Photo/Forza LLC via Getty ImagesWhen Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker took the podium last week to announce his promotion's new deal with Showtime, there should have been little doubt that MMA fans were going to get more of what they wanted to see: top-level fighters on television.
After Saturday's "Strikeforce: Melendez vs. Masvidal" card, the promotion's future seems more, not less, troubled.
Fight fans are unique in the modern sports culture. Where other sports fans gorge themselves on end zone dances and Tebowing; MMA fans value authenticity above flash, valor above showmanship. The UFC has maintained its fan base by prioritizing the courage and humanity implicit in combative struggle, alongside doses of extended storylines. It is a fundamental component of the organization, and one that they ironically might've stripped from their Strikeforce cousin over the past year.
The Zuffa banner has meant a free one-way exchange between the two promotional subsidiaries (may we call it poaching?), the best fighters in Strikeforce feel they deserve to be in the UFC where the best money can be made and the best fights taken.
Strikeforce's Gilbert Melendez, ranked 16th in the InterMatFight pound-for-pound rankings, showed disgruntled disinterest when defeating top Strikeforce contender Jorge Masivdal. The 155-pound fighter said after the fight that he would love a chance to test himself against the best in the world; that he would like to challenge the class of the UFC's lightweight division. It is a chance we have been guaranteed will not be handed the 20-2 fighter.
Just a few days earlier, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, who seems to be co-piloting his promotion from lost luggage counter at JFK, assured fans that Strikeforce would be retaining the services of Melendez for the foreseeable future. This was an abrupt end to Melendez's flirtation with the king-making organization, and unlike other top Strikeforce talents Allistair Overeem, Nick Diaz, and Dan Henderson who had already fled for the big money fights of the UFC. Others cashed out but Melendez was retained, leaving fans to wonder what to make of half-assed cards with potentially insubordinate fighters.
The Strikeforce problem is based in a fan's perception about the validity of MMA. Fans want to avoid the scandals of boxing and protect competitive parity no matter the cost to individual promotions. And this is the problem that Strikeforce can't seem to avoid: the promotion is being brought along as nothing more than a testing facility for future stars of the UFC, and that's not a business model that can profit when genuine competition is at a premium value. When opportunities for fighters like Melendez are restricted, fans naturally devalue and discredit the overseeing organization. It's the same principle of competitive validation that has led to a moderate jump in the value of the Bellator name.
Any fan who watched the epic four-round battle between Mike Chandler and Eddie Alvarez, saw first hand the positive aspects of parity within a second-tier MMA promotion. Alvarez, who many thought to be the best or second-best lightweight in the world, was dispensed by a plucky upstart with cement-filled fists and opportunistic jiu-jitsu. The fight became a leading candidate for fight of the year for the in-cage action, but it was the Bellator belief in allowing everyone a chance at the title, that afforded Chandler the opportunity. Bellator is a meritocracy, whereas Strikeforce is limited by the Zuffa banner and the subjectivity of its ownership.
The Chandler-Alvarez fight won't be the last to garner mainstream attention, because as each tournament passes and fighters like Cole Konrad and Ben Askren defend their title, the objective nature of the tournament remains intact and gains credibility. Compelling fights always make for happy fans and giving your top eight athletes a "fighter's chance" absolves you of their contempt for ownership.
MMA is a sport built on hawking realness to a perceptive, well-informed fan base. If die-hards were interested in representative conflict they would be caught watching the NBA players push, claw and slap each other on Christmas morning. Fans of the UFC appreciate that while they are sometimes given the most marketable fights rather than the most deserving, there is little doubt that the best in the game find their way to the top of the promotion. Fans appreciate Bellator because heart and scrappiness are left to flourish, not fade behind the directives of Zuffa brass.
No matter the financial incentives included in the agreement with Showtime the Strikeforce model is not sustainable. The deal was a Pyrrhic victory for an organization who will continue to lose competitive reach within an intelligent fan base interested in competitive transparency, more than the two-stepping, self-promotion of Zuffa string-pullers.
Intentions as apparent as Zuffa's, invalidate the psychology of the promotion and fight fans have been the first to recognize the incongruity; last week's Melendez card drew just 460,000 viewers and a poor 1.35 household share.
The future of Strikeforce will be contingent on their ability to rehab their poor PR and recruit top-flight talent. If they can then engineer fights that fans believe to be bona fide representation of available talent, they might save the promotion. If not, Strikeforce will be just another promotion lost to the insubordination by fighters, disinterest of fans and the ire of the media.
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