http://steverattlesnake.cliquezone.com/2010/12/strikeforce-is-planning-a-heavyweight-grand-prix Strikeforce had a significant progress in 2010, growing its brand and gaining strength as a competitor to the UFC in the U.S. market. 2011 will be even more promising, the organization has ambitious plans. Strikeforce is planning a GP heavyweights for next year that will feature big names. Besides the heavyweight champion, Dutchman Alistair Overeem, who recently won the title of K-1 World Grand Prix, the tournament will count with the participation of Fedor Emelianenko, Fabricio Werdum, Josh Barnett, Antonio Bigfoot, Brett Rogers, Andrei Arlovski and Sergei Kharitonov . The fight between Fedor and Bigfoot, which has been widely spoken during the last week, would be one of the quarter-final in February 2011 with Werdum vs Kharitonov scheduled for March, apart from possible duels Rogers vs Barnett and Overeem vs Arlovski . The GP, which would be divided into three stages, would mark the first tests of the format Strikeforce on pay-per-view, which would be launched together with the semifinals and final of the tournament.
i agree. they could easily do 5 3 round fights in one night. not sure how reem factors in. will they put him in 3 round tournament bouts or 5 round championship bouts.
I'd guess the problem would be that 8 big HW names is poterntially a very expensive card, by having the first round over a couple of showtime cards they'd cut down the cost and build interest for the semi and final on PPV. Sylvia was also talking about fighting on SF in march so he could potentially be involved aswell, perhaps a reserve match with someone like Cormier? In the end though I'm not getting too exciting over this until its offically annouced.
is money really an excuse. an MMA card of this proportion costs much less than a boxing card. many boxing cards have 1 major fight earning all the money. only guy who should be particularly expensive is fedor. its time they get sylvia in SF. if you assess him fairly on paper, he deserves to at least be in the second biggest organisation.
Would be interesting to see. But I don't think M1 would let Fedor fight in a tournament and Overeem is the champ so he wouldn't fight as well.
Fedor is the most expensive(although mostly in terms of co promotion) but I'm guessing all of those guys would be looking for north of $100K for big matches, perhaps signifcantly more for Barnett, Overeem and Werdum. SF isnt likely to bring in anything close to the UFC or a big boxing PPV either, if they can break 250K buys I think that will be a big sucess.
Let's not get our hopes up just yet. There's still a lot of hurdles and rings to be jumped over and through before this comes to fruition.
BTW when is the next Strikeforce card? Not the Challenger series but a real Strickeforce card on CBS or Showtime?
SF 30: January 29, 2011 A bout currently between Nick Diaz and Paul Daley is in the works Bouts in the works include: Ronaldo Souza vs. Robbie Lawler Jason Miller vs. Tim Kennedy Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva Herschel Walker vs. TBA
If they did 250K Scott Coker would be dancing naked in the streets...IN THIS WEATHER. Even with all the hype and money thrown at Affliction they couldn't break 100,000...even with a Spike pre-show WEC couldn't do much better than 150,000.