Strikeforce Grand Prix Results: Did the GP Kill the Heavyweight Division?

I don’t understand why Barnett winning the thing would be such a negative. Barnett is only one year older than Cormier, so it’s not like one guy has a 10 year career ahead of him that the other doesn’t. Who wouldn’t want to see how Barnetts catch wrestling matches up with the likes of Overeem, Dos Santos or Velasquez? I’d pay to see all 3 of those match-ups.

Zuffa is probably happy about this, now there are not many fans screaming anymore for Werdum, Arlovski, Rogers, and Fedor to come over to UFC. It helped thin the herd out a little bit. There are some people on every MMA site I’ve ever been on, who scream for a Grand Prix tourney every time there is more than 1 serious contender in a division, but they never look at the fact that a GP can clean out a division in one swoop, and turn an exciting division into a situation where you just have to ask, what is next?

What I would do next with the winner of the GP, is move them to UFC and match them with the Mir/Nog winner for a title shot.

Antonio Silva, Fabricio Verdum even fedor can kiss their chances going into UFC after their performances. UFC heavyweight division is too good. Daniel in the UFC seems to make a lot of sense. Even Barnett his wrestling is great.

could join cawrin in top of the divisions? really i still think werdum could beat him not to mention josh already has the skills to do so if anything carwin could join this guys. not to mention cromier is now in the spot light even if he loses to josh he still right up there. looks to me like strike force had the better hw all along reem,josh,cormier,fedor,werdum,silva vs jds,cain,carwin and after this 3 who else is worth mentioning. frank would get detroy by silva in my opinion. brock i can’t get behind a guy that does not like to get hit in the face. roy nelson got destroy by arloski and nog is just a zombie.

I seriously don’t think that the heavyweight division will be as stacked as people thought it would after the Strikeforce heavyweights come over. We’ve found out that the only people who can even possibly challenge for the title are Cormier and Barnett..After the merger I would put the heavyweight division on par with middleweight

Barnett, Werdum, Khar, cormier, big foot should easily get a shot in the ufc. id even say griggs should get a shot 2. not to go off subject but i hope they sign moussasi and ‘persuade’ him to drop back down to MW as he’l get wrestle fucked at LHW. moussasi v anderson silva would be a techincal masterpiece.

It was individual decisions and happenstance that have turned HW division from their strongest into one of their weakest.

Let’s see the employees Strikeforce has lost during the course of the tournament:
-Fedor losing was a blow, but his management and M-1’s price tag made it impossible for him to rebound in the way might have ala Tito Ortiz’s losing streak. He had one more shot against Hendo and it was over. I would say that was M-1’s fault.
-Alistair Overeem leaving Strikeforce and eventually going to the UFC was probably a number of different folks’ fault and I have no idea. Not going to retread that. It hurt the credibility of the tournament as much as anything though.
-Andrei Arlovski should have been given a rebound match against an easier opponent either somewhere in the 11 months between losing to Brett Rogers and losing to Bigfoot, or in the 9 months between losing to Bigfoot and losing to Kharitonov. Kind of hard to say whose fault it was. Maybe Andrei Arlovski’s price was too steep, maybe it was because Rich Chou was not very good at his matchmaking job (which is true), maybe it was Coker, maybe he was injured during both stretches of time, but it set up the situation where he came into the tournament on a three-fight losing streak (already a bad thing simply for the tournament itself), and then practically had to be cut, even with his strength of schedule.
-Brett Rogers got fired after he allegedly beat his wife (and according to witnesses, choking his kids and even hitting his dog). If it’s true then it’s 100% his fault. If he’s somehow not guilty of domestic violence, he was still charged with it under very awful looking circumstances, so I still would not say it’s Zuffa’s fault.
-Shane del Rosario was injured in a car wreck. That was some crazy bitch’s fault. God willing he will return.
-Valentijn Overeem was fired in the crossfire of Golden Glory. Honestly, I think he deserved one more shot after losing. That one I’d pin on Dana White overreacting a bit (although unlike Marloes Coenen and Jon Olav Eneimo there was an argument to be made for him being cut outright). Maybe he’ll be re-signed like nothing ever happened and get a fight against Lavar Johnson or whoever
-Jeff Monson probably asked for his release after losing to Cormier so he could resume his iron man scheduling that he is accustomed to. Supposedly this is why he left the UFC after losing to Tim Sylvia. My understanding is that he has a bit of an open door thing going with Zuffa and could return if he wanted to. Now that Cormier KO’d Bigfoot, Monson’s last performance doesn’t look as bad, and I think if Monson beats Fedor, he’s more than welcome back. Anyway him leaving was either Monson’s own choice, or if he got cut, then Sean Shelby overreacting, but probably the former.
-Ray Sefo deserved to be cut (assuming he was cut). Sorry.

