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wrestlingontap
Denny Crane Of Forums
USA
671 Posts |
 Posted - 08/06/2009 : 7:25:28 PM
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PHILADELPHIA - It appears the friendly rivalry between the Ultimate Fighting Championship and Strikeforce is no more.
Although Dana White previously had been complimentary of Strikeforce and its co-founder and president, Scott Coker, the UFC president today referred to the organization as "Strike-farce" and hinted that counter-programming and public criticism – often-used weapons with former rivals such as EliteXC and Affliction – could be on the way.
White discussed Strikeforce and the company's recent signing of Fedor Emelianenko following today's UFC 101 pre-event press conference at the Independence Visitor Center in Philadelphia.
The UFC and Emelianenko, the famed Russian heavyweight and longtime PRIDE title-holder who owns a 30-1 career record, held its most serious negotiations to date late last month following the collapse of the fighter's former home, Affliction.
However, Emelianenko ultimately turned down an offer from the UFC – "It was obvious they didn't want to do a deal; they weren't serious," White said – and instead accepted a one-year, three-fight deal with Strikeforce. Negotiations fell apart when UFC officials refused to co-promote with M-1 Global, an organization that boasts Emelianeno and his manager, Vadim Finkelchtein, among its ownership group.
White said Strikeforce's decision to sign Emelianenko and to agree to the co-promotion was a poor one and could cost the organization, one of the few financially viable fight promotions outside of the UFC, substantially.
"He'll put them out of business," White said of Emelianenko. "They have no money. They have no money, and they have no distribution. Four [expletive] people watch Showtime.
"You know how many people watch their fights? Their last fight, 245,000 people watched that fight (on Showtime). That's nothing. ... They should have stayed the way they were."
(For comparison's sake, White said the organization did 1.5 million pay-per-view buys for UFC 100, and events on Spike TV have averaged nearly 2.2 million viewers this year; past shows have peaked with as many as five million viewers.)
White also criticized Strikeforce for what he perceives to be a void of star power and the lack of title defenses from the organization's current crop of champions.
"They're a small-town show," White said facetiously. "(Middleweight champion) Cung Le hasn't defended the title since like 1997. (Lightweight champ) Josh Thomson hasn't defended the belt in like two years. Who is their other champion? (Heavyweight) Alistair Overeem – he hasn't defended the belt in like two years. It's Strike-farce. It's a little regional show with no one in it."
So is White ready to declare an all-out promotional war on Strikeforce?
"We'll see how it goes," White said. "If they want to fight me, we're going to fight. We know how that goes, and we know how it ends."
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UFC/Strikeforce Pleasantries Over
