...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
There has been a mixture of pessimism and optimism when it comes to the continuation of Strikeforce on Showtime. With the current deal between the two entities coming to a close early in 2012, and no news yet to announce on their future together, fans and media alike are understandably left wondering what's going to happen.
On Tuesday, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker again expressed a belief that Strikeforce will continue, though once more there was nothing concrete to announce.
"I'm optimistic at this point," he said during a pre-event teleconference for next weekend's Strikeforce event in San Diego. "That's something that we'll have to just wait and see. I think things are going well and I think we'll have something to announce shortly, but right now, I have nothing official to announce."
Even though Strikeforce has lost a few of their more marquee names to the UFC, most notably divisional champions Nick Diaz, Dan Henderson, and Alistair Overeem, Coker still believes there is plenty for the organization left to offer as a separate entity from the UFC.
"In the history of Strikeforce since the relationship with Showtime was developed, we put on, I think, some of the best fights in the history of MMA," Coker said. "We've done our part to grow the sport, and that's going to continue."
"[There are] still a lot of great fighters on the roster. And we're going to keep building these fighters. We're going to continue putting on great fights. To me, that's not going to change. So everybody can tune into Showtime and watch in 2012, and we're going to put on some amazing, amazing fights."
Penick's Analysis: The signs are pointing to a renewal of the deal between Strikeforce and Showtime, if not a restructured new deal to keep the organization alive, but we're still in a spot where it could potentially go a number of directions, and until something gets finalized it's all simply speculation. If the organization does continue, there needs to be a distinction made about what type of promotion it's going to be. With the loss of a number of top fighters, the best course may be a shift to becoming a feeder league to the UFC; because if they continue and a fighter like Gilbert Melendez is stuck not coming to the UFC, there are going to be a lot of dissatisfied fans (and a dissatisfied Strikeforce Champ).
DON'T GO YET... WE SUGGEST THESE MMATORCH ARTICLES, TOO!
Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
Interested in joining MMATorch's writing team? Send idea for a theme to your column (for Specialist section) or area of interest (i.e. TV Reporter) along with a sample of writing to mmatorch@gmail.com.
