Open Letter to Strikeforce
by Fludbucket on Sep 14, 2010 10:38 PM EDT
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PrintDear Strikeforce,
I am writing this open letter from the perspective of a concerned fan. Your promotion seems to have so many things set in place to actually make some marketing gains, yet you seem to be stumbling and quickly losing your place as the Untied State's second biggest promotion. Allow me to explain myself, while you are making gains in both fighters and partners you seem to be falling out of sight with even some of the hardcore fan base. Strikeforce it's time to get a new identity. With your recent signing of Josh Barnett, you finally have a division that you can make a legitimate claim is better then your rivals.
I would like to point out some features that I believe could put you in closer contention with the UFC. The points I am going to make is going to bother some bloggers, but it is necessary to say; you need some angles to promote your fights. Scott Coker, I really admire what you have done with your promotion but to gather the crowds you need something to sell. UFC and the WWE/WWF have used these marketing tactics for years and it has paid off in huge dividends. People know the fighters, at the bars there are hate and love for the fighters from even casual fans, ones who might see them for the first time on the countdown show. Compare that to your own product, does anyone outside of the readers of Sherdog, Bloodyelbow, MMA Junkie and other sites even know anything about Jacare. How can you expect more people to tune in without giving them a reason to care about a fighter. Sell both sides of a fight, not just one. This has burnt you multiple times. You didn't promote King Mo against Mussasi and you had an unknown champion you didnt promote Feija against King Mo, and now you once again have an unknown Light Heavyweight champion. Lets take a look at some of your recent cards:
Strikeforce Houston
Overall a great fight card, but it was missing as I pointed out earlier, the angles to make people interested in the fights. Outside of the most hardcore fans, no one knows anything about half the fighters on your card. It is your job to tell me who is this Jacare other then a BJJ practitioner? Bring Jacare to life, allow your fans to become personal with him. You will never win over the casual MMA fan without giving them a character to grip onto. This is why Anderson Silva PPV's sell so poorly. No one cares about him normally. I have only seen crowds fired up for him when Chael Sonnen spent months selling the fight.
Strikeforce Fedor V. Werdum
Great card overall. But where were the highlights building up the fighters. I understand UFC owns Fedor's Pride footage but where is his affliction footage at? Where is Werdum's BJJ championship footage. Where was all of the trash talk between Scott Smith and Cung Le? Who is Pat Healy? I am a hardcore fan who watches about every MMA card every month and I had to even Wiki him. Turns out hes a hell of a fighter with wins over many guys in the UFC and even former UFC title contenders. Could you not secure the footage of MFC and get him to talk about how hes coming to take over Strikeforce?
Strikeforce LA
From what I understand this was thrown together to help hype EA MMA. Good job on that. Great fights, but again no real reason to watch the card other then if you knew these would be good fights.
Strikeforce Heavy Artillery
This is where your odd match making comes into play. Losers on National TV. The heavyweight title should not be a Showtime match. Everyone loves heavyweights, I don't know if its the power or the rippling muscle of Overeem's massive pecks. But what you did here is hurt further Overeem matches. No one outside of MMA's hardcore fans even know Overeem. Overeem has all the markings to be marketed as a cash cow if you use him right. Explain to your fans what K1 is, explain what ADCC is and use those to explain how good Overeem is. The average fan might just think hes a no skilled muscular guy coming into his fights, but when they understand his credentials it will make him another person to them entirely. Also let him speak more, Overeem is very good with the Mic and knows how to sell fights.
Strikeforce Nashville- Your last push on CBS. This card probably had the most effect on the current MMA rankings out of any card in recent history, but backfired in about every way possible from a casual perspective. The first thing I want you to take in is what you had going into this fight. Choose a main event. Your card had 3 main events and all were great displays of grappling. I think everyone in the MMA business knows grappling is part of the Sports side and not the entertainment. You have a captive audience of both the hardcore and casual fans with a free show like this. Use it to your advantage. Bring people into MMA. This is the type of card Cung Le or Manhoef belong on. This is the card where you bring brawlers on. Hell make a freak show match. You know I hear that Kimbo guy is kind of popular, and so is that one Bobby Lashley guy, for all I care bring in other members of the NFL hall of fame. Freakshows to draw people in and keep them. Use freakshows to get casuals hooked onto real fighters. Also add lucrative finish bonuses. You have no clue how much a finish changes the way a fight was viewed. It washes away the Lay N' Pray hate that a fight recieves.