As for the Grand Prix tournament format, yes, it means everyone who doesn’t win leaves on a loss, which theoretically would have been seven out of eight people in the main field, and that’s one reason that Dana White doesn’t do them, but a smart matchmake could have set things up so that if someone lost then they could still be rehabilitated. Unfortunately it was a rather large clusterfuck for any number of reasons.

All the fighters in this tourney were at least quality HW’s. Your talking about guys not getting into the UFC but it was freaking tourney there is only 1 winner. Nobody is going to fault guys like Silva and Kharitonov. Their stock is still pretty good.

I don’t think Werdum’s loss to Overeem was “career-defining.” It didn’t look nearly as bad as the JDS loss. He actually had good exchanges with Overeem on his feet, even if he failed to bait him to the ground. Werdum could still bounce back. A fight with Kharitonov would be a good start.

Guys Werdum and Silva stayed on the floor calling their opponents. They knocked down and they on the ground like Thailes Leites did with Silva. And what hapened to him after that. He left the Ufc. They are boring onedimensional fighters. Their standup sucks. Silva was favorite over Cornier in stand up . Monsoon lasted three rounds with Daniel COrnier!!!

but it didn’t kill the division as a whole. the best hw’s were always in the ufc. strikeforce was just working with whatever was left over from what ufc didn’t want. Guys like werdun, Arlovski and Fedor are guys the ufc doesnt want because these guys overvalue there own value. there just not worth the money they are asking for. the only guy worth a lick of salt in this tourney is overreen so ufc went and got him. i dont understand why they are putting him against brock in his first fight since brock will beat him quite easily. the reason why guys who were thought of highly in strikeforce lost to guys who nobody has ever heard of is because the hws in the strikeforce were never really that good. it was a lot of smoke and mirrors to make dana and the ufc look bad and we all see how that ended up turning out. that may have been strikeforces last show and I doubt any of these hws are signed by the ufc.

best hw are in the ufc dude who else besides cain,jds and maybe carwin are better then strike force serg would destroy roy nelson. nog is just a zombie brock does not like to get hit.and mir would get beat by silva. the truth is all this guys stock is going way down because everyone knows that strike force will go under so this guys were fighting to see who is going to the ufc.

The Strikeforce Heavy Weight Grand Prix has been a breath of fresh air to MMA. UFC in 2011 has been pretty stale and uninteresting, the Strikeforce shows have been fresh and exciting. I think you can judge the success of the the HW GP by the fact that UFC was forced to take over Strikeforce, It’s a good job they did (for them) otherwise I think Strkeforce could be on the way to taking them over by now.

I lay the blame if there is any on SF and the brackets
a smart tournament keeps the Big names apart
for at least the first round
What if we had seen Fedor, Arlovski, Rogers and Verdum matched a little “softer” in the 1st round and allowed to walk away winners
which would have set up bigger bouts with Overeem, Silva, Barnett amd Karitonov in the 2nd?
Overeem’s departure is the fault of his managament, no big conspiracy or that silliness
Fedor has simply not grown with the sport, end of that
Rogers was always a flash in the pan
AA may yet restore his career
Verdum had bad strategfy that may have played well outside the US but here we expect fighters to fight
Silva this weekend was the one we did not want to see, the one who let Verdum set the pace in that fight. If we had seen the assertive, fired up version, it may have gone the other way
Cormier as the latest and greatest? Let’s let time tell that story, just like we need to do with Velsquez
Barnett? What can I say, he has been a top five guy for years. He may be a top one or two guy. He may get old all of asudden. But at least now he has a big stage, name opponents and the attention of the world to show his stuff. As an old catch wrestler I know his skills compare with any others and look for him to handle Cormier