When I first heard about this I thought cool, hold it over a long weekend and really give SF a point of difference, injuries and all sorts would have played a part, but thats a Grand prix in my eyes, guaran-fucken-tee the strap for the winner, I know people will say its to hard on the fighters, but you win and all your fights go the distance, you’ll be fighting for a total of 55 minutes over a three day period, I don’t think thats to much of stretch for professional athletes. The way the tourney is now structured its the Bellator H/W tourney with a different logo, ho hum, and as CCman ( and others) has pointed out above, it’ll all fall to shit before our very eyes.

Ya couldda been a contender Coker, but ya never put ya balls all da way out didya

@CCman
ccman Says:
Fri, 01/14/2011 – 11:52
ok ok ok….. allow me to be the voice of reason.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Mate, love your work, enjoy your comments but you suggesting your the voice of reason is a bit like me sayin I’m gonna comment without juvenile humour, or Drano posting a comment that say’s “Lets not inflame the situation” ( though he has been remarkably concilliatory lately, everything OK Drano?)

ok ok ok….. allow me to be the voice of reason.

1. overeem is the second most marketable name on the roster. he is not staying in strikeforce, unless he can continue to avoid defending his belt. his contract extension was based solely on him not having to put his precious belt he won off a loser, and only once in 3 years defended over a loser, not be in jeopardy. werdum can beat him and yet he is still champ. huh?
2. Fedor has a contract extension based on cross promotion and getting more than others who actually either beat him or have the belt, before he runs into politics in a country none of you will ever visit and will be invaded next year anyway.
3. werdum has a whole career based off beating a worn out, shadow of self Fedor who just wanted a check as fast as possible. win or lose, pay me. is not a threat unless someone else jumps into his guard and offers their arm as a sacrifice to whatever god orthodox worship, either way the second he realizes the belts off the table will train like the werdum we are used too.
4. Barnett will continue to be the talent that might not exist without chemical support. every promotion has dropped him for being a fucktard fat ass who needs a chemist to make him great. if you think this will change you are dumb. Barnett does not miss real MMA in Japan for no reason, he misses the worst testing since ancient greece.
5. AA will get knocked out by the ringside ref applying vasaline.
6. Rogers will go for his patent ‘toss the r rated tire’ move and get caught
7. Silva will be shot by hunters thinking they saw a monkey stealing their moose in the pacific northwest, or their will not be a lightning storm the night before so noone will get to scream ‘ITS ALIVE’.
8. Kharitonov will be mistaken for carrot top and be forced to do comedy in ceasars where his joke on his little suitcase will be beaten over his head for doing the ‘this is russian suitcase which carry american value in it, da?!?” joke.

seriously, how the fuck is this news since even the writers know this will fall apart, no way in hell does this actually finish with the same fighters involved, and removing the belt makes it all a farce anyway? let Overeem enjoy his K-1 sucess until someone else is healthy, let him sit in his ‘horsemeat’ friendly japan, and lets look at something worth reading.

It only makes sense to have a tournament champion when you have the tourney in 1 day (or at least within a few days). If it’s spread out over 12 months or whatever and it’s your best HW fighters fighting each other, it’s basically the same as having guys trying to win so they can move up the ranks (except for Rodgers who lost his way up the ranks). The only difference is you are not the heavyweight champ at the end. So….yeah. So if you win your way to the finals and happen to beat Overeem, tough shit. I guess you get to fight him again in 3 years? I dunno.

@ RearNakedSpoon -
it prolly wouldn’t be that good a fight if he had to fight his brother for the belt, although I don’t think his brother would make it past the first round of the tourney anyway…replace Overeem on the bracket with Todd Duffee, have him fight Verdum, winner faces Fedor or Bigfoot to advance to the finals, winner of the whole tourney is the “Grand Prix Champ” and the #1 contender for Overeem’s belt.

Did anyone actually read that last paragraph out loud?

Pure genius from Coker, basically he’s just announced that he’s gonna get the SF heavyweights fighting over the next 12 months, called it a Grand Prix Tourney and then announced it during a slow news period in the MMA world so everybody’s talkin bout it, how do you feel about Coker’s brilliant idea Bjorn Rebney?

@ Curtis, you found jake shields in a pawn shop!! c’mon someone take the poor bastard home

if the titleholder is not defending his belt in each bout, the titleholder should be held from the tourney. in other words, werdum and overeem should fight seperately and the grand prix winner should get a trophy and a potential shot at the winner of overeem vs werdum.

i did not read every comment, i assume that i am joining the chorus of others who think it is a waste of time to see the champ fight in a 3 round fight.

And. Now for something completely different:

This means at best…. overeem will defend the belt once in 4 years. Seriously, he found a way to fight and get paid and risk NOTHING. Fedor got to hand pickhis opponent, they stacked one side on purpoe, barnett can’t fight in a regulated state, normal grand prixs are both random or seeded draw and involve multiple fights in a night, and somehow some of you STILL want to hate the ufc for being big and organized. It crowd 4th season tshirt joke “if you like it I have to hate it”

Just noting

I found Overeem’s belt, it is at the Gold and Silver Pawn Shop Las Vegas Nevada, right next to Jake Shields…

@ el famous.

I had “all interest destroyed by Thursday

Parlayed into horses become extinct so overoid goes with shrunken nutz explaination

Into barnett can only get licensed in nigeria and we have to help a prince move his fortune to free up an arena.

