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Cross-promotion isn't entirely new in the world where the martial arts are mixed, but it's largely undone these days among top promotions. The UFC has come under fire from fans and media alike for their unwillingness to venture into such practice, and perhaps rightfully so. While the business aspects of such a venture are obviously complex and often go unmentioned by fans, we all are entitled to our opinions, and more importantly, we all dream of super fights.
Luckily, the discussion over whether or not cross-promotion is a prudent practice can cease, for the most part at least. These days, StrikeForce and DREAM have forged a cross-promotional alliance but let's face facts; this is an alliance of absolute necessity. DREAM just crowned a welterweight champion (more on that later), they have no 205lb champion, no heavyweight champion, and their middleweight champion (Gegard Mousasi) decided he no longer cares to fight at that weight.
StrikeForce just crowned a welterweight champion (more on that later), they have a barren lightweight division (albeit with a very solid champion), they essentially have no light heavyweight division outside of “King Mo” Lawlal and champion Gegard Mousasi, but their middleweight division is very strong, their heavyweight division is going places. Obviously these two companies need each other.
However, in practice, this is appearing to be a nightmare for DREAM. On the last StrikeForce card, the newly crowned DREAM Welterweight Champion, Marius Zaromskis, was absolutely decimated by newly crowned StrikeForce Welterweight Champion. It sounded like a great fight in theory, but it was a pretty dominant performance by Diaz, and Diaz has already scoffed at the notion of having his first defense be against DREAM's Hayato Sakurai, who is coming off two consecutive losses.
The Sakurai-Diaz fight, for the record, was proposed by Scott Coker as opposed to giving Jay Hieron the title shot against Diaz he was promised when he signed with StrikeForce in August of 2009. What is going on here? I think it's fairly safe to say that someone somewhere doesn't like Jay Hieron.
On the same card, one of DREAM's most feared strikers was knocked out cold by another StrikeForce fighter, Robbie Lawler. With the talk now being Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki, for sometime in the spring, if I were DREAM, I'd think twice about buying Aoki that plane ticket just yet.
The biggest problem with how this relationship has gone thus far is that it's fairly one-sided. If Gilbert Melendez defeats Aoki (I don't believe that belt is for the DREAM LW championship), then DREAM's only two championships substantially diminish in prestige substantially. One could only imagine what would happen if the UFC engaged in dealings the way StrikeForce has gone about it.
StrikeForce hasn't sent any of its fighters to DREAM, who didn't already compete there. With DREAM planning to hold a 205lb Grand Prix to crown a champion in that weight class, perhaps they could send over Renato "Babalu" Sobral, or Gegard Mousasi, but they really don't have much to provide DREAM with outside of those two, and perhaps "King Mo" Lawal.
If cross-promotion is the future of MMA, it would obviously work best right away if it were two huge companies doing a series of super fights, not unlike the idea that the UFC and PRIDE were flirting with, until PRIDE spurned the UFC. With this much instability with DREAM and StrikeForce, it will be interesting to see how much the partnership pays off for DREAM, and how much wins and losses hurt rosters.
[Gegard Mousasi photo provided to MMATorch from Strikeforce]
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