Starting in 2012, UFC parent company Zuffa and Showtime Networks are wiping the slate virtually clean and rebranding a promotion that was until recently thought to be dying.
The companies today announced a new broadcast partnership they hope will not only revive Strikeforce in the coming year but bring it to parity with the UFC as the industry-leader continues to beef up its 2012 schedule.
"This thing is dialed in perfectly now for success," UFC president Dana White told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "When we had the Challengers series and all these other fights that had to be done, the thing was set up to fail."
Much of the negativity that surrounded Strikeforce in the months leading up to the new deal was in relation to White's enmity toward the former head honcho at Showtime's fight operations, Ken Hershman.
While White expressed a desire to keep the promotion alive, it seemed doubtful that the two could agree to work together in the event they renewed a previous broadcast deal stretching into 2014. And with the exodus of several Strikeforce champions to the UFC, many fans thought the promotion to be a car being stripped for parts. An event in September featuring the semifinals of Strikeforce's heavyweight grand prix drew was a commercial disappointment, and many fighters expressed a desire to leave for octagon pastures.
But when Hershman left the network to take a similar role at HBO, the tide turned. Stephen Espinoza, a former attorney at boxing promotion Golden Boy Promotions, took the reigns of day-to-day operations at Showtime. White admitted a meeting shortly thereafter with the new executive and his Showtime staff likely saved the broadcast partnership.
"Obviously, it didn't go well when it was (under the old regime)," White said. "It probably wouldn't have (continued). But listen, let's just cut the [expletive]. Me and Ken Hershman aren't fans of each other. He's not a fan of mine, I'm not a fan of his. He's not there any more, I flew out there, I liked these guys – we did a deal. Period. End of story."
During today's announcement, executives from Zuffa, Strikeforce and Showtime detailed the new partnership and what it entails for the former kickboxing promotion's future, which currently is set for between six and eight events on the premium cable channel (as well as on Super Channel in Canada).
New year, new look
Espinoza said a four-hour block of time will be allocated to Strikeforce events in 2012, which includes preliminary card fights broadcast on Showtime Extreme and main-card fights broadcast on the flagship channel.
"We thought it made more sense for the consistency of the production ... that we do it all and make it one huge night of programming," he said.
It's undecided whether what next year's events will be called. Previously, the promotion divided events into two categories, that of major events and up-and-comer shows known as the "Challengers" series.
What will stay the same is the broadcast team. Commentators Gus Johnson, Mauro Renallo, Stephen Quadros and Pat Miletich will call the fights in various combinations as the year progresses.
White said that while he didn't dislike the look of the show in the nine months since his company acquired Strikeforce, he planned to be involved in the production moving forward.
"I'm comfortable with what they're doing, but I am involved," he said. "(Showtime executive) Dave Dinkins and I are going to sit down here in Las Vegas and we're going to walk through some things and make some changes and do some fun stuff.
"This isn't an ego competition. It's two guys who are passionate about what they do wanting to make the show the best it could possibly be.
The possibility of pay-per-view, long a goal of Strikeforce's previous incarnation, has not been squashed, though it appears unlikely any time soon.
"I would never say never to pay-per-view, but we did this deal with Showtime to put the fights on Showtime," White said. "Who knows? There could be an opportunity where us and Showtime think we could do a pay-per-view and a fight should be a pay-per-view. Maybe we would. I'm not saying we would or we wouldn't."
Additionally, White said he expects "Fight Night" bonuses seen in the UFC will make their way to Strikeforce.
Cutting weight
In an effort to streamline the promotion's focus, the heavyweight division will be disbanded.
"You guys have heard me say this for years: Heavyweight divisions aren't deep enough to create this huge division," White said. "So we're going to focus on the weight divisions that are strong."
Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said the finals of the heavyweight grand prix will take place in late first quarter of next year, likely March, and the winner of that fight will be paired with another top heavyweight for one last big-man bout on Showtime. A timetable for that fight has not been established.
Although details on the status of the final bout are unclear, all signs point to the bout as a non-title affair. White doesn't know where the promotion's displaced heavyweights will end up.
"Showtime wanted to have their grand prix finish, then have the grand prix winner fight one more time," White said. "I think they're looking at it that they made this investment in the heavyweight tournament, and they wanted to have another heavyweight fight before the division went away."
The remainder of Strikeforce divisions will continue to operate as usual, including the women's bantamweight and featherweight classes. While the promotion's event schedule has been effectively halved from its previous two years on Showtime, White said the fighter rosters will not contract.
"Not only will we be able to keep the roster, we'll be able to sign more guys," he said.
And while that's imperative task for the women's featherweight division in which champ Cristiane 'Cyborg' Santos, who this weekend fights Hiroko Yamanaka at "Strikeforce: Meldendez vs. Masvidal," has been virtually unchallenged, she won't be going anywhere.
"She's a huge star, she's the champion, we're going to keep that division," White said. "People are excited to see her fight, so we're going to keep it."
Crossovers
With several Strikeforce champions having crossed over into the UFC, many fans and observers have wondered about that possibility for those top-ranked fighters who haven't yet made the trip.
Chief among them is current lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, who this Saturday faces Jorge Masvidal in what could be his third title defense. Melendez has expressed a strong desire to fight in the UFC, and White previously has encouraged the possibility.
However, with the new broadcast deal on the horizon, that prospect seems to have dimmed. White said today that for now, Melendez is staying put.
"I can tell you this: Gilbert Melendez is pumped to stay in Strikeforce," he said. "He's one of the big stars in Strikeforce. If he wins his next fight and his next fight after that he will continue to defend his belt in Strikeforce, and he's absolutely [expletive] excited about it, just so you know."
But he also hinted that the line between Strikeforce and UFC could be porous down the line.
"There could always be a situation where a guy left the UFC, but he's won his last three or four fights, and he gets into Strikeforce, or another guy gets into the UFC," White said. "We're running both companies, and both companies are looking for the same thing: the best fighters in the world."
B-League or major league rival?
Perhaps the most important question of all in Strikeforce's future is how to change its perception as a second-tier promotion. All of the executives involved in the announcement stressed that opinions would change in the next year as Strikeforce got out from beneath its cloud of uncertainty.
White said the promotions had the same goal of recruiting top-tier talent, though it's unclear how exactly that talent will be divided between them.
"There's nothing wrong with being a feeder league, but that's not what this thing is designed to be," White said. "Watch and see what we do over the next year with Strikeforce, and you watch the talent that's built over there. The definition of feeder league, to me, would be when guys lose, you go back to the minor leagues, meaning you have to go back down to Strikeforce and we bring you back up. When you lose in the UFC, you go somewhere else and you fight. [Strikeforce] is not going to be a feeder league."
When the events schedule ramps up, he expects the same kind of inter-promotional loyalties to develop between fans and keep both promotions vital.
"You're going to have the people who fall on either side," White said. "This guy would beat that guy in the UFC. That guy in the UFC would beat this guy in Strikeforce. I mean, I've got these lunatics thinking that these guys in Japan can win fights over here, for Christ's sake."
White even made the stretch that a Strikeforce fighter could be considered the best in the world. Although cross-promotional battles don't appear to be on the table for now, he expects the fans to create those scenarios in the usual course of fantasy matchmaking.
"Yeah, it's possible," he said when asked if someone like Melendez could be considered superior to UFC lightweight champ Frankie Edgar. "We're going after the best talent available. There's only one way to find out who's better, and that's to fight."
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