What was supposed to be the weekend’s coup de grace might end up becoming the final nail in the coffin for Zuffa’s current relationship with Showtime. After an insanely shallow card hedging on both Gilbert Melendez and Pat Healy staying healthy failed to pay off as Melendez pulled out with an injury, and Showtime cancelled the presentation for reruns of Emmy-winning Homeland, the time has come for one thing and one thing only.
The cancellation of Strikeforce permanently needs to happen and happen soon. Why? Because neither side is getting anything remarkable out of the deal other than a handful of cards per year.
Zuffa seems intent on running Strikeforce cards still mainly because they’re contracted to as well as to keep anyone else from running an MMA card on the channel. It makes sense in an odd way to keep running Strikeforce; their contract makes each show profitable regardless of ticket sales or sponsorships due to the low cost of talent because of the Showtime deal. For a roster of 80 or so fighters, some of whom are elite, it’s a bargain because of how much Showtime pays them per show.
But at this point with a roster that’s already bloated on the UFC side of things they’re carrying too much dead weight as is. Considering the lack of depth the organization has already with its shows on the UFC side, having a thimble thin roster for a handful of shows populated with a lot of club level fighters doesn’t do anything but make a quick buck for them. And one imagines it can’t be doing much for Showtime either.
Showtime is getting fairly inexpensive live sports programming with the promise of the occasionally highly rated fight. Known mainly for boxing, Showtime having at this point what’s a second tier MMA promotion on isn’t the worst thing in the world because if you can’t have the UFC then it feels inferior to start with. It’s something as opposed to nothing and Strikeforce’s cancellation belies a much greater point: it’s not needed anymore.
Strikeforce is much akin to Bellator, One FC and other MMA organizations in that they’re in the same game as the UFC but don’t have the same credibility amongst casual fans. There’s a reason why it’s “UFC” on most sports websites and not “MMA” as well as you wouldn’t see a sports bar have a “Titan Fighting Championships” night either; the UFC is the name of the game and everyone else is playing second fiddle.
The UFC should let everyone else fight for the grand expanse of life that isn’t the ultimate proving ground of MMA; wasting time, money and talent in Strikeforce is like staying with a wife when divorce seems imminent. This is a bad marriage on the cusp of divorce, nothing more, and the Showtime/Zuffa marriage needs to end as quickly and painlessly as possible. Both sides have better things to do now, honestly.
Showtime is a Viacom property and Bellator would make for a better working relationship and talent pool than Zuffa’s second tier promotion is right now. Bellator may not have the name recognition but the talent pool is arguably better there than it is in Strikeforce.
The UFC is the premier league and Zuffa needs to concentrate it’s time and money there. Bringing in the dozen or so fighters on the Strikeforce roster good enough to fight in the UFC, and discarding the rest, will do the UFC’s fortunes better than anything else. Instead of having a number of prominent fighters in Strikeforce biding their time, and wasting years of their prime, they should be in the UFC to bolster the ranks. Melendez, Luke Rockhold, Josh Thomson, Nate Marquardt and others needed to be the UFC roster yesterday, not tomorrow.
By shutting down Strikeforce to the annals of history, Zuffa needs to move on from this failed relationship that is Showtime and invest their time and effort into the UFC.