Strikeforce Nashville also brings me to my next point. FIRE YOUR ANNOUNCING TEAM. Why in the world would the second best fight promotion in the United States have the fifth best announcing team. When a small promotion like shark fights has better announcers then you, your in trouble. Hire Bas Rutten right now, hire the Voice, hell hire anyone else.
My next piece of agenda is your CBS/Showtime deal. Get on CBS monthly or give up on that. No one outside of the hardcore fan base knows you exist, why? You are just that promotion that had that one fight on CBS. Fans can not connect to your product if you don't present it to your audience. How can you expect for your product to compete with the UFC when you are not concerned with your branding at all? Move your main cards to CBS & leave Challengers on Showtime.
Strikeforce also needs to fire their marketing team. I actually enjoy the PV videos they design. They are high quality and have awesome graphics but they have yet to "sell" me on a fight. You might want to steal some talent from the WWE or even from your partner's EA. Their Fedor Vs. Randy video is the perfect example of how to sell a fight. Notice how they talk about the history about the fighter, Randy sells the difficulty of the fight. They sell why this fight is important and BOTH sides are shown.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GiG5aPaUS8
You guys are dropping the ball on Mahyem V Diaz, that match is falling into your lap. There is bad blood. America has seen the bad blood. These are two of your biggest stars who have a Ortiz, Shamrock level of rivalry going on. USE IT. Hell give the winner Jacare. There is some more bad blood.
Lastly, Sign some fun matches on your CBS cards. Get Bobby Lashly V. Batista, hell sign The Rock. Get those fighters who you know will scrap. Give long term contracts to guys like Houston Alexander, Scott Smith, Cung Le, and anyone else who is willing to scrap and put on a great fight. Keep working on that Co-Promotion bring in Hector Lombard, Santiago, and other stars.
The FanPosts are solely the subjective opinions of Bloody Elbow readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bloody Elbow editors or staff.
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Comments
In order...
-It’s losing, not “loosing”. I don’t care, but if you’re writing a letter to SF…
-How do you suggest they build a potential superstar like Jacare? And calling him a BJJ practitioner is not doing him justice. The guy may be the best MW not named Anderson Silva. Time will tell.
-UFC owns Fedor’s Affliction footage as well, I believe. Perhaps they show a video of him at Baskin Robbins?
-You aren’t big on Jacare, but you want info on Pat Healy?
-You portray Jacare as a BJJ practitioner, yet want them to explain what ADCC is for Overeem?
-I have no problem with the occasional freakshow match, but you have to get most of the focus on your champs and contenders.
-They don’t have the fighters to do a monthly CBS card, maybe nobody does.
-Their announcing team stinks, but as much as I like Frye and Bas, they are not the answer. They are basically collecting paychecks at this point and have little dedication to being regular announcers.
-Long term contract to Houston Alexander?
I have plenty of issues with SF and their operation, but I don’t see much on here that would improve their product.
Not trying to crap on your post, but it just seems very flawed to me. Maybe I’m the only one who sees it this way?
I actually love Jacare
I wanted to put this up to get some feedback, I will edit and fix it later. Thanks for the spelling help.
-How do you suggest they build a potential superstar like Jacare? And calling him a BJJ practitioner is not doing him justice. The guy may be the best MW not named Anderson Silva. Time will tell.
I poorly stated that was all strikeforce is doing and needs to build some character out of him so he is not the next Anderson Silva (amazing fighter no personaliity) obviously this needs work
-UFC owns Fedor’s Affliction footage as well, I believe. Perhaps they show a video of him at
Baskin Robbins?
I haven’t read anywhere that says they own that footage. Maybe his bodog fight, or even some of his other strikeforce fights.
-You aren’t big on Jacare, but you want info on Pat Healy?
See above
-You portray Jacare as a BJJ practitioner, yet want them to explain what ADCC is for Overeem?
-I have no problem with the occasional freakshow match, but you have to get most of the focus on your champs and contenders.
Again this section needs some work. I was trying to state use freakshow matches to draw people in for the real fights
-They don’t have the fighters to do a monthly CBS card, maybe nobody does.
