Strikeforce: State of the Promotion Address

One of the most intriguing subplots of the 2007-08 college football season was the near-ominous status of whoever occupied the No. 2 spot in the BCS rankings. Sure, on paper that spot puts you in the driver seat for a shot at the national championship, but as the season progressed, the No. 2 spot became nothing short of a prelude to a disaster.

During that season, the No. 2 spot in BCS rankings changed hands six times in the span of seven weeks. Only Boston College managed to maintain their silver standing longer than one week and by the eighth and final week of the standings, the team that began with the No. 2 slot in week one (South Florida), was sitting pretty at No. 21.

It was almost bad luck to be ranked as the second-best team in the nation and if the past couple years of MMA have taught us anything, it's no easy go when you're playing second fiddle to the UFC.

Just ask the IFL, EliteXC and most recently Affliction.

It's a fight that's becoming all the more apparent for Strikeforce, who continues to ice skate uphill in a battle where the odds are historically not on their side.

Last Saturday, Strikeforce held it's most successful event to date, scoring an average audience of 576,000 viewers; breaking the promotion's previous mark of 522,000 for the Kimbo Slice-Tank Abbott card.

But how high could that number truly have been? In what has become a formality for the past year or so, the UFC brought out of the big guns and counter-programmed with five fights from UFC 100, nearly quadrupling Strikeforce's viewership as a result.

Obviously, Spike TV (available in approximately 98 million homes) is more readily available than Showtime (available in approximately 21 million homes), but it does leave a bit to be desired as to how well Strikeforce truly could have done. While the UFC's counter-programming tactics are nothing new, it's hard to deny its success. What's worse is that with Strikeforce emerging as the only other game in town, there likely is no end in sight to it. They're the UFC and they have the resources.

Whether it's through replaying one of its recently successful events or just throwing out on impromptu fight card, the UFC-Spike TV tandem has proven to be a formidable combination to any and all competitors. Heck, they threw out Anderson friggin' Silva on free TV last year to counter Affliction's debut card.

Champion without a Contender

But to at least shed some light on the positive side of things, the event last weekend was a success for Strikeforce no doubt. Gina Carano's long-awaited clash with Christiane "Cyborg" Santos, albeit a bit sloppy, featured no lulls in action and for a mere five-minute round, was an entertaining as anything we've seen this year. By all accounts, the public reception to the bout was strong as well. Just look at Yahoo's post-fight account of the event, which apparently received more comments than all but one story (a UFC 100 story) to ever be posted on the site.

It's a plus, because fighters like Carano and Cyborg present the one true alternative to Strikeforce's brand of MMA. The problem lies within just how they can capitalize on it. Much has been made about it over the week, but who's next for Cyborg? There has been plenty of talk regarding the other notable female fighters on the market, but only names like Erin Toughill and Marloes Coenen are feasible options (sorry die-hards, but Megumi Fuji is about 30-40 pounds lighter than Cyborg). Although Santos can and has competed at 140 pounds, so maybe a catch-weight contest with Sarah Kaufman could also be on the radar sometime down the road.

Regardless, Strikeforce needs to capitalize on the publicity that women's MMA has gotten as of late. When you break it down, it's an easy sell to the casual fan. Granted, the cast isn't decorated with Caranos at every corner from an aesthetic standpoint, but action-wise, the women have proven to be quite entertaining.

But the situation in how to market Santos is a dicey one, because she can't touch Carano with a 250-foot pole on the marketability scale. Sure, you can hype Cyborg up as a wrecking machine, but Santos' inability to speak English is a drawback that hinders her ability to connect with the casual fan. Just ask Anderson Silva how far in-cage talent can get you as a draw.

Obviously, the money lies in a rematch with Carano, who can use her 10-month exodus from the cage as a reason why she failed to deliver the goods last Saturday. Once Carano and Cyborg compete against different opposition, pending victories of course, it wouldn't shock me in the slightest for the build towards a rematch to begin picking up steam.

