payneNglory1 Mon Dec 06, 2010 9:48 pm
I'm not trying to come off as I'm putting Strikeforce down and bigging up the UFC because once the fights start I don't care what promotion they are under,a fights a fight and i'll be watching it.
I really enjoyed watching the vicious card of KO's that strikeforce put on the other night,but for me it's all about what you want to see from the sport.
I love to watch KO's as much as the next guy,but from a sporting side I also like to watch the UFC put out evenly matched guys,the only down side with this is obviously you tend to get more fights that because there skills are evenly matched,they can cancel each other out and you end up with more of a chess match and more fights going to decisions,but I personally can still really enjoy fights that go to the judges,infact alot of times they are the best fights.
I loved watching BJ KO Hughes the other week but I did feel slightly robbed of a good fight straight afterwards.
The UFC could easily put out a card with as many spectacular KO's if they matched guys like strikeforce mostly have,skill wise,like Rampage vs Krystof,Shogun vs Vera,Belfort v Rivera,Anderson vs Leban (as we already saw),Forest vs Carwin(thats my Bigfoot - Kyle comparison),well you get what I mean.
I'm sure we would all really enjoy all those fights aswell,(even though the UFC would get aload of shit for making these fights from a good section of fans because of the mismatches)because even though we would all easily be able to pick the winners,the better fighters would look great doing there thing and we would be guaranteed to see KO's.(ala the old Pride days)
They are the kind of fights that strikeforce have mostly put out over the last year,fights that are very easy to predict(did anyone actually get any of the Strikeforce predictions wrong?) because one fighter is usually that much better than the other.
But the beauty with these mismatched fights for us fans is that you are so much more likely to see more spectacular performances and more KO's.
I'm happy to watch both,but because IMO Strikeforce fights are so much easier to predict because of the usual gap in standard between there fighters,it's usually not a case of who's going to win but more of a case of what rd are they going to finish them in.
As i said this is no knock on strikeforce because there are loads of reasons why they have to do it this way alot of the times,be it because of a smaller roster or they just can't tie certain fighters down to certain dates or that's just the direction they want to go because they are the kind of results that will get them more interest.(how many fans got interested in Pride after watching Cro-cop Ko'ing weaker fighters,).
Both are fun to watch for me,but for me,because the UFC has already built up there fan base,they are now trying to make the sport more legit by trying to keep there match up's evenly ranked,while Strikeforce are still trying to attract an audience,so they are trying to attract the average fan by going more down the Pride route with more mismatches which will end up with more spectacular results,one sided beatdowns and spectacular KO's.
I think it's a really smart route for them to take personally,but obviously they and their fighters will also get some stick about there legitimacy if they end up with to many easy(for where they are ranked at the time) match ups on there records.
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