Alistair Overeem [CHAMP]
Fedor Emelianenko (M-1)
Fabricio Werdum
Josh Barnett
Sergei Kharitonov
Antonio Silva
Brett Rogers
Bobby Lashley
Andrei Arlovski
Shane Del Rosario (HW & LHW)
Ron Sparks
Mike Kyle
Mike Whitehead
Levar “Big” Johnson
Daniel Cormier
Ray Sefo
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Geronimo dos Santos
Tim Sylvia
Jeff Monson (Shine Fights)
Ron Waterman
Daniel Puder
Dropped or Signed With Another Promotion:
Paul Buentello (UFC=>Free Agent)
Dave Herman (Bellator)
Light Heavyweight:
Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante[CHAMP]
“King” Mo Lawal
Gegard Mousasi
Dan Henderson (LHW & MW)
Renato “Babalu” Sobral
Antwain Britt
Roger Gracie
Kevin “The Monster” Randleman
Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
Ron “Abongo” Humphrey
Shane Del Rosario (HW & LHW)
George Bush III
Scott Lighty
Mike Kyle
Aaron Rosa
Bobby Southworth
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Jaime Fletcher
Anthony Ruiz
Wayne Cole
Paoi Suganuma
Jeff Monson (Shine Fights)
Ralek Gracie
Ricardo Arona
Dropped or Signed With Another Promotion:
Cyrille Diabate (UFC)
Jarred Hamman (UFC)
Tito Ortiz (UFC)
Middleweight:
Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza[CHAMP]
Dan Henderson (LHW & MW)
Cung Le
Melvin Manhoef
Robbie Lawler
Jason “Mayhem” Miller
Nick Diaz (MW & WW)
Frank Shamrock
Scott Smith
Joey Villasenor
Siyar “Afghan Killa” Bahadurzada
Karl Amoussou
Matt Lindland
Benji Radach
Trevor Prangley
Tim Kennedy
Paul Bradley
Zak Cummings
Kevin Casey
Eric Lawson
Luke Rockhold
Yancy Medeiros
Buck Meredith
Raul Castillo
Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos
Cory Devela
Louis Taylor
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Kazuo Misaki (May have 1 fight left)
Kala Hose (Kingdom MMA)
Riki Fukuda (DREAM)
Paulo Filho (DREAM)
Jorge Santiago (Sengoku)
Mamed Khalidov (KSW)
Tiawan Howard
Terry Martin
Dropped or Signed With Another Promotion:
Jake Shields (UFC)
Jason McDonald (MFC)
Travis Lutter (MFC)
Thales Leites (MFC)
John Alessio (MFC)
Giva Santana (Shine Fights)
Alexander Shlemenko (Shine Fights, Bellator)
Ninja Rua (Shine Fights, DREAM)
Welterweight:
Nick Diaz (WW & MW) [CHAMP]
Marius Zaromskis
Andre Galvao
Joe Riggs
Tarec Saffiedine
Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos
Tyron Woodley
Nathan Coy
Shamar Bailey
Roger Bowling
Luke Stewart
Eric Bradley
Brian Schwartz
Erik Apple
Bobby Voelker
Mark Miller
Nate Moore
James Terry
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
**Mach Sakurai (via DREAM)
Nick Thompson (Sengoku)
Ben Askren (Bellator)
Jesse Taylor
War Machine
Brock Larson
Lemont Davis
Raymond Daniels
Ross Ebanez
Matt Makoski
Mike Stumpf
Lorenzo Borgomeo
Torrance Taylor
Dropped or Signed With Another Promotion:
Jake Shields (UFC)
Jay Hieron (Free Agent)
Paul Daley (Free Agent)
Dennis Hallman(UFC)
Phil Baroni (UFC)
Duane Ludwig (UFC)
Lightweight:
Gilbert Melendez [CHAMP]
Josh Thomson
Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante
Jorge Masdival
**Shinya Aoki (via DREAM)
Mitsuhiro Ishida
Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro
Rodrigo Damm
K.J. Noons
Jorge Gurgel
Conor Heun
Billy Evangelista
Lyle Beerbohm
Daisuke Nakamura
Mike Aina
Justin Wilcox
David “Tarzan” Douglas
Bryan Travers
Pat Healy
Ben Holscher
Merritt Warrent
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Roger Huerta (Bellator)
**Tatsuya Kawajiri (via DREAM)
Eddie Alvarez (Bellator)
Charles “Crazy Horse” Bennett
Edson Berto
Monkhon “Malaipet” WiWasuk
Thomas “Wildman” Denny
Victor “Joe Boxer” Valuenzela
Marlon Mathias
Kaleo Kwan
Yves Edwards
Dropped or Signed With Another Promotion:
Takanori Gomi (UFC)
Fabricio Camoes (Free Agent)
Rafaello “The Tractor” Olivera (Free Agent
Muhsin Corbbrey (WEC)
Georgi Karakhanyan (Bellator)
- Featherweight/Bantamweight:
On Hold…
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Wilson Reis
Abel Cullum
Bao Quach
Jeff Curran
Nick Denis
Bryan Caraway
Mark Oshiro
Nam Phan
Thomas Longacre
Doug Evans
Zach Makovsky
Bobby McMasters
Andres Soares
Justin Robbins
Tito Jones
Shingo Kohara
- Women (FW/BW/etc):
Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos [145 CHAMP]
Sarah Kaufman [135 CHAMP]
Gina Carano
Miesha Tate
Erin Toughill
Kerry Vera
Cindy Dandois
Carina Damm
Shayna Baszler
Juliana Pena
Marloes Coenen
Roxanne Modafferi
Kim Couture
Hitomi Akano
Takayo Hashi
Zoila Frausto
Jan Finney
Not Yet Signed, In Talks, Or Some Relation:
Yoko Takahashi
Keiko Tamai
Kaitlin Young
Tonya Evinger
Julie Kedzie
Rosi Sexton (Bellator)
Debi Purcell
Melanie Lacroix
Michelle Waterson
Katrina Alendal
-Their announcing team stinks, but as much as I like Frye and Bas, they are not the answer. They are basically collecting paychecks at this point and have little dedication to being regular announcers.
