opposition. If you can't take advantage of a situation where the man who tries to run every competitor into the ground is interested in what you're doing, there is something seriously wrong. Strikeforce is blowing it.
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