UFC buys Strikeforce

Holy crap! Very interesting.

Thoughts anyone?

Very interesting and Fedor will still never fight in the octagon

I find it great in many ways, there are some downside potentially, but with their background I believe it to be a good move. They are likely going to turn this into the minor leagues and develop fights from 20th and down. Not sure how they will handle CBS and Showtime, but they say business as usual. I think for the fighters that are kept, they will profit accordingly, but there will be lots that get dropped. This really make is interesting for Fedor, Paul Danny and diaz all of which have long history's with UFC. So they say they are leaving Coker in place and such, but they have proven they like full control so I would think his responsibilities will be heavily diminished. I think they are planning on keeping it separate for awhile just cause of the tv deals.

Either way - Zufafa continues it's global dominance and mastery of sports business management.

i hope they leave it pretty much intact, I really like the way Strikforce is right now. Man UFC's damn near a monopoly.

Originally Posted by notsobueno

Holy crap! Very interesting.

Thoughts anyone?

OMG!
LOOK WHO'S BACK!!

*dances with glee and giddiness*

ps,its good for the sport.

Some pretty interesting things coming out of this already. Paul Daley scrambling, Dan Henderson playing Mr. nice guy, Big Foot calling out Lesner, etc... Anybody realize Scott Coker has not said boo? I have a feeling that will be standard practice being under the Zuffa umbrella.

-BIG BIG UFC this Saturday. Can't wait.

I doubt they'll get rid of any of the popular fighters in Strikeforce.. regardless of what they did in the UFC.

Super excited for the fights this weekend! Come on Jones!

I am not a fan of this at all, the UFC is just buying up everything. They are going to have a monopoly on MMA and anyone having a monopoly on anything isn't good. First it was Pride, then WEC, and now strikeforce. Soon everything will be pay-per-veiw. You have to have your different organizations to grow the sport, promote up and coming fighters, and it's just healthy for the sport. When ever you have one organization contorlling everything, things go bad. Fighters contracts will suffer in the long run, the quality of fights I believe we decrease in the long run as well not to mention the fans suffer. Ticket prices will go up. Not a fan.

As fans, this will actually be a good thing. Stikeforce will be used as a stepping stone to the UFC. I do believe the UFC will go to 90% PPV once this is all said and done. Than strikeforce to be the fight nights/fights for the troops/and freebe's. The one big downside I think is that the many fighters will drop off. The good thing for that is that all of he other MMA groups out there like Bellator and Shrarx will benefit by getting "big name"'s to their leagues now. The level of UFC fighters will actually go up even futher. They are trying to taper their rooster back to 250 from like 400+, so it will be the upper echelon for sure. that being said, who knows what Dana will really do regardless of what he says.

Shogun got worked. I wonder if he will have to have another knee surgery? Jones looks unstoppable but i think that has been said about every lhw champ and they always seem to only defend once.

Wow Jon Jones stops a robber a few hours before and than easily beats shogun. Should have even had finished him in the first round. I think he will be champ for quite some time. Faber looked really good. Super fast. Over all good night of fights.Freebie's on this weekend.

Ya know I was noticing the Ufc promoting strike force during the last fights. I was like hmmmm that's odd. Should be interesting but with so many fighters being in the mix we will see our favorite fighters less and less. I wish Fedor had not dropped his last 2 fights. Wou
D have been more interesting.

I just saw an interview with Dana and he is saying they fighters won't cross back and forth between the companies, but we'll see. The potential matchups would be insane, but with separate contracts, separate TV deals,etc.. it will make it tough.

I think only the fighters potentially will suffer in this whole deal.

i bet they merge when the showtime contract runs out. I would love to see Overeem fight some of these UFC heavy weights

My best friend (Adam) fights in Strikeforce. He's the one I asked you guys to vote for him for the best MMA fighter...he ended up winning it. He recently just got chosen to do a tournament with Bellator that will be aired on MTV2. He'll be fighting in the 145lb class...he's gonna have to cut a ton of weight! But if he wins, he'll get $100k....

Here's an entertaining video of him fighting http://wn.com/Bellator_20_Feature_Pr...Brian_Melancon

If I remember right, I think the UFC planned to run Pride as a seperate brand/promotion, but ultimately absorbed them. Same thing happened with WEC after time. I think the Showtime contract runs until 2014. So, I don't think we'll see a full on merger with SF until then.

As some of these big name fighters contracts with SF expire, we'll see them get picked up by the UFC (unless your name is Paul Daley or Josh Barnett). I would live to see UBEReem vs. Brock/JDS/Cain....Fedor vs. Randy...Melendez vs. Edgar or Maynard...etc, etc. So many good matchups to make.

Mayhem and Diaz as TUF 14 coaches? Please and thank you!

mayhem and diaz as coached would be great. Must see tv right there.I wonder how the UFC will handle the contracts of the guys that like to go fight in Japan as well like mayhem and overeem.

I think with the state of Japanese promotions (Dream is all but done, Sengoku is done) this may not be as much of an issue. I'd bet the reason those guys wanted non exclusive clauses is because Strikeforce just couldn't put on enough fights to keep these guys busy and getting paid. (Overeem aside since he really just wanted the ability to get his K-1 crown).

But, with the expansion of the UFC roster, I just don't see them keeping fighters on the shelf as long as SF did. Time will tell, but it's exciting for MMA, imo!

Coker was on the other day saying with this "merger" they will be now pushing Strikeforce hard in other countries like India and Japan (short of the disaster there). Also England is begging for more fights so I can see them pushing it hard over there. Especially is Paul Daley is allowed to stay in his contract.

What about good old Dan Henderson - Boy is he squirming right now.

You're right Buffalow, I think that's the strategy. DW has said that if they are gonna take this thing global, they need more fights and more fighters. Coker has some solid Japanese connections from his days with K-1 and then SF, so I think the UFC is going to use him as their go-to Japan guy.

Dan (Don't call me H-bomb) Henderson seems to be playing nice with the UFC now. I think he's working into Couture territory where it's going to be all about interesting fights for him and not necessarily concerned about the belt or whatever. He looked good against Faijo (sp?), but I don't know how much he's got much left in the tank....especially compared with this new crop of super athletic wrestler giants in 205.

I like Josh Barnett's and Diaz way of handling it. They pretty much kissed ass and said let me fight the UFC guys. Not saying kissing ass is great, but let's face it - DW runs the MMA world so you have to get on his good side. I would love to see Diaz back in the UFC as he could present plenty of problems for the UFC upper tier. I know he has called out GSP, but that is a losing battle for him no matter what. Josh barnett would be fun to see back in UFC heavyweight.