Still better then what strikeforce is putting out
-Long term contract to Houston Alexander?
Yep. Not the best fighter in the world but hes entertaining. Strikeforce needs to win over the casual market
by Fludbucket on Sep 14, 2010 11:46 PM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
Dude, for real?
You really think Frye and Bas is a good announcing team for CBS? Don Frye mentioned his scrotum, prison rape, beating his wife, sharting, prostitutes fighting for loose money, and jokes about France that went out of vogue 7 years ago over the course of ONE broadcast. That’s fine for regionals that only hardcores will ever see, and god damn did I enjoy that show, but you want that on CBS every month? What the hell are you talking about?
"Someone is WRONG on the internet. What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!"
-Randall Munroe
by pdl on Sep 14, 2010 11:59 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
No I was semi joking
I was just pointing out that anyone is better then what they have now
I was joking about Frye
They should hire just Bas. Frye is a little too much of a loose cannon but Bas Rutten has proven that he can be a little more PG.
Frye is just a little too awsome for TV
I’d love to have a beer with him though…
Semper Fi'
WatchKalibRun.com
Pain don't hurt...
Frye should be cast for a reality tv show.
Survivor or The real Jersey Shore. Something that would completely clash with his style. He would be entertainment for hours.
If Russia attacked Turkey from the rear, Do you think Greece would help?
"Frye should be cast for a reality tv show."
I can see it now, they just get a camera crew to follow him around. No agenda, no plan, just film what he does…every once in a while he will get annoyed and come after them, those episodes will be reserved for sweeps.
Profit!
I like Fedor, it’s just his fans that are intolerable...and his management.
Mauro and Bas and...
Millitech.. For some reason I enjoyed his dry commentary on the preliminaries.
by Rufford on Sep 15, 2010 1:02 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
It's tempting to rec that shit isnt it?
"If by romantic, you mean homosexual"-Luke Thomas
"Yea he builds hot rods mostly, sometimes faces"- Carl ATHF
Had to do it
"Don’t quote old fucks to me" – Brent Brookhouse
by Chris Barton on Sep 20, 2010 7:00 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks for responding.
Unfortunately, with financial limitations, they can’t sign every fighter in the world. The problem here is, you are concerned about their appeal to the casual fan, but 99% of them have never heard of the people you listed.
And outside of Gina and Cyborg, to an extent, there just isn’t the interest in women’s mma. Don’t like saying it, but it is true.
Glad to see you don’t hate Jacare, because it was certainly coming across that way.
and
remember, you are talking about putting on a monthly CBS card, not just any card. You have to really provide star appeal for a CBS card.
See tis is where my post works. Yes they can’t sign every fighter, but they can and have co promoted.
As far as star power, it just takes one fight with star power to bring in viewers, after that its about capturing the exciting moments of our sport and adding product branding to the promotion. Make sure people understand this is what Strikeforce is. Separate your product from your competition. Make Strikeforce the show to watch for crazy back and forth battles with high KO rates. Allow it to play off the UFCs Lay N’ Pray stigma.
btw your welcome
hell I wouldn’t mind if the under card was an entertaining Sanshou or Muay Thai match.
