Very interesting. I was wondering why they bothered to show that awful fight. I wonder if it was to reduce his value to other promotions since they probably knew they were going to cut him.

I still like the idea from a business standpoint.

At least if he loses to Overeem it won’t completely derail his career the way a lose to a middle of the road nobody would.

I think he knows at this point that he isn’t anywhere near well-rounded enough to beat even the mid-tier HWs, so what he wants is a bunch of time to train and get better before he faces anyone decent because he’s trying to protect his 0. If he builds up his competition now and fights a Del Rosario he’ll likely lose and a lot of his luster will be gone, but if he fights the champ he’s hoping everyone will just say “Oh well that was the champ, give Bobby some time to develop.”

is like wearing sunglasses in-doors, you’ll look like a tool. Overeem hasn’t pissed hot, but you’ve been caught on cruise control.

We miss your aluminum foil hat wearing el chupacabra chasing theories. Where have you been?

They would be a proper gauges at this point. Lashley still throws his punches like he did/does in Pro Wrestling. He’s throwing with his upper body and not from the hip, and Brett Rogers would MURDER him standing up. ABSOLUTELY MURDER HIM. Lashley looked very “meh” against a bloated Wes Sims.

LOL@"Strikeforce’s Heavyweight Division." Before they signed Fedor, they had no heavyweight division to speak of. What you don’t understand is that only the UFC and WEC fit your notion of “in MMA it’s the promotions not the fighters that book the fights.” Fighters are offered fights, fighters turn down fights. That’s why every fight requires a separate bout agreement. Now it may be that an exclusive contract binds a fighter more than a single fight contract does, but on a card where Hershel Walker fought Charles Nagy on a main card, and the majority of the undercard fighters were local talent, this notion that “Lashley needs to learn how MMA operates is laughable.”

I understand that you want to see Lashley in relative and enthralling matchups, rather than chart his development, but take solace in the fact that no one is asking you to pay for these fights. Strikeforce is trying to PROMOTE Bobby Lashley’s fights, while his management is trying to MANAGE his career, maximizing his earning potential in the present while building towards the future. When he was a journeyman fighter, people wanted him to be signed in Strikeforce and seasoned there. Now that the “seasoning” isn’t happening as fast as we might like (for the record, I’d like to see him on every Challengers card until the Fall), you want him to go back to “smaller shows.” It’s a competitive sport, but if he actually struggles in a fight, people are convinced that he’s a fraud, not that he needs more training. The Guida fight was less than a year ago. The man has seen 7 rounds in 5 fights. Let’s see him accumulate 10 rounds before he’s getting put in there with Andrei Arlovski. No problem with an Abongo Humphrey or even a Shane Del Rosario, but I can understand Strikeforce not wanting to put two prospects against each other so soon.

I agree, except he probably could use two fights on that first tier regardless of how he looks.