The Ups and Downs of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Tournament

When Strikeforce announced that they will be organizing a heavyweight tournament - we nodded, there has not been a renowned MMA tournament in a very long time. When the president of Strikeforce, Scott Coker, stated that it may go down as the best MMA tournament of all times - people smirked. Next to UFC, Strikeforce was small and powerless. However, they managed to get a bunch of elite heavyweights to perform and deliver in every fight. Those who smirked in the past - do not any more.

Today, right before the final fight of the tournament between Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier, we can look back at the Grand Prix and evaluate it. As mentioned above, Strikeforce succeeded at the most important aspect of organization - they have gathered a group of heavyweights who have brought a broad arsenal of skills and heavy power. One could argue that today, every single fighter (with an exception of Andrei Arlovski) in the tournament could at least co-main event a big UFC pay per view card. Another major reason for the tournament's success has been the fashion of the fights. With an obvious exception of Werdum vs. Overeem, the fights were entertaining and hardly predictable. These are the reasons why heavyweight fights are favorite among the fans of the sport.


While the tournament was successful, it was not perfect. First of all, the whole tournament has been built around the hype that Fedor Emelianenko carried around with him. Strikeforce was shaken and the fans were shocked when Emelianenko was defeated by Bigfoot Silva. It seemed that without its biggest draw, Grand Prix was going to lose its legitimacy. But it did not. Mostly because Fedor had left the tournament to get knocked out by Dan Henderson. It was a sign that the times have changed and that some cannot adapt to the changes. The fans turned their eyes to the tournament again.

The loss of Alistair Overeem was another major strike for the tournament. Once Fedor was gone, the fans were expecting Alistair to easily walk through every other opponent in the tournament. However, the Dutchman's management team gets into a conflict with ZUFFA, Alistair dubiously injures his toe and gets his leaving papers from Strikeforce. Today, it is almost safe to say that ZUFFA was doing everything it could to remove Overeem from the tournament and bring him to the UFC to fight Brock Lesnar. As usually - ZUFFA was successful. Again, it seemed that the tournament is going down the drain, but then Daniel Cormier enters the tournament as a substitute for Overeem and delivers the best performance of his life knocking Bigfoot Silva out in the first round. At that point, a match-up between Cormier and Barnett who has successfully defeated all of his opponents in the tournament, sounded great. And it still does.

Another considerable issue for the tournament was the fact that it took too long to finish. With the first fight taking place on the February 12, 2011 and the last one on the May 19, 2012, the Grand Prix took at least 6 months longer than it should have. With multiple postponed events, the tournament has lost some of its momentum.

In conclusion, the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix was a breath of fresh air in the world of MMA as the tournament style reminded the fans of the legendary days of PRIDE. The tournament was not only a reminder of Pride, it was as entertaining and unpredictable as the most of the Pride tournaments. Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix will be put on the same shelf of the MMA's hall of fame as the best of the Pride tournaments.

The next edition of DZMMA will discuss the future of the winner of the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament.