Other Views on Sarah Kaufman, Strikeforce and Showtime

I’ve disagreed with him on occasion in the comments, but he’s always been civil, and I think he’s spot-on in his analysis of Coker’s foibles when it comes to properly promoting champions. Look forward to reading more of his writing at RKR.

The way I see the issue is that Snowden’s points were valid they were just cloaked in douchery and hyperbole. When Brent summed up the arguments in his way, it was very clear and very vaild:

1) Yesterday Kaufman was in the EXACT spot she should have been in. Last time she main evented a challengers show it was a disaster, so you put her below the main event so people (hopefully) don’t tune out and (hopefully) the fight is good enough that it turns her into someone you can promote.

2) As of today I think you can put her right on a "main" card (if you have the room) BECAUSE she now is somewhat promotable. But I’d also not have a problem with her main eventing a challengers card again.

3) The problem is that she is a champion at all. Strikeforce rushed into crowning a champion in a division that wasn’t developed. Now she is fighting people no one knows. This isn’t Gina who got over on her looks, or Cyborg who got over on beasting Gina. This is Sarah Kaufman who has been fighting people no one knows and has not been able to establish a name because of it. Now Strikeforce is running a tournament and creating a division which all should have been done FIRST so that these fights made sense.

4) I have no problem with Sarah. I just think there was a massive overreaction to her being "mistreated" by being put on a challengers card.

5) Yes, ratings matter. …a lot.

6) did you guys want to see her left on the shelf for a few more months? The Houston show isn’t going to have an open spot for a women’s 5 round fight. The Fedor/Werdum card didn’t have room for it either. They’re not exactly swimming in shows to put all these fights on. The women’s 135 title is probably the least prestigious one they have, so sorry…it gets the bad spot.

Someone should transcribe Snowden’s epic twitter battle with Tomas Rios yesterday about this situation (while Jason High handled play by play duties hilariously). It was good stuff.

As for this issue…I already said my piece in the other thread. Snowden wrote a hit piece to stir up some shit. That’s about it.

I still write stuff here and will keep on doing so. (It’s funny how I’m labeled a BElitist when I’ve been here for 3 weeks)

I really think that business stuff should be kept behind the scenes. However, she said it and I have no problem with the actual way she said it. MMA is such a new and ever-evolving sport AND business that we can’t look at it in archaic ways. The old MMA way was you fight who they tell you to fight, you don’t talk money and you shill for the company. That way is gone.

If you want to be accepted as a real sport, you have to take real sport problems too. NBA has been talking about the bargaining agreement for 3 years and it’s not up til 2012. NFL and MLB too. They talk business openly.

The main point of this is that Coker is fucking up. Does he know what a title is supposed to mean? You don’t devalue your titles. Look at boxing. Coker is so much like (TNA President) Dixie Carter it isn’t dunny. A nice guy trying to do the “right thing” but having no idea what that is and how to do it.

One of the problems that I see here is the fact that Strikeforce created the welterweight division without the talent to back it up. BUT, they did create the division, so they should be promoting it as they do every other championship fight. By giving this fight a back seat, they’re kinda saying that it doesn’t matter all that much. If the organization doesn’t care about it, why should we?

I agree with that.

I believe:
1) Sarah is not wrong for wanting to be treated like every other champion.
2) Strikeforce made the mess. If they rushed it and gave her a belt before they were able to support the division properly, it is them to blame.

Other than that I said my piece yesterday.

It’s one thing for people on the internet to say the Strikeforce belt is worthless because it belongs to a second rate MMA promotion, but it’s completely another for the promoter himself to make it worthless. They tried to railroad Jake Shields but failed. They gave Rogers a title shot coming off a loss. And now they are keeping Kaufman on the back-burner. This is asinine in all regards. They should be treating their champs with respect. When they undercut their own champs, they are basically saying the belt is worthless. What’s the point in moving up the divisional ladder only to win a belt and get locked into a championship clause, when you could potentially be given the Jake Shields or Sarah Kaufman treatment? That’s like working for a promotion, getting it, then having your boss try to screw you over and pull the rug out from underneath you.

It’s like the WNBA complaining about not having their championship games in primetime on ABC. It’s a business, its about money not treating everyone fairly.

Going into the fight she was a ratings nightmare. Unfortunately she wasn’t a destroyer like Cyborg nor is she good looking like Carano. The reality is that wmma isn’t as popular as men’s and Strikeforce can’t afford to promote a title fight with a female who actually loses viewers. Especially when their entire promotion is dependent on ratings on CBS and Showtime. I would expect more leeway with Challengers ratings than Strikeforce on Showtime, which I think is the reason she’s relegated to said shows.
You have more leeway with Challengers cards than Strikeforce/CBS but they still matter. You want to end strong and prior to last night Kaufman has been less than stellar. While you care about WMMA most people don’t. I don’t care about it and a boring women’s fight to me is worse than a boring men’s fight. This is the general consensus amongst fans. Strikeforce is already walking on eggshells due to Challengers 6 and the 3 championship bout card on CBS so they can’t afford to have poor numbers. This is why they are signing Batista. She’s the #1 fighter in a weight class where the talent is not elite (same issue with 145) and doesn’t deserve top billing on any card.

This further proves my point that meaningless gold belts cause people to lose all sense of logic and reason.

