Strikeforce CEO Coker Open to Unifying Belts with DREAM
by Aaron Young on Oct 14, 2009 9:08 PM EDT
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PrintDuring a Wednesday press event, always vocal CEO of Strikeforce Scott Coker cleared up his company's relationship with DREAM, which is currently Japan's top MMA promotion. When the topic of his future plans with DREAM, he stated that he would be open to unifying Strikeforce titles with DREAM titles. In his own words:
"I think that one of the reasons why we made the alliance is so we can see some of the best fighters of Dream fight the best fighters of Strikeforce. Unifying those title belts, I have no problem with that. As a fan and as a company, we would definitely like to pursue that."
Does this make sense? Yes, in many ways. One, since this August, the two promotions have been freely sharing talent such as Alistair Overeem, Sokoudjou, Gegard Mousasi, and Mitsuhiro Ishida. They had been sharing fighters previous to that, but when Strikeforce announced the signing of WAMMA Heavyweight Champion and one of the world's top pound-for-pound fighters Fedor Emelianenko, DREAM wanted to make their relationship more official. Second, if the agreement is reached, the two companies would score a golden promoting opportunity. They would be able to boast in truly having the world's best and having connections with potentially the third largest promotion in the world. Individually, for Strikeforce, the merger would fill gaps the promotion has in coming cards when overusing fighters and the lack of title defenses could be a problem. For example, Gegard Mousasi will be used on their next main card, Fedor Vs. Rogers, next month, after headlining their last big event, Carano Vs. Cyborg, in August. For DREAM, it would greatly boost their standing in the MMA industry and place them, as afformentioned, in the role of the world's third largest MMA promotion. For the sake of strong competition and interesting fights, MMA fans can only hope this deal comes through.
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Just a few problems..
The ring/cage thing and lack of an athletic commission in Japan makes unifying belts problematic.
I am very skeptical about this entire alliance, it doesn’t seem like much has changed since it was announced, but time will tell for that.
That said, I’d like the belts to stay separate. Different rules are kind of cool, and if they’re going to stay quasi-separate and not unify the rules/fighting surface, they might as well keep the belts separate.
Who controls the match making?
Who pays the fighters? Who pays the fees? Who pays the bribes?
Who oversees the weigh ins?
Who refs the fights?
Who are the judges? How’s it scored?
How many rounds? How long are they?
Cage or ring?
Pants or shorts?
Elbows or soccer kicks?
Testing or no testing?
What country does it go down in?
What does the revenue sharing agreement look like? For the broadcast? For the gate? For the publishing?
What rights will one company have to look at the other company’s books to make sure they’re not getting cheated?
When, where and how does the winner defend the belt?
Who are the fans that don’t watch Strikeforce/Dream now, but are going to start watching if Josh Thompson and Shinya Aoki fight? Compared to the time and money you give to Dream/Strikeforce now, how much more are you going to give if this goes down?
for a second...
I thought I made this post but then I was like “I must have been really drunk to have not remembered doing that”
and then I realized it’s the icon that threw me for a loop. It’s like bizarro me did this
do they even have champions in all the weight classes in both orgs? nope! i would wait until dream actualy has a hw and a lhw champ or that SF has a ww champ. this makes no sense to me and sounds like a load of bs, like they are trying to unify it to make it seem that they have the undisputed champions. everyone knows that the ufc and the has the “recognized” undisputed champ in every weight class besides hw. why don’t the just hire WAMMA and let them “award” fighters titles.
by bdw on Oct 15, 2009 1:12 AM EDT reply actions 2 recs
WAMMA
I believe that would be one of the options- to have WAMMA run as some sort of board that determines title fights to make things seem more meaningful. It may not be the best of ideas, but if they execute the deal right, like I mentioned with the use of fighters, it should be at the very least a short-term gain. And yes, there is a chance that they will end up screwing each other over and taking each other out of business. But with a possibly large sanctioning body (WAMMMA), and a unification, it could work both ways. It isn’t necessarily a way to compete, more of a way of survival and investment.
This is a mute point… what the fuck are you exactly going to unify?
Featherweight
Dream: Bibiano Fernandes Strikeforce: None
Lightweight
Dream: Shinya Aoki Strikeforce: Josh Thomson/Gilbert Melendez
Welterweight
Dream: Marius Zaromskis Strikeforce: None
Middleweight
Dream: None Strikeforce: Jake Shields-Jason Mayhem Miller winner
Light heavyweight
Dream: None Strikeforce: Gegard Mousasi
Heavyweight
Dream: None Strikeforce: Alistair Overeem
Cry me a river.
Featherweight won’t happen, but Lightweight can be unified.
Welterweight will likely have a champion in Strikeforce soon.
Middleweight should have had a champion in either Miller or Souza. Solution: Have Souza fight the champion of Strikeforce.
LHW and HW don’t need a unifying bout, they are fine how they are.
Follow me on Twitter @lelandroling
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
by Leland Roling on Oct 15, 2009 10:12 AM EDT up reply actions
It would have been easier just to post the link to Fanhouse
http://mma.fanhouse.com/2009/10/14/strikeforce-wants-to-unify-titles-with-dream-but-what-will-that/?ncid=txtlnkusspor00000002
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