They could change further to differentiate themselves
And play to the strengths of their best fighters by replacing the cage with a ring. I am generally not in favor of rings in general for MMA, and certainly not for the UFC, but SF could use one effectively given their lack of elite MMA Wrestlers.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer
As for being well rounded... "The fox devises many strategies, the hedgehog only one, but he uses it very effectively." -Archilochus
by BigDNotDallas on Sep 19, 2010 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions
On Fedor
Perhaps someone else can confirm this, but I believe his Affliction footage came over as part of the Affliction tail tucking deal with Zuffa.
What the fuck?
Over.
"If by romantic, you mean homosexual"-Luke Thomas
"Yea he builds hot rods mostly, sometimes faces"- Carl ATHF
With your recent signing of Josh Barnett, you finally have a division that you can make a legitimate claim is better then your rivals.
The only claim that the SF HW division can make being better at is failing piss tests.
"they mad at me, I keep going hard reppin/
cause what's your Rampage to Rashad Evans/"
-Joe Budden (Something To Ride To)
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76866807deabe3c1/
Sherdog rankings
1. Brock Lesnar (5-1)
. Fabricio Werdum (14-4-1)
3. Fedor Emelianenko (31-2, 1 NC)[/b]
4. Cain Velasquez (8-0)
5. Junior dos Santos (12-1)
6. Shane Carwin (12-1)
7. Frank Mir (13-5)
. Alistair Overeem (33-11, 1 NC)
. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira (32-6-1, 1 NC)
. Antonio Silva (14-2)[/b]
Other contenders: [b]Andrei Arlovski, Josh Barnett[/b], Roy Nelson, [b]Brett Rogers[/b], Ben Rothwell.
USA today/SB Nation
1 Brock Lesnar 99 UFC
[b]2 Fedor Emelianenko 90 M-1 Global/Strikeforce
3 Fabricio Werdum 89 Strikeforce [/b]
4 Cain Velasquez 87 UFC
5 Shane Carwin 84 UFC
6 Junior dos Santos 82 UFC
7 Frank Mir 77 UFC
[b]8 Alistair Overeem 75 Strikeforce/DREAM [/b]
9 Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira 71 UFC
[b]10 Antonio Silva 51 Strikeforce
11 Josh Barnett 50 DREAM/Impact Fighting
12 Brett Rogers 49 Strikeforce [/b]
If you factor in the fact that Josh Barnett was number 3 last year and has only dropped due to inactivity(something that didn’t happen to Lesnar), you have no excuse to say its not at least even.
its not even...
SF lacks the depth of the UFC’s HW roster.
The top of both divisions are close though. SF has some good yound HWs though: Cormier, King Mo, Del Rosario
Strikeforce's HW division is the one area they equal the UFC
Their top guys (Fedor, Werdum, Barnett, Overeem) are the equal of the UFC’s (Lesnar, Cain, JDS, Carwin). If all fought each other, it is highly unlikely anyone comes out better than 5-2…and probably no worse than 3-4.
Their second and third tier guys are equivalent as well (Mir and Bigfoot; Nog, Nelson and Rogers, Arlovski)
Moreover, I would argue that their best prospects are probably better than the UFC’s at the moment.
Where the UFC has the distinct advantage is with their gatekeeper-type guys (Kongo, Gonzaga, Rothwell), even though the overall depth is fairly poor for both sides, as has always been the case at HW.
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." -Arthur Schopenhauer
As for being well rounded... "The fox devises many strategies, the hedgehog only one, but he uses it very effectively." -Archilochus
by BigDNotDallas on Sep 19, 2010 1:02 PM EDT up reply actions
lol @ Untied States but in seriousness
what company is even close to challenging Strikeforce as the #2 US promotion? Bellator will be out of business in 1 or 2 years and doesn’t have the talent that SF does.
I think you reversed...
Strikeforce and Bellator in your comment.
I like Fedor, it’s just his fans that are intolerable...and his management.
Strikefroce’s biggest problem is lack of planning and network support. Zuffa aired 5.5 hours of new programming last night, how many commercials or mentions of future fight cards and products were there throughout the night?
The best strikeforce can do is a quick mention of the next couple of cards in the middle of the segment where they list all the upcoming events on CBS sports. They can’t do a real commercial or push because they don’t have the next event planned, and it isn’t acceptable any more.
it’s been a year since the Elite acquisition, so the “they are new excuse” is gone. They have enough fighters sitting around waiting for fights that there really is no reason. They need to get the guys they have under contract to agree to fights, and then announce the fights early enough in advance to promote them properly.
It is completely insane that they haven’t turned every fight card into a commercial for the next one or two, especially when there has been so much talk about using CBS to push a PPV or to move subscriptions to Showtime. A little help from the network with some highlight or countdown shows wouldn’t hurt either.
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