Strikeforce, Showtime Announce TV Deal; First Event on April 11th in San Jose
Josh Thomson
Just hours after completing a deal to purchase select assets from ProElite, Strikeforce jointly announced with Showtime on Thursday a new live MMA series that calls for Showtime to televise up to 16 Strikeforce events per year.
The deal is similar to EliteXC’s prior deal with Showtime that included 4 primetime events on CBS and 12 Showtime events, including cards focused on up-and-coming fighters.
Strikeforce’s first Showtime-televised event will take place on April 11th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. The event is slated to feature Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson and former Strikeforce middleweight champion Frank Shamrock with Benji Radach vs. Scott Smith also rumored for the card.
Strikeforce’s fighter acquisitions in the ProElite deal, according to Yahoo Sports’ Dave Meltzer, include Kimbo Slice, Gina Carano, Nick Diaz, Eddie Alvarez, EliteXC middleweight champion Robbie Lawler, and EliteXC welterweight champion Jake Shields.
Tags: Benji Radach, Frank Shamrock, Josh Thomson, Scott Smith
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YAY!!! More Kimbo!!!!
This is great news! But hopefully they put kimbo against a real opponent, so he will disappear. This is huge for mma
Dude, Kimbo would DESTROY most of the UFC heavyweights. Have you never seen him on Youtube? Absolutely incredible striker…
lmao
I know … lets put Kimbo in the womens division … haaha gets **** slapped in 24 seconds flat .
It is important to note that even though the fighters were “acquired” the contracts are non-transferable. Therefore, Strikeforce has to go through and ask each fighter if they want to waive their right to renegotiate their contract. The ones that do that, keep their old contract, but now with Strikeforce. The ones that don’t waive that right go to contract negotiations, and may even go to another promotion. The last report I saw said that Lawler, Shields, and Carano all are taking the option to renegotiate their contracts.
I was hoping Lawler and Shields would get signed by the UFC, WEC start a woman’s division and see Carano vs Santos, or if Strikeforce gets both, NEED to put that fight together. Have Kimbo vs Sapp, that would be an entertaining fight.
WEC starting a woman’s division would be brilliant! Make it happen!
While it’s exciting that a new mma brand is being constructed/brought back to life, they had better put on some better fights than alluded to above. Cause without a huge headlining fight for their “first” card it’ll be Kimbo vs. Petrezelli all over again. Also, the HP Pavillion setting your hopes a little high. Didn’t Affliction have a hard time filling it with the best fighter in the world headlining?
Strikeforce has been around for a while, and doesn’t need “being brought back to life”
Also, if you were to do a little research you might find on Wikipedia: “On March 10, 2006, Strikeforce held Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Gracie, the first MMA event sanctioned by the state of California, taking place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. With 18,265 in attendance, Shamrock vs. Gracie broke the previous record for the largest audience at a North American MMA event, earlier held by UFC 57. The record was since broken by UFC 68 and K-1 HERO’S Dynamite!! USA, although Shamrock vs. Gracie retains the paid attendance record of 17,465.[1]”
To sum things up, Strikeforce actually has demonstrated in the past that they know what the heck they are doing, they are not some fly-by-night deal like Affliction and ProElite.
Yeah, Shamrock vs. Gracie is a huge fight, one that would sell out anywhere, regardless of who puts it on. It’s nice you can quote Wikipedia though. If you pay attention to my comments, I said without a big main event they would be hard pressed to sell out the HP Pavillion. You won’t get 18,000 there to watch Josh Thompson fight some jabroni. Pay attention to what I write. It says “construction/brought back to life”. The construction refers to adding on to Strikeforce, and the brought back to life part refers to the ProElite name coming back into MMA (though they weren’t technically out of it, it seemed as though they would fold). I’m sure I read that EliteXC or ProElite name will still be used.
My argument is that Strikeforce will not sell out big venues without a big headline. Not to mention the millions of viewers CBS needs to make a live show worthwhile. If you’re going to argue, at least give me a possible headline given Stikeforce’s assets and fighters. Don’t just say “Well they did it before with a huge fight, so they’ll do it again regardless.”
