Zuffa Purchases Strikeforce
As of this afternoon, the announcement has been made that Zuffa LLC has purchased it’s chief competitor in Strikeforce. According to UFC President (and Zuffa co-owner) Dana White, the situation will be business as usual for both organizations, but the waters are a bit muddy as of right now. In White’s explanation, the UFC and Strikeforce will remain as separate entities, including fighters under contract. Several times throughout his interview on MMAFighting.com, White used the phrase “business as usual,” which was meant to indicate that the purchase of the rival brand was not to merge Strikeforce into the UFC (as the UFC did with the WEC at the end of 2010, as well as with Pride FC in 2007), but to maintain both brands. The first thing that came to my mind when I heard the intentions of keeping the brands separate was that the UFC was trying to promote similarly to Major League Baseball, with both Strikeforce and the UFC operating independently of one another, with very little interaction between the two, similar to the MLB’s system of the American and National Leagues (similar if you choose to ignore interleague play, the All-Star Game, and the World Series, of course).
When asked about staffing the newly-acquired Strikeforce, Dana White indicated that they will not be replacing the Strikeforce employees, but rather things would stay “business as usual.” White mentioned that Strikeforce would remain in it’s home base of San Jose, continue to honor all contracts, and basically stay as a separate entity from the UFC. Though White has expressed strong feelings about Scott Coker, M-1 Global (Fedor Emilianenko’s representation), and Ken Hershman of Showtime Sports, he officially stated that the purchase of Strikeforce would in no way jeopardize any of the existing contracts and partnerships of Strikeforce.
In stepping back and looking at this deal, I am absolutely shocked and confused as to why the UFC would make the move at this point in time. While White did indicate that the acquisition of Strikeforce would make their entire fight catalogue available to the powers that be for Zuffa, he indicated that this purchase was not made for the same reasons that the Pride Fighting Championships deal was made. White indicated that the promotions would remain separate, and that Zuffa would keep encouraging Scott Coker and Strikeforce to keep improving and growing the Strikeforce brand. White said that there will not be a need for cross-brand fights, including superfights, so don’t get your hopes up just yet for a Gilbert Melendez-Frankie Edgar showdown. Hopefully, now that Zuffa owns Strikeforce, this will open up the possibility of a show on Spike TV that is similar to the ultra-popular (at least in my household) Best of Pride show, to showcase the best fights and fighters of Strikeforce for those of us that haven’t had the luxury of watching the fights on Showtime.
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The only thing that I can figure is that Zuffa will indeed honor all contracts that Strikeforce has worked out, until the contracts run out. At that point, Zuffa isn’t at all obligated to re-sign any contracts at all, and in fact has the ability to merge the brands of Strikeforce and the UFC (as they have previously done with Pride and the WEC) to form a super-organization. Let’s be honest, after all of the speculation between a cross-brand promotion with Bellator and Strikeforce to see which brand had the better Lightweight Champion (Eddie Alvarez for Bellator and Gilbert Melendez for Strikeforce), I highly doubt that anyone saw this maneuver on the horizon between the UFC and fierce rival Strikeforce. With the recent news that Bellator is willing to bump their weekly Saturday events up to air on MTV2 an hour earlier on nights that there is a UFC event, perhaps something bigger is in the works, or perhaps that deal is Bjorn Rebney and Bellator’s way of getting on the good side of Dana White and the UFC. In any regard, the news that Zuffa LLC, parent company to the UFC, has purchased Strikeforce, will go down as one of the biggest, most shocking business deals in recent memory. While Dana White and the Fertita brothers are shelling out big bucks to acquire Strikeforce, the real winners in this deal are us, the fans of mixed martial arts, as we could be poised for some even more dynamite MMA action in the years to come.
By Curt Heinrichs
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer