In an interview with MMA Weekly, Lorenzo Fertitta discussed the future of Strikeforce in a way that has the MMA world buzzing with possibilities:
“At the end of the day, Showtime is contracted to receive a product, and we’re going to keep giving it to them,” he said. “They want us to do the eight Strikeforce shows, the Challengers shows. We’re going to do no different than what we’ve been doing the last four or five months, since we owned the company; keep delivering great fights and keep that going as long as the contract says, and then, at that time, we’ll reevaluate.”
With the contract up for renewal in February 2012, which Showtime holds an option to renew until 2014, Zuffa is now in a curious position. With many of Strikeforce’s stars being over to the UFC banner, like Nick Diaz and Jason “Mayhem” Miller, or being positioned to go there next (Dan Henderson, Alistair Overeem), Strikeforce’s place in the MMA world is a bit curious at the moment.
Lorenzo Fertitta sounds like someone planning on figuring out how to get the top tier level of talent over to the UFC, properly, as opposed to running two seperate organizations. There has been no firm commitment to keeping the company intact, despite their recent resigning of female champion Cris Santos, and for all intents and purposes it sounds like the UFC is getting ready to add this company to the list of competitors who have fallen by the wayside.