And you write “To sum things up”….What is that? A high school essay conclusion? You only had one argument with one proof/quote. There’s nothing to “sum”. I give it a C.
“constructed/brought back to life” While you may have intended the construction part to refer to the addition of the ProElite fighters, I interpreted it to mean the building of the name Strikeforce, which is already established, though it will grow. Strikeforce will not be putting the ProElite brand to use, they they may use the ShowXC brand. ProElite itself will continue to exist outside of Strikeforce and remain a separate promotion.
You did not say “without a main event they would be hard pressed to sell out HP Pavilion.” You said “without a huge headlining fight for their “first” card it’ll be Kimbo vs. Petrezelli(sic) all over again.” Then in your next statment went on to say “Also, the HP Pavillion setting your hopes a little high. Didn’t Affliction have a hard time filling it with the best fighter in the world headlining?” I viewed those as two separate thoughts, and I will respond to them separately here.
“without a huge headlining fight for their “first” card it’ll be Kimbo vs. Petrezelli(sic) all over again.”:
Coker knows what he’s doing, and has built a successful promotion without the fighters of the ProElite stable. They have already done shows on both showtime and HDNet that were successful, with the addition of the fighters from ProElite, one can only expect that trend to continue.
“Also, the HP Pavillion setting your hopes a little high. Didn’t Affliction have a hard time filling it with the best fighter in the world headlining?”:
San Jose is Shamrock’s home town, and Strikeforce has always done well in this town. They haven’t yet released a rumored match-up for him, but the fact that he’s on the card bodes well for them in San Jose. Also, they’ve already shown that they can produce a crowd at the venue (see wikipedia reference in previous comment, also follow the link and you will find that nine of the seventeen MMA events they’ve already held were at the HP Pavilion), so what’s the point in belittling the promotion by comparing them to Affliction.
Now, on to your second comment.
“If you pay attention to my comments,”:
Which you immediately followed up by misquoting yourself, maybe you should pay attention to your comments.
“Not to mention the millions of viewers CBS needs to make a live show worthwhile.”:
If EliteXC could bring in the millions of viewers, and now you’ve added their stable of fighters to an already successful organization, that’s been in the Martial Arts business since 1985, and MMA since 2006 I think they can get it done.
“If you’re going to argue, at least give me a possible headline given Stikeforce’s assets and fighters.”:
1. Shamrock v. Shamrock (both are interested…I’m not, but could be a big draw)
2. Le v. Lawler belt unification
3. Thomson v. Noons (already rumored)
4. Thomson v. Diaz
5. Overeem v. Rogers
6. Overeem v. Buantello
7. Alvarez v. Diaz (which ProElite had scheduled before they closed up)
8. Southworth v. Petruzelli (this one is quite a stretch, but Petruzelli has name recognition as the Kimbo slayer, and both of them were on TUF)
9. Cyborg v. Carano could be a co-main.
Yeah . thats always been my view of Strikeforce , they got the stuff to be big like the UFC . And being on the good side of Zuffa already helps .TV deals , better womens division , and the fact they hae some stars to match up . Kimbo vs Sapp would be a two minute throw down followed by both colapsing to the canvas in exhaustion . LOVE IT !! hehehe but regardless . a win – win for Strikeforce and us.
I don’t think Strikeforce has the dream of being the biggest MMA organization in the world like UFC and (to a lesser extent) Affliction do. I think they are setting themselves up as the premier organization a half step below the UFC. I think they realize that if they were to try to make that step to supplant the UFC, that Dana and the full force of Zuffa would basically drive them out of business and nobody really wants that. I like Strikeforce. I think they put on a hell of a show, I think they have a solid stable of fighters, and I will support them to the best of my abilities. I think Dana respects the hell out of them which is why he works with them as well as he does.
Kimbo vs. Sapp would be like two Houston Alexanders fighting or like my last date: one minute of action followed by fourteen minutes of boredom. Sorry I stole your line, dbiz.
Stole my line? I aspire to one minute of action. I worship your stamina and prowess.
dbiz you are hilarious