Nick Diaz vs Georges St. Pierre: Co-branding and the UFC/Strikeforce welterweights
Now that Nick Diaz is going to fight Georges St. Pierre for the UFC welterweight title, we can put to rest the notion that Strikeforce was going to be running events side by side with the UFC. Diaz is dropping the Strikeforce belt in order to fight GSP. With this, Strikeforce becomes more of a minor league feeder system to the UFC for particular weight classes (welterweight being the most obvious).
The next contenders for the Strikeforce welterweight championship are…ummm…Tyron Woodley and Tarec Saffinedine? Not exactly guys who you can build a division of fighters around and represent as world champions. Paul Daley was top 10 at one point, but there’s no one else who’s really on the cusp of contending- Daley is facing Evangelista Santos, the less dominating Cyborg in the husband-wife team. Not exactly a match that makes people think of a world class fighting promotion.
Strikeforce clearly has some value as a brand- that’s why Zuffa bought it. Moreover, Diaz is a popular champion and has reportedly commanded a big payday for the GSP title fight. But by not making it a unification match, Zuffa is publicly making Strikeforce’s welterweight division into a minor league. If the winner of the match unified both belts, it would signify a somewhat balanced merging of the promotions, much like if Anthony Pettis had ended up getting his title shot at 155 for being WEC champ. Instead, it’s like when pro wrestlers threw belts in the trash when leaving a promotion for another back in the day.
This plays itself out even more if Diaz gets grapplesexed by GSP (the most likely outcome). There is validity to the argument that Strikeforce is not a backwater if their champ gets an automatic match against the UFC champ, but if Diaz is a top 10 fighter, he is a top 10 fighter who has been fighting against mostly sub top 20 competition. The welterweight division is unquestionably the class that is most dominated by the UFC brand. Diaz was the only thing keeping the division on anyone’s radar, and without him.
If we’re not going to see champion vs champion battles (especially at near parity classes like heavyweight and lightweight): Here’s a different idea that we think would be better from a co-branding viewpoint: make Strikeforce the premier women’s league. If the UFC isn’t going to start up women’s divisions, sign the fighters like Diaz, Gilbert Melendez, etc. to the UFC and make Strikeforce the #1 brand for women’s MMA.
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Diaz via Stockton mean mug
I think they should demote Jon Fitch to Strikeforce’s welterweight division !
It would be funny if Diaz lost by a wide margin, then went back to SF and won that belt again. Lineal championships?