Strikeforce Vs. The UFC: a Comparison with Other Professional Sports

Strikeforce has become the new “David” in the “David and Goliath” saga of The UFC vs. the rest.

With the signing of coveted Russian heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko, Strikeforce have positioned themselves as the main competition for the mixed martial arts juggernaut The UFC.

Since the Fertita brothers and Dana White have taken over The UFC, one thing has been clear since the beginning; there is no room for any top tier mixed martial arts organizations besides The UFC.

The UFC has a “take no prisoners” attitude towards any competition that might challenge the well being and legitimacy of The UFC. Using a combination of media slander, counter programming and bullish tactics The UFC makes other promotions fold.

The UFC has gobbled up longtime rival PrideFC , put Elitexc out of business and brought Affliction back to making t-shirts.

Many people would argue that healthy competition is good for a business and there is no doubt, it is.

Where healthy competition should be coming from is another story all together and this article will attempt to answer that question and hopefully put to rest some of the arguing that has plagued the MMA community the last few years.

A brief overview of the other professional sports in the world would tell you that the leagues and organizations that manage the sports do not really have much competition within their respective sports.

The competition for any given professional sports organization comes from other sports, not other operations with in their respective sports.

When professional leagues and organizations have faced competition the competition has unfortunately been forced into bankruptcy or gets gobbled up by the big boys.

Let’s have a look at professional hockey to start things off.

The NHL has been in existence since 1917 and has been the big player in professional hockey ever since. Young players around the world from Russia to Canada dream of playing in the NHL.

In 1972 a league by the name of the World Hockey Association tried to go toe to toe with the NHL.

The WHA signed some big players challenging the old “reserve clause” which meant a player would be retained by a team if they wanted at the expiration of the player's contract.

Players like Bobby Hull and other top players jumped ship to join the WHA.

Building up franchises in cities where the NHL hadn’t gone and signing European players is how the WHA tried to make their organization challenge the NHL.

Ultimately, WHA teams ended up relocating on numerous occasions and players didn’t stay in the WHA due to financial difficulties.

By 1979 the WHA ceased operations and four WHA teams were absorbed into the stronger and more viable National Hockey League.

To this day there hasn’t been much competition for the NHL.

Of course there are plenty of second tier professional and semi-professional leagues in existence today, but none have challenged the NHL to the extent the WHA had.

Leagues like the ECHL, AHL and IHL have provided a home for players who were never meant to be in the NHL and for players who need a little bit of time in the minor leagues before hopping over to the big league.

The KHL is a major professional league in Russia, but unlike the WHA they haven’t challenged the NHL. In other words, they haven’t embarked on the rocky road of distributing in North America or signing NHL prospects.

So far the NHL has a symbiotic relationship with the second tier leagues. The second tier leagues act as a proving ground for future NHL prospects and provide entertainment for the die hard hockey fan and the fan that can’t afford the major league tickets.

Next up, the sport of American football, the NFL being the end all and be all of pro football has had some competition in the past.

The AFL went in to direct competition with the NFL from 1960 until 1969, taking half of the first round draft picks in 1960 and signing a television deal with NBC.

Competition was so fierce that both the NFL and AFL held  the draft on the same day with players often being drafted by both leagues.

Ultimately the NFL won out and the AFL merged under the NFL banner.

One other league, the XFL entered the professional football mix for 1 season in 2001.

They made their season in the NFL off season, which was a good choice, but everything else the league did lead to the XFL's demise.

The XFL advertised themselves as a major professional football league, spending a lot of money on television deals and marketing.

Unfortunately they did not have the quality of play to back up their talk and they were bumped off the map.

Two leagues, the Canadian Football League and the Arena Football league currently co-exist along with the NFL.

The CFL has concentrated on advertising their product in their home country of Canada and have done nothing to challenge the NFL’s dominance.

The Arena football league has no aggressive marketing campaigns, they play on a different stage providing variety to fans and they are quite confident in remaining a second tier organization.

Again, both the CFL and AFL are a sanctuary for hidden talent that needs some time and exposure before going to the NFL and for players who would never be able to make the NFL.

Player salaries, ticket pricing and television exposure are a reflection of the fact that both the CFL and AFL are second to the NFL and aren’t doing anything to challenge that.

Two sports similar to mixed martial arts in terms of it being man to man competition are golf and tennis.

Both professional golf and tennis are governed by one organization the PGA and ATP respectively.

Why would one argue for another professional organization to govern tennis or golf? Who would like to see Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in separate leagues, never facing off against each other? Imagine never seeing Tiger Woods playing on the same green as Jack Nicklaus or Sergio Garcia.

A professional sport is supposed to showcase the highest level of competion in the world. Having multiple leagues in which the best of each league never face each other is contradictory to the basic premise of what professional sport is.

Strikeforce up until now was always considered a second tier mixed martial arts operation flying under the UFC radar. Strikeforce built fighters and the UFC would pick some of them up, it was a good relationship.

One just has to take a look at professional boxing to see how multiple organizations claiming their stake as the best can damage a sport.

Boxing was an awesome sport to watch when the best fought the best across every weight class.

Now there are four sanctioning bodies, the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO. I don’t pretend to be a boxing connoisseur, although I do appreciate the “sweet science” and from what I understand having four sanctioning bodies in professional boxing has been nothing but bad news for the sport.

Competition doesn’t need to come from within the sport in order to make the sport go to the next level.

There is enough competition outside of mixed martial arts that the professional organizations have to deal with. Competition between the organizations that make up MMA chokes off the sports development.

Mixed martial arts already has to compete with the NFL, NHL, NBA, PGA, ATP and various other professional sports organizations that have been around for the better part of a century.

The other top sports in the world are already forcing the UFC to put out a good product to the fans if they want to stay afloat.

Of course Dana White is too obnoxious and the UFC has certain image problems that the management should be shaking itself away from.

That being said, The UFC is the mixed martial arts organization with the deepest pockets and the most success, just like the NHL and NFL were when their respective sports were just budding.

Just like the NFL and NHL, the UFC will remain at the top and any existing or budding organizations who try to go “toe to toe” with the UFC will either be swallowed up by The UFC or be forced to go under.

For the betterment of the sport, there is no reason to beleive that The UFC's vision of being the one and only top mixed martial arts promotion is bad for the sport. 

The best athletes in the world should compete under one banner no matter what the sport is, which leads to another argument, why is Fedor Emelianenko not in the UFC?