Dana White said that Strikeforce is going to continue on as an organization. Cool beans. I mean, one would assume they would make for a pretty effective way to grab up excess prospects and hold onto excess veterans...and just overall help Zuffa get more MMA fighters under their umbrella(ella ella).

But the good ole' DW said something I found peculiar, that Strikeforce fighters will stay as Strikeforce fighters?

Is there ANY conceivable way that will work?

Does he literally mean that everyone with Strikeforce now will be 'forbidden' from going elsewhere? That seams a little extreme, and quite frankly, impossible to do.

The UFC is the top MMA organization...with them, you get the big sponsorships, the big opportunities to prove yourself as a world class fighter(at least, the biggEST opportunities), the exposure that comes with fighting on big-time Pay Per Views, Fox, and FX...and hell, even getting your debut prelim fight aired on Fuel, as opposed to nowhere, is a pretty sweet deal.

So I don't see how any fighter, if given the proposition of signing with Strikeforce, wouldn't rather wait out to try and get a UFC deal later, or try to get one right then and there.

And as far as fighters currently in Strikeforce...what, they will all of a sudden resign to the idea of fighting lesser competition in Strikeforce without hopes of going to the UFC?

Which brings me back to the above. What sort of legal methods do they have to say 'You fight for Strikeforce, you can't go anywhere else'?

Obviously, they can't make the fighters sign new contracts to keep fighting for SF if they don't want to, right?....and THAT, my friends, is where it pretty much hits me.

No more premature fighter poaching. I am pretty sure that many of the Strikeforce imports over to the UFC have been brought over WHILE their contracts with Strikeforce were still going. From what I would assume, Showtime has a problem with that.

So I have to imagine that from this point on...fighters will have to complete their contractual number of fights for Strikeforce/Showtime before they have a chance to sign new deals with the UFC.

Now that, I am perfectly fine with...maybe I mis-understood Dana's initial statements as implying that there would be some sort of 'UFC access forbidden' ban on current Strikeforce fighters...and that they would kind of be stuck where they are...but there really isn't a way to force a fighter to one promotion and keep them their beyond the number of fights they signed for.

Thoughts?