Paging Mr. Bean, paging Mister Butter, Bean. Your title shot is waiting, Mr. Bean.

And Goog, that’s one too many whoas. You shoulda went the Joey from Blossom route… “Whoa!”

Doesn’t make any sense, if you say this…”refused to sanction five-round non-title bouts” then how can you say this…”Coker went on to explain that only the tournament final will be five rounds,but even if Alistair is one of the contestants of that match, it will be a non-title affair”.

Also, had no idea any sanctioning body gave a shit that the winner’s next opponent is pre-determined.

Whoa… whoa… whoa… WHOA… whoa… whoa… whoa… WHOA… WHOA… whoa… whoa…

WHOA!

This isn’t my Batman glass.

This is all just an elaborate hoax by Scott Coker to get Overeem to fight in Strikeforce…………power of the brackets!!!!

Seems like if you wanted to see 2-4 particular fighters in the finals, you would have them on opposite ends of the brackets. I don’t know why were even talking about it, its not gonna happen.

@ El Famous Burrito

Very risky parlay bet.

Mine also starts with “Fouled up by Thursday”, followed by “M-1 Global pulls Fedor from the tournament until Scott Coker agrees to give them 200% of the tournament profits”, “Silva dominates Griggs before accepting a contract with the UFC” and “Overeem breaks his hand in a K-1 fight”.

 Rwilson…I have a feeling if one of the favorites is close to losing, Coker will send Lashley sprinting out with a chair to make sure the tournament proceeds as planned.

It’s not so strange. In fact, it’s very similar to Japan’s Grand Prix events where there is a Tournament Champion then a Weight class Champion.

How does this Grand Prix compare to the Grand Prix events UFC puts on?

@ MRuss – a ‘mystery opponent’? Will Bobby Lashley just appear randomly in between tournament brackets, like Smoke or Noob Saibot?

@Morgan Chiller

Mega idea but only if they can promise Overeem vs Overeem will happen if thats the result. Does he have any issue with fighting against people on his team?

Apparently Bobby Lashley might be a mystery opponent in the tourney as well…

Everytime I think they have a good thing going…Coker pulls the rug out, WTF, no title involved in the tourney whatsoever? They oughta make it a tourney to see who is the #1 contender and have the winner fight Overeem, they’re dumb.

I’m scratching my head as to why anyone thinks this is a tournament? It is simply a title fight (well… not anymore, I guess), followed up by contenders matches leading to more title fights (again… not anymore) and scattered throughout several events over the course of 10-12 months. Seems like this is how a normal division operates. The only reason we see it as a tournament, other than that Coker says it is, is that we will finally see SF heavyweights fight with reasonable frequency (if this happens as planned… but really, what could go wrong?).

Brett Rogers got a shot at the belt after LOSING a fight. Alistair has only defended it once in three years, while logging in like eithteen MMA/kickboxing fights elsewhere. Let’s not fuck around, the Strikeforce heavyweight belt isn’t all that legit to begin with. The tournament is still awesome.

Strikeforce World Grand Prix Heavyweight Exhibition.
*some exhibits may not be available as predicted

All joking aside it will still be good to see these guys hopefully going at it.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: Overeem lost the actual belt itself a long time ago. I think he just let Coker in on the news, and so this is just a ploy to give Overeem more time to try and find it. It could be with anyone one of the hundreds or thousands of chicks he’s banged since he won the belt.

I’m scratching my head as to why anyone thought the title would be on the line. So, assuming AO wins his first, second, and championship fight, did someone think those three fights were title fights? If AO loses to Werdum, is his next fight for the title? Or the tourney winner gets the belt? Really, guys?

This GP is similar to 2000 GP. Winner may get some special belt, and probably cash. Hardly a “twist,” here, M Knight Shamalayan.

This news makes my penis soft.

@RNC

+1

It’s a SF belt, so holding it really doesn’t mean anything anyway.

You and me both, Wilson. You and me both..

Question: If Werdum chokes Overeem out, is he beating a dead horse??

total waste of time. good idea gone to shit in one announcement. Sure, I’d like to see the fights, but no belt takes away some of the meaning behind the fights as well as makes the ass-backwards bracket setup now make no sense at all.

And I really thought this thing was going to go off without a hitch.

What a waste of time. Fucking Coker.

Okay, if Overeem wins then the there is no longer any competition in the heavyweight division and Strikeforce will continue to scratch their heads while they can’t figure out what heavyweight match they could possibly put on to get a crowd.

fuck this tournament.

So why have your fucking champ fight if the belt aint on the line?? & WTF does the “Grand Prix Champ” get?? dcck & bubblegum??

What the hell is he doing over there? I never know what he’s doing over there. SCOTT………..THE MEATLOAF….NOW!!!!!

And it begins…

Yes!

“Fouled up by Thursday” is the first part of my parlay bet!

The other 2 parts are

Fedor breaks his hand on Bigfoot’s freaky jawbone

and

Brett Rogers takes 2 weeks longer to get my tires ordered than he originally promised.

Werdum beats Alistair, Fedor wins the tourny and than they still have a reason to do Fedor vs Overeem.

Makes sense to me.

Perfect. Did anyone actually think the belt *might* change hands three times?

Freaking joke.