Rich Hansen's Take
THE MMA BLOWTORCH: MMA for Newbs Part Three - The secondary MMA promotions in the U.S.
Jul 18, 2010 - 11:27:28 AM THE MMA BLOWTORCH: MMA for Newbs Part Three - The secondary MMA promotions in the U.S.

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By: Rich Hansen, MMATorch Contributor

To follow along with the series, check out part two: The Fall and Rise of Zuffa.

The UFC is the dominant national MMA promotion here in the States, but they aren’t the only national promotion operating here, as the past few years have seen other organizations come and go as well. In this piece, I am going to talk about the two organizations operating currently (Strikeforce and Bellator Fighting Championships), and one of the companies that has gone belly up (EliteXC). And the only reason I am going to talk about EliteXC is because they do have a couple of enduring legacies, namely CBS/Showtime and Strikeforce.

In early 2005, with the success of The Ultimate Fighter, the UFC became cool once again. But this time, they became the ‘it’ thing and they were practically printing money. So, of course, pale imitators had to horn in on that market. Many tried, many failed. Some failed with nary a whimper, some failed with a bang. And then some failed in an Elite manner.

I’ll be brief in discussing EliteXC, because the goal of the series isn’t to be a comprehensive history of MMA. If that’s what you’re looking, go to amazon and type in “Snowden” in the search box. Elite was formed in December 2006, with their first card taking place in February 2007. The main card aired on Showtime, which made this the first card to be aired on a premium cable channel. It was also the first card to feature a female fight.

Elite put on a dozen or so fight cards in a year, and lost so much money that they single-handedly started the recession. But, on May 31, 2008, EliteXC made it to the hallowed ground; network television. EliteXC: Primetime was one of the most historic cards in MMA history, as it was the first card to be aired on network television.

The card was an unqualified success. More than six million people watched the main event between Kimbo Slice and some guy named James Thompson. I’m consciously not writing about Kimbo very often because, despite being a great guy, he’s just not that important.

Anyhow, Kimbo fought in the main event and won (barely), and his fight was seen by more people than any MMA fight in US television history. One of the important side notes was that Gina Carano became the first woman to win a fight on network television, putting on a highly entertaining fight against Kaitlin Young. Also, the best fight on the card was Robbie Lawler’s defense of the Middleweight title against Scott Smith. The fight was stopped in the third round due to Smith getting poked in the eye, and Since the fight didn’t make it through the third of five scheduled rounds, rules stated that it was to be deemed a no contest. That was a crying shame, because this was an excellent fight, one that millions of people saw and of which they would be salivating to see the rematch for.

Or maybe not.

Two months later Lawler and Smith main evented the second CBS card, and managed a staggering 43% ratings decrease. There were three clear reasons for the colossal drop in ratings:

1. A very weak card.
2. No Gina Carano
3. No Kimbo Slice

So let’s try again. A little over two months later we got to see Elite on CBS for the third time in four months. And we had Gina. And Kimbo. And former UFC Heavyweight Champion Andrei Arlovski, which was considered a major coup at the time for Elite. This was going to be not just a salvo across the bow of the UFC, but a direct hit.

And then Ken Shamrock dropped out of the main event with Kimbo on the day of the fight and was replaced by Seth Petruzelli, who was allegedly paid off by Elite to not take the fight to the ground. To which he said OK and knocked out Kimbo in 14 seconds and created a scandal that put the company out of business within three weeks.

Um, What?

OK, let’s try that again. Deep cleansing breath. On the day of the Kimbo fight, Ken Shamrock injured himself warming up for the fight. Six stitches later, he couldn’t fight. Desperate for a main event, Elite was able to salvage the situation by having UFC washout Seth Petruzelli take on Kimbo. It really seemed at the time to be the best out of a bad set of options. Petruzelli was scheduled to fight on the un-aired prelims at 205 lbs. And since Kimbo wasn’t a ginormous heavyweight, he wouldn’t be giving up a ton of weight. And Petruzelli had a shred of name recognition, as he was a fighter on Season Two of The Ultimate Fighter three years prior.

And then Petruzelli knocked Kimbo out in fourteen seconds. Elite’s cash cow had been exposed. That’s bad. Real bad. But recoverable.

And then Petruzelli six days later told an Orlando radio station, “The promoters kinda hinted to me and they gave me the money to stand and throw with him, they didn't want me to take him down. Let's just put it that way. It was worth my while to try and stand up punch him.” That’s bad. Real bad. Unrecoverable.

Essentially, Petruzelli told the world that Elite paid him off to not take the fight to the ground, where Kimbo would stand no chance. This led to cries of fight fixing, and scandal erupted. It didn’t matter that Petruzelli later clarified his statement by telling a variety of outlets that he was merely offered a potential KO bonus. The damage had been done. Showtime and CBS dropped Elite, and they were out of business. Just like that.

So it is very fair to spend a little time talking about Elite. Even if they did fail, they did manage to promote the most watched card, and the most watched fight, in US history. That’s part of Elite’s legacy. But Elite still has some lasting affects on today’s landscape, as in February of 2009, the Strikeforce promotion bought EliteXC’s assets in bankruptcy court. Strikeforce acquired Elite’s video library, along with contracts to Nick Diaz, Jake Shields, Scott Smith, and Robbie Lawler.

