VID Rousey/Correia Staredown

[regular john]

it took coker a few years to get strikeforce where it was by the time nick gilbert and jake were champs.they had some great fighters like cormier rockhold kennedy mousassi but it didnt happen over night.belator will get there eventually.i think their best days are yet to come

I hope so but the Strikeforce roster was unreal. if I'm not mistaken one of the reasons they sold it was that they were on the red from wasting far too much money with fighter pay wasn't it? if so Coker would've learned not to stack the roster so much at the expense of the promotion's financial health.

Coker's influence and rep allows that they can push local people to put their best local guys on their shows, that's how you find new talent. but if there isn't a lot of money to back it up what's stopping the UFC from signing those guys? (Cain for instance fought once in Strikeforce and was snatched up; not sure it applies to what I'm saying). but what I'm saying is that I would never expect a #2 org to have as much great fighters as Strikeforce did.

 

[regular john]

Actually there is 3 Olympains in the UFC.. Rousey McMann and Cormier

The Soldier of God says hello

 

[Psychotropic Wanderlust]

what the fuck kind of shirt is that Rhonda???? you look like a hippo

 

[La Paix]

I hope so but the Strikeforce roster was unreal. if I'm not mistaken one of the reasons they sold it was that they were on the red from wasting far too much money with fighter pay wasn't it? if so Coker would've learned not to stack the roster so much at the expense of the promotion's financial health.

Coker's influence and rep allows that they can push local people to put their best local guys on their shows, that's how you find new talent. but if there isn't a lot of money to back it up what's stopping the UFC from signing those guys? (Cain for instance fought once in Strikeforce and was snatched up; not sure it applies to what I'm saying). but what I'm saying is that I would never expect a #2 org to have as much great fighters as Strikeforce did.

SCOTT COKER:

"The notion that Strikeforce was hemorrhaging money and that's why we would sell is not true. [Zuffa] reached out to us to buy and why would you pay that kind of money for a company that was bleeding to death? Unless you sat in on our excutive committee meetings, you weren't going to know what the numbers were.

There were four of us that made up the committee [Scott, Kenn Ellner, Jim Goddard, and Charlie Faas] and then two additional staff member who sat in [Matt Levine and Andrew Ebel]. We'd meet once a week to plan strategy and basically run the business of Strikeforce."

KENN ELLNER:

"I didn't know that was a general view, but no, we didn't fall apart. And it does make me mad now knowing that people think that.

Our investors were very careful with how they spent. In fact, I thought we were often too frugal.

They also weren't looking to sell. That offer came out of the blue. Scott and I were sitting in a restaurant when Dana White called him."

SCOTT COKER:

"In, I want to say, October of 2010, Dana called me personally and said "Lorenzo wants to buy Strikeforce. You guys interested?" And I said I'd talk to my partners.

We ended up meeting in late November and at first it was just dialogue so I was thinking maybe nothing's going to happen. But then after the New Years talks started to really heat up and within sixty days it was a done deal. It went so fast there was no time to find another buyer even if I could have.

I really wasn't interested in [selling], because I knew how much upside potential there was. But at some point it made a lot of sense for the HP guys to make the deal. These guys that invest in the Sharks, the actual finance guys, are from hi tech venture firms.

At the end of the day they're businessmen. They looked at me a couple of times and said they couldn't believe I didn't want to do this. Eventually I said I understand. It was a business deal and I didn't want to be in a situation where I had disgruntled partners"

FRANK SHAMROCK, former Strikeforce middleweight champlion and broadcaster:

I know [Zuffa] had come knocking before. And when they came knocking again I know Silicon Valley was like "OK, you've been knocking let's hear what you got?"

The Silicon Valley guys are money guys. God bless them, they were great partners, but they were money guys and they wanted more for their investment.

When we started out we were making cash hand over fist. But when we started competing with [the UFC] getting Henderson and Fedor and once we got in bed with Showtime, there were certain demands that made our investors uncomfortable.

Even at the end we were still making money hand over fist, just not as much. But even more importantly a viable buyer came around with an incredible offer. Still, I thought that if we had waited six more months we could have probably more-than-doubled our selling price."

