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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
The "will it or won't it happen" middleweight tournament for Strikeforce is apparently still in the works, as Sherdog.com reports that the organization is moving forward with an eight man tournament, and expect to have it begin in October.
"We always felt that crowning a champion would be the first priority,” said Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker in the report. “We will host a tournament in October. It looks like the first round will take place then, which will lead to the final four in December."
They are then planning on finishing up the final four in a one night tournament in December. That would likely take place in California, as that state's commission approved a four-man, one-night tournament for the organization in 2007.
Tim Kennedy and Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza will face off next month on Showtime to crown the next Middleweight Champion after the departure of Jake Shields, and the winner of this tournament would then be the #1 contender.
Per the report, Robbie Lawler, Melvin Manhoef, Kazuo Misaki, Luke Rockhold, Jason “Mayhem” Miller and current Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz are among those in consideration for slots in this tournament.
Penick's Analysis: I'm not sure why they have this desire to put a bunch of tournaments on all of a sudden; perhaps they're trying to find something to differentiate themselves more, and a four man, one night tournament would certainly do so.
But, as Rich Hansen has pointed out in our Sunday Conversation Livecast over the last few weeks, a tournament simply ensures that seven prospective challengers for the title find themselves with a recent loss on their records. And filling it out with your Welterweight Champion means that the 170 lb. division gets put on hold for longer as well.
It comes back to them needing to decide what they are as an organization. If they just want to put on entertaining fights then put guys in fights in any division you want; but you can't try to sell these divisions as legitimate if you don't have the titles defended against deserving challengers, and if you don't even have challengers in a division to lead your Champion into fighting out of the division.
RELATED STORY: STRIKEFORCE NEWS: Planned middleweight tournament for August thwarted by Texas regulating body: [CLICK TO READ FULL ARTICLE]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
STAFF COLUMNISTS: Shawn Ennis - Jason Amadi
Frank Hyden - Rich Hansen
Chris Park - Matt Pelkey
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