So, who the hell is Strikeforce? Glad you asked. Strikeforce was actually formed as a kickboxing promotion in California. They promoted regionally, and were plenty successful at it. Come 2006, they promoted their first MMA show, featuring former UFC legend Frank Shamrock. Strikeforce was content to build slowly, without gimmicks, and became the cool promotion amongst internet MMA fans. Rightfully so, mind you, as they rarely made a misstep. They were small, and promoted primarily in California. Most importantly, they garnered the respect of Dana White and the UFC, which kept Dana from trying to crush Strikeforce.

Strikeforce was willing to innovate. They did some co promotions with Elite. They did a show at the Playboy mansion, and streamed it online for free. That show did a million dollar gate. They also bought airtime on NBC, airing a highlights show a couple hours after Saturday Night Live went off the air. Poker and Strikeforce, woohoo!

Despite being on PPV on more than one occasion, and despite having some fights on Showtime during cards that they co-promoted with Elite, Strikeforce seemed content to be what they were, profitable and small. It wasn’t until October of 2008 that they put on a card outside of California.

One day after Strikeforce’s debut outside of California, the EliteXC debacle went down. Sixteen days after that, Elite was gone, leaving Strikeforce, regional kickboxing company turned California based MMA company, as the second biggest promotion in America. Strikeforce was rare to the MMA industry, as they were respected by everybody, and hated, even disliked, by nobody.

Even after they bought out the remaining shards of Elite, Dana White had nothing but praise for Scott Coker, head of Strikeforce, and of Strikeforce itself.

Even a week later when Strikeforce announced a partnership with Showtime and CBS to air twenty events a year, Dana White had nothing negative to say about Strikeforce. He hated Showtime (likely due to previous failed negotiations with the cable channel to air UFC bouts back in 2006-2007), but he was able to completely separate his contempt for Showtime with his respect for Scott Coker.

Strikeforce saw nice growth in early 2009. They were contracted to be on Showtime sixteen times per year, and eventually would put on four cards a year on CBS. It may not have been as ambitious as Elite was, but they had a business model and stuck to it, no matter the temptation. If there was a snake trying to convince them to take a bite off of any forbidden fruit, Scott Coker was able to resist the temptation to do so, and just let his company grow organically.

Then Fedor Emelianenko became a free agent and Coker signed him even though the UFC tried super duper hard to sign him, which led to Dana declaring war on Strikeforce and Strikeforce getting bent over a barrel by the Russian mob (allegedly); and now there’s little or no chance of Strikeforce being in business five years from now.

Wait. Slow down. What? OK, hey, sorry bout that, I got a little excited there. I’ll take another deep cleansing breath and try that again.

The gist of that rant was that Strikeforce managed to piss off the UFC by signing Russian Heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko. He became the big ticket free agent in the middle of 2009 when the promotion he fought for folded. The UFC had tried without success for weeks and even months to sign Fedor, but to no avail. Less then a week after those negotiations broke down, Strikeforce and Fedor agreed to terms. And about two seconds after the signing was announced, Dana White and the UFC declared war on Strikeforce.

The war has not gone well for Strikeforce. Without getting into it too deeply, Strikeforce is fighting a war on two fronts. One is with the UFC, who wants to destroy them with a nuclear bomb, and the other front is with the management team for Fedor who are trying to slowly kill Strikeforce with a million little paper cuts. I have written a ton about Strikeforce and Fedor, so once I finish with the backstory, please feel free to click here and read my opinions on all of this. That is why I’m doing this after all.

So anyhooooo, Strikeforce signed Fedor, and promptly announced that their first CBS card would feature Fedor in the main event. And the card was a smashing success. Fedor and Brett Rogers thrilled the suburban Chicago audience with a thrilling display of heart and power, with Fedor knocking out Rogers in the second round. It was a great night for Strikeforce, MMA, and fans of the sport. Almost 5.5 million people saw the main event, which was considered a huge success for Strikeforce.

From here it gets complicated. And anyone who tells you they have a full grip is full of it. In short, Strikeforce decided to do the slow build towards their biggest money fight (Fedor vs. Alistair Overeem, their heavyweight champion) by putting Fedor in against a top ten heavyweight named Fabricio Werdum. And on June 26, Werdum made Fedor tap out in the first round, handing Fedor the first true loss of his career.

There are about a million decisions that Strikeforce has made in the last 18 months or so, and it certainly seems that all of them have put Strikeforce on the wrong path. My running theory is that Strikeforce got sick of being recognized as the little brother, and they made an ambitious play to become a player. No shame in that. But Strikeforce currently comes across as a company with no direction.

Bellator Fighting Championships has a clear direction. The open question is whether or not they are going in a successful direction. Bellator primarily runs single elimination tournaments using young up and coming fighters. Their main problem is that they don’t have a good television contract, so they’re underexposed.

So yeah, other than Zuffa, MMA in the US is certainly a mixed bag with a legacy of failure, bankruptcy, and questionable decisions. Speaking of which, I’ll be writing about Japanese MMA next.