Penick's Take
PENICK: Three Title bouts a tricky situation for Strikeforce on CBS on April 17th
Mar 2, 2010 - 7:08:57 PM PENICK: Three Title bouts a tricky situation for Strikeforce on CBS on April 17th

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Strikeforce's April 17th event on CBS is now official, and with three Title bouts scheduled for the two hour broadcast they will in all likelihood be the only fights on the card that night. This presents an interesting situation for Strikeforce, as there are a number of things that could happen during these three fights that could make things difficult for their two-hour timeslot.

For starters, there is the issue of unaired prelims to fill time. This is a practice Strikeforce has not to date taken part in, instead ending more than one event early and abruptly after all of the bouts had been completed. If one, two or even three of these fights end within the first three rounds or earlier, which with these matchups it is absolutely a possibility, there is going to be time to fill on the CBS card. With Strikeforce not airing any of their earlier bouts fans may be disappointed with only three quick fights on the full broadcast.

The issue on the other end of the spectrum, of course, will be what happens if all three fights go to a decision. With each taking up 25 minutes of fight time, not including the time between rounds and the entrances and fighter announcements, there's not a chance all are finished in the two hours of allotted time. Strikeforce had issues with the timing of their last event on CBS, with the Fedor vs. Brett Rogers bout taking place entirely in the overrun past their timeslot.

That's the scenario the UFC ran into the first time they ran an event in Las Vegas, where they booked three Title fights as well, all of them going to a decision. The main event cut out before the fight was over as the show had run over its pay-per-view time. This event on CBS has some more leeway being that it is on network television, but they had issues with going over time in November and it could be a problem with CBS this time around as well if it happens.

If Strikeforce and CBS aren't going to plan on airing any of the bouts from the undercard, one solution would be to have one or two bouts on standby to fight in between the Title bouts should they end early. Now, these would need to be clearly standby bouts, and the fighters should be warned ahead of time that they may not fight. They don't need another situation like in Chicago last November, where Mark Miller and Deray Davis had their bout scrapped at the last minute with no warning from the organization.

If they can have a contingency plan in place for if the fights end early it will help the broadcast move along smoothly without sacrificing air time and ending their second event abruptly. Now, if their three scheduled fights go the distance there won't be anything they can do about going over the time scheduled, but if that ends up the case they'll have a different issue between themselves and CBS to deal with.

All of the time issues aside, these are three great bouts for this card, and well worth being the only ones scheduled for the night if Strikeforce doesn't add a fourth bout. If the Henderson vs. Shields Middleweight Title bout proves to be a worthy enough draw, fans tuning in to the CBS broadcast will have their eyes opened to the stylings of Gegard Mousasi for the second time, and for the first time millions in the U.S. will see Shinya Aoki fight in a U.S. based promotion against Gilbert Melendez. That fight alone is worth tuning in to see, but the other two make this a very good CBS card overall, and if they're able to pull close to the number of viewers they pulled in November it will help them get another event on the network.