Strikeforce is an MMA organization run by Scott Coker and other competent MMA executives. Strikefarce is an MMA organization run by Showtime. It lacks direction and a general understanding of all things MMA.

On Saturday night Strikefarce showed up.

Saturday nights card was a mess. The decision to keep Riggs/Hieron off the card was to be supplemented by the availability to stream the fight live on EASports.com, unfortunately EA dropped the ball in a big way. The stream was awful, often taking minutes to buffer. It the fight did end up loading at all it was at least several minutes behind the live action and of course you were subjected to an endless amount of EA ads and had to sign up for an EA Newsletter to even have the opportunity to not watch the fight. Its 2010 streaming video is nothing new, this isn’t something that should have been an issue. That set the tone for the night. The wait between fights was almost unbearable, it took almost 20 minutes for the first fight to begin, the prelims ran long, and at the end of the night even though time remained Showtime opted not to show the Heiron/Riggs fight.

This of course wasn’t even Strikefarces biggest problem. For the most part the actual card was a joke. Sims/Lashey was an old school WWE squash match. Why the good people at Showtime 86′d other opponents in favor of Sims is beyond me. The logic of “Sims is a name fighter” is silly.  People are tuning in for Lashley and not Sims. Its not just the fans that suffer from these decisions, its the fighters as well.  The Sherdog radio show had a great line that sums it up “in terms of cage time Lashley would have been better off going to ATT for 3 hours.  He would have learned more.”  Lashley is no more green then he was three days ago, when you couple that was the ridiculous expectations people have for him its a recipe for disaster.

Later in the evening we saw Herschel Walkers debut.  While I don’t want to take anything away from the man let’s not rush to anoint him. He’s 47 and beat a guy that can barely walk and chew gum at the same time.  The caliber of this fight was even less then you’d see at local MMA events across the country.  The appeal of Walker is obvious, there’s no other way Strikeforce gets on the ESPN ticker, but continuing to put him on the main card is a slap in the face to the MMA community. You show Walker but, you don’t show top welterweight Jay Hieron.  This is going to urk more then a few people.

Somewhere along the way Strikeforce came across a fork in the road and went down a bad path.

When Strikeforce started I didn’t believe they’d make it two years. Then I attended Fedors open workout in New York City. It blew my mind. Here was an event with a foreign fighter who lacked American exposure, in a state where MMA is illegal, that wasn’t well advertised.  I thought maybe a hundred or so people would show.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The line wrapped around a city block and then some.  For all the chaos the could have resulted the event was well handled.  Not only did I get to see the worlds best heavyweight workout but I got an autograph as well.  The most incredible part was how accessible everyone was . While I was staring longingly at Fedor, Anthony was talking to a guy in a suit who from afar I didn’t recognize. When I got closer I realized it was Scott Coker.  Here was the CEO of Strikeforce just chillin with the fans. He even answered every single question we had, no red tape, no B.S. his answers were sincere and straightforward.

Here was a confident, knowledgeable MMA business man who had a plan. He knew what it would take to build Strikefroce into a contender.  How did we go from that to Strikefarce?

Showtime.

This is why Dana White hasn’t been able to get a network deal done. This is why in any deal he will demand total control.  Showtime is killing Strikeforce. You can’t have outsiders attempting to book an MMA event.  That’s how you end up paying Wes Sims 30k and having Mike Whitehead open a card. The Showtime execs are trying to market a product but are falling flat on their face because they don’t understand their audience. They see Sims and see a funny former UFC fighter and assume that makes him relevant.  Just like they saw Mike Whitehead, former Ultimate Fighter contestant, and Kevin Randleman, former UFC Champion, and assumed people would want to see that fight. I can only imagine that if Mac Danzig gets cut from the UFC, Strikeforce will sign him, he is a former TUF winner after all.

The other major problem Strikeforce has is getting fighters they have signed in fights and in the public eye.  Did you know that KJ Noons and Vitor Ribeirio were both signed by Strikeforce? You probably didn’t, and if the internet didn’t exist no one would.  Noons signed in December and Riberio in September.  You read that right September and he’s just as in the dark as you and I are.

“I’m very upset. Very sad,” Ribeiro told MMA Fighting. “I spent a great time in my camp in Brazil. Everything so well and I feel ready to go, but everything stepped back again.”  According to Ribeiro, who inked a deal with Strikeforce in September after completing a five-fight stint with K-1 and DREAM in Japan, he has been bumped from several cards in the last three months.  “I’m looking for fights,” Ribeiro said. “I don’t really care if it’s going to be live on CBS, Showtime, no TV. I’m a fighter. I fought so many times in shows without TV. Right now I’m looking for fights.”

Another thing Strikeforce was suppose to have working in it’s favor was the fighter exchange with Dream.  However, that’s become a deal that sounds a lot better on paper . Now Nick Diaz is rumoured to be fighting in Japan against Mach Sakurai who really isn’t a worthy challenger. All this comes at the expense of Jay Heiron (notice a theme) who has been jerked around repeatedly by Strikeforce. Following his victory over Joe Riggs, Heiron is a free agent and is exploring all his options and you can’t really blame him for it.

What were left with is an organization that lacks direction. Everything is planned for the here and now and not the future. A perfect example is the creation of the 170 pound division. Who exactly is going to fight in it? You have Nick Diaz (who has trouble getting licensed in some states) Jake Shields (Diaz’s teammate who won’t fight him) Heiron (a free agent) and who else?  Top prospect Tryon Woodley hasn’t fought any top level competition yet.  He isn’t ready for a title fight but will most likely be rushed into a top fight.  The same problem exists in almost every weight class.  This is why were seeing King ‘Mo fighting Gegard Moussasi so soon.  There’s no one else for him to fight.

What Strikeforce should have done is emphasized the women’s division and try to corner the market on a 125 pound men’s division . At least those two things are unique and they would be able to legitimately build a stable of top fighters. But of course I bet the big wigs at Showtime Sports don’t think the little guys can draw (though you need to see Penn and Faber to poke holes in that logic.)

Strikeforce and Bellator are taking the opposite approaches to building an MMA organization.  Strikeforce is signing a few top fighters and making some freak show match-ups.  Bellator is singing every single you talented fighter under the sun. Only time will tell who is doing things the right way.