The 205-Pound Gorilla in the Room

Strikeforce's event last Saturday was also the coming-out party of one of the sport's top prospects in 24-year-old Gegard Mousasi, who steamrolled Renato Sobral in a fashion few could have anticipated.

It's nothing we haven't seen in Japan out of the Dutch-Armenian, but to dominate Sobral, who found his way into most publications' top-10 light heavyweights prior. Unfortunately, as has plagued several of Strikeforce's divisions, there really isn't much comparable depth at 205 pounds for the newly-crowned champion.

Perhaps more than any other division in MMA, the UFC has a pseudo-monopoly on the light heavyweight division. It's close at welterweight, but the UFC has made no bones about snatching up every notable 205-pound fighter on the market.

It's not until you look at the landscape at light heavyweight until you realize just how bleak the outlook is for Strikeforce. Pan down most rankings and the first feasible name you'll come to is Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. That was feasible until word broke a few days ago that his long-overdue arrival in the UFC is on the verge of becoming a reality.

Scroll down past the likes of Sobral and the next non-UFC staple that comes to mind is Vladimir Matyushenko. Oh wait, he's set to return at UFC 103. Drop down a bit more and you enter the Sokoudjou territory. Besides the fact that his UFC tenure came to a grinding 1-2 halt last year, the African Assassin is actually set to duke it out with Mousasi in Japan in October.

The outlook is barren and of all the names on the market, the one with the most upside is the still-green and fellow Plano East alumnus Muhammad Lawal. Obviously, Lawal is yet to fight in the U.S., but he should have the ability to make it in the 'States on charisma alone; he's still a ways off from a fight with someone like Mousasi. While these names hardly scale the radar of the casual fan, other light heavyweights include Trevor Prangley, Mamed Khalidov, and Ricardo Arona, but the point is clear: there isn't anybody of note who Strikeforce can readily promote to oppose Mousasi.

It's a divisional instability that exists at virtually every turn for Strikeforce.

Part of what makes the UFC so attractive to the casual fan is the stability it has with its champions. Of all the UFC's five current champions, four are considered the undisputed king of their respective weight classes, with their fifth champion residing in the top three at heavyweight. With Strikeforce, you struggle to even remember that Alistair Overeem is still in fact their heavyweight champion, despite not defending the belt once since winning it nearly two years ago.

The promotion is already on the verge on implementing it's second interim title; a sign that heavyweight is not the only division within Strikeforce that is struggling with it's champions. Josh Thomson has been hampered by injuries since defeating Gilbert Melendez for the lightweight crown and MMA couldn't be further from middleweight champion Cung Le's mind right now.

Without a willing stable of champions, Strikeforce has had to lean on establishing catch-weight fights as headliners that have no bearing, meaning, or effect on divisional standing. Sure, Nick Diaz and Frank Shamrock is a fun fight on paper, but it has no long term significance.

Coming Soon

While Gina Carano is without a doubt the top draw in Strikeforce at the moment, there's no question Fedor Emelianenko is the promotion's most prized acquisition.

Last Saturday gave us a 30-second trailer hyping the pound-for-pound juggernaut and I admit that it left a bit to be desired. While there are other factors in play, Strikeforce is obviously hoping Emelianenko's allure will be able to take them to the next level, but as history has shown us, putting the majority of your eggs in one basket is a dicey play.

Emelianenko's track record as a draw is iconic amongst the hardcore fanbase, but that same intrigue hasn't extended to a mainstream scale in the way other promotions have hoped. I'll bring up Silva again, but for a fighter who has built a reputation off of highlight reel-style fights, Anderson is arguably the weakest draw of all the UFC champions.

Needless to say, it'll take more than a looping overhand to Andrei Arlovski to get the casual fan on board with Emelianenko, who as gifted as he may be, just doesn't possess the intangibles to connect with the casual fanbase.

It's a reason why I think many people just have overestimated the drawing power of a potential fight with Brock Lesnar and a reason why the acquisition could net more downs than ups for Strikeforce when all is said and done.