I sort of look at as if the WEC merged with the UFC and they created a 110lb division. Would there be massive outcry if the 110lb champion fought on a Fight Night? Hell no.

I say just keep on doing it.

But if she starts dancing around like AS, then maybe put her as the main event.

Has, at any point in recent history, UFC had a title fight on a card that WASN’T a main event? Sure, there have been cards without a title fight on them, but if there has been a title on the line, it has been on a main event, regular as clockwork. Even lackluster champs have always, always gotten the main event spot, right? A certain Mr. Silva toyed, danced and made a joke of the sport on several consecutive cards and he’s sitll getting a main-event spot against Sonnen.

Kaufman-Hashi wasn’t any kind of an entertaining fight, but for better or for worse, she is still the champion. At the very damn least they should have put Kaufman-Modafferi as the main event. Since they didn’t, she has every reason in the world to be pissed.

Another thing to consider about the whole “building clearing” thing that Snowden used to prop up his argument, courtesy of awesome photographer Esther Lin:

to be fair, lots of people left in San Jose during that fight bc they came to see Luke Rockhold, they left to celebrate with him

because it’s bc the “regional” feel of the show. some people left during shane’s fight because they’d gone to see Sarah.

Sarah Kaufman just needs a snickers

Who cares if she wants to be on main cards, personally I’d like her to be on them but regardless I’ll still enjoy watching her fight. The most important thing to me is for her to get fights against other good fighters.

Main SF cards I mean of course, not challengers series main cards*

If what it wants to be is essentially a minor league organization known for putting on entertaining — if not terribly important — fights; as well as a catchall for fan-favorite type fighters who couldn’t cut it in the big leagues, then I think it should just keep on doing what it’s doing. Sign Batista, ink whatever fight might bring in eyeballs, and promote female MMA only when someone good looking is fighting.

If what it wants to be is the second-largest MMA promoter in the world, and a legitimate alternative to the UFC, then it needs to start behaving as though its belts have value. That means not giving title shots to losers, not turning its back on champions and not relegating existing champions to second-rate cards.

I think it’s important to note that I don’t think anyone is saying Sarah should be left in this exact spot forever. Guys like Mike and I are saying that the world isn’t static and there is no blueprint for promoting successful women’s MMA without Gina (believe it or not, Cyborg? Not a huge ratings draw).

They tried her in a main event, it failed. They’re trying her in a different spot, she looked great. I’m willing to bet now they try something different. Eventually they will find a balance that works for them…or they won’t and they’ll kill the division because it can’t draw.

Now if you guys really want to get pissed off, here’s the part where I tell you that if Gina and Cyborg were both fighting on the same show tomorrow I’d put Gina in the main event before I would Cyborg.

The Hashi fight is SF’s fault primarily, not Kaufmann’s.

It was another example of SF’s awful matchmaking. Bringing in an unknown, boring Japanese fighter that had 0 exposure over here and didn’t match up well with her opponent.

It’s stupid and petty of SF if they punished Sarah for their own mistakes. It was another indication SF needs to wake the Hell up and match up opponents intelligently.

That, and they created a division too soon. But that’s done, and they should stand by it. SF pisses away their legitimacy by the gallon-full on a weekly basis. And don’t tell me casuals don’t pay attention to that stuff, because they have no mainstream support at this time except for one-and-done CBS eyeballs. If they lose their Showtime viewers they’re done for, imho.

Not really relevant to the main point, but since we’re talking about Sarah – her slam made it to # 4 onto Sportcenter’s Top Plays of the week on ESPN. Pretty cool, and good for promotion.

Video

As I’ve said before on other websites the culprit is Gina Carano

Carano was unable to get down to 135 so they made her fight at a weight more comfortable too her. Which allowed the dreadnaught that is Cyborg come in and rule the roost.

And after that happened they(strikeforce) had to feed the monster they created but since there are very few decent 145’ers they started 135’ers to go up in weight class. Diluting the talent pool for the original division they wanted to promote in the first fucking place.

So now Kaufman looks like a second teir champ taking out top 10 opposition and keeping her perfect record. While Cyborg looks like a demi god smashing fighters who have to go up in weight to challenger her.

If Carano made 135, this is a completely different story.

This whole argument is basically the classic idealism vs business bout. Ideally, Strikeforce treats all belts equally and champions fight in the main event period. But from a business standpoint, it has made sense to have Kaufman on the Challenger cards. Female title fights don’t pull the viewers for the heavily promoted events. Since Kaufman is indeed an impressive talent, putting her on the Challengers card places a big fish in the little pond that is Challengers.

Kaufman wants more money so she doesn’t have to answer phones at the gym to pay the rent . She could have waited for a couple more wins to grow her reputation before making the power play that she did, but she chose to do it now. It was risky because she knew that people may respond by telling that she belonged in the corner, which is pretty much how I read Snowden’s post. As long as Strikeforce caves, though, Kaufman wins.

The harsh reality is that winning is not enough to please fans, Strikeforce or Showtime. Kaufman being the best female 135 pound female mixed martial artist the world has ever seen is not enough. She’s doesn’t have pin-up appeal so to become even a moderate draw she needs to take risks in the cage and finish fights.

Kaufman is aiming for equal treatment and good for her. Imagine if other businesses paid highly qualified women less than men and gave them less desirable positions in the work place in order to maximize profits. Oh wait… they do.