...OH, ONE MORE THING - PLEASE BOOKMARK US & VISIT DAILY!
By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
For much of 2010, Strikeforce openly discussed their desire to put on a tournament in the middleweight division after Champion Jake Shields jumped ship to the UFC and left the belt vacated. But the tournament never came to fruition, a number of middleweight bouts were booked spread across several cards and they crowned a new Champion in Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza.
Now the tournament is officially dead, as Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker confirmed to MMAWeekly.com that they are no longer going forward with the idea.
"We were hoping it would happen, but it didn't happen, and we're happy with Jacare being our world champion," Coker said. "I think he's a great representative and a great fighter."
The report stated that problems with the athletic commissions, among other things, in putting on a one night tournament caused the promotion to scrap the plans. The plan now, according to Coker, is to put together a number of middleweight fights before February of 2011 to determine the next challenger to "Jacare."
Penick's Analysis: The way they kept talking about it, it was clear this tournament was never coming to fruition. First it was going to happen in August, then in October, then in December, and nothing ever came of it. The only issue with that is Strikeforce kept talking about it. Had they simply not said anything until it was a done deal there wouldn't be any criticisms on the situation, but once again they bring scrutiny on themselves by constantly making statements such as, "we'll have an announcement on that in a couple of weeks" when no announcement is forthcoming. It extends to a lot of their public comments and the situations that arise in that area, and there are going to still be some that are disappointed a tournament isn't happening.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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