The Secret History of Strikeforce - Part 5: Business As Usual - Bloody Elbow



This is all from a great five part series from B.E. Lots of misinformation as expected when considering who bought StrikeForce. It was an awesome show with so many top fighters who are still at the top today. I'm still bothered that they sold, Scott Coker is the main reason I'm hopeful about the future of Bellator and the possibility to have a competitive org which could reignite a feeling like PRIDE vs UFC. Its a long shot but one can dream.

 

[dacofty]

The Soldier of God says hello

well damn thats right

 

[regular john]

I've read that article already it's great - I think that's where I got the info about "local people putting their best local guys on the show";

the people disputing the notion that "the financial strain of running a major promotion is what lead to the demise of Strikeforce" aren't the ones that would just admit that they'd ran a business to the ground anyway. but still re-reading that part about the sale makes you wonder how big Strikeforce could've been. it's not totally exclusive though that they were making huge sucess AND spending an unbelievable ammount of money.

 

[La Paix]

I've read that article already it's great - I think that's where I got the info about "local people putting their best local guys on the show";

the people disputing the notion that "the financial strain of running a major promotion is what lead to the demise of Strikeforce" aren't the ones that would just admit that they'd ran a business to the ground anyway. but still re-reading that part about the sale makes you wonder how big Strikeforce could've been. it's not totally exclusive though that they were making huge sucess AND spending an unbelievable ammount of money.

I think that'd be doing great, just my opinion though. Go through the list of fighters they had including Ronda, Fedor, Rockhold, Hendo and so many more and its hard to imagine them flopping. I know tgatcitctskes much more than a solid stable but they were doing lots right.

As the articles says the group making the decision of the sale were business men first not fight promoters or life time martial arts enthusiast's I think. Reading the statements from some of the fighters and guys like Coker they all seemed very disappointed in the decision. C'mon Bellator! I just want some competition is all.

 

[Pitbull9]

lol you hate her so much

Not as much as i used to lol. I Just dont like her attitude and that mole on her face haha. Funny because i was the biggest Ronda fan for the first Tate fight until she started to run that big trap.

 

[Narcosynthesis]

I hope so but the Strikeforce roster was unreal. if I'm not mistaken one of the reasons they sold it was that they were on the red from wasting far too much money with fighter pay wasn't it? if so Coker would've learned not to stack the roster so much at the expense of the promotion's financial health.

Coker's influence and rep allows that they can push local people to put their best local guys on their shows, that's how you find new talent. but if there isn't a lot of money to back it up what's stopping the UFC from signing those guys? (Cain for instance fought once in Strikeforce and was snatched up; not sure it applies to what I'm saying). but what I'm saying is that I would never expect a #2 org to have as much great fighters as Strikeforce did.

Yea they wasted too much money on Fedor to be exact. I mean it wasn't a waste as far as what he was worth but it basically bankrupted them, especially with M-1 getting half the money on every fight. And people questioned why the UFC turned down Fedor because they didn't want to co-promote.

 

[La Paix]

Yea they wasted too much money on Fedor to be exact. I mean it wasn't a waste as far as what he was worth but it basically bankrupted them, especially with M-1 getting half the money on every fight. And people questioned why the UFC turned down Fedor because they didn't want to co-promote.

Have you through the 5 part series above? To say the exact reason was spending too much on Fedor isn't correct. I'll try to find another interview with Coker where he just says "the cheque was so big they couldn't say no..."

Keep in mind it was the UFC who called them. If they were burning up so much cash over bad decisions why would somebody approach them to purchase? I think that was just another spin instead of them saying "we saw potential competition and didn't like it"

 

[La Paix]

what the fuck kind of shirt is that Rhonda???? you look like a hippo

I like how you've kept your word on using "hippo" when expressing displeasure

 

[WarPotato]

Actually there is 3 Olympains in the UFC.. Rousey McMann and Cormier

Cejudo?

 

[WICKED]

Actually there is 3 Olympains in the UFC.. Rousey McMann and Cormier

Yoel Romero won an Olympic silver medal in freestyle wrestling.

 

[Sweets]

WTH is that?

Very dangerous.

 

[Hong Kong Phooey]

im going out on a limb . Bitche

 

[Zeph]

Biylal Makhov, Russian Olympic bronze medalist. Signed at heavyweight, excited to see him ragdoll some dudes.