vaj3000

Sorry Strikeforce, No Fedor Emelianenko, No Gegard Mousasi

Royce_09_tiny by Kid Nate on Dec 8, 2009 11:17 AM EST in News Comment 39 comments
Photo by Esther Lin via All Elbows.

Photo by Esther Lin via All Elbows.

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Ariel Helwani gets the story:

From the moment news broke on Monday that Dan Henderson had signed with Strikeforce, all eyes pointed to a potential title match against light heavyweight champion Gegard Mousasi. But when reached via e-mail by FanHouse, the 24-year-old Dutch fighter said that the organization had yet to approach him about a fight against Henderson.

"That would be an exciting fight for the fans," he wrote. "For me, it's just another fight. But I understand that a win over a caliber fighter like Dan Henderson is very interesting."

Mousasi informed FanHouse that his next fight will be contested under K-1 rules at the Dynamite!! show on New Year's Eve in Japan, although his opponent has yet to be made official. The former DREAM middleweight champion is 1-0 in his kickboxing career, defeating Musashi via first-round TKO at last year's Dynamite!! show.

When asked when he expects to fight in MMA again, Mousasi noted that his contract states he can only compete on the same Strikeforce shows that feature his fellow M-1 Global fighter, Fedor Emelianenko.

"So when he fights, I will fight too. But sooner would be also be fine by me," he wrote.

Ok, so Strikeforce is now having to compete for their Light Heavyweight champ with K-1 as well as having to wait on their heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem to get kickboxing out of his system.

But the bit about Mousasi only fighting on Strikeforce shows that feature Fedor is the big news here. Holy moly! what a restrictive and baffling contract clause. I don't see how that helps anyone, unless its purpose is to tie Mousasi to M-1 Global longer by dragging out the time it takes him to complete his contract.

Link to more Bloody Elbow coverage of Dynamite!!

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Sonnen On the spider
“If he wants to leave the division, leave the sport, who cares, Beat it, nobody tunes in to watch him anyways, and his little fake ‘I don’t speak English.

vaj3000

Where is the logic behind this? what a dickish move by M1.

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Sonnen On the spider
“If he wants to leave the division, leave the sport, who cares, Beat it, nobody tunes in to watch him anyways, and his little fake ‘I don’t speak English.

jasvll

Can't wait for the 'I told you so' update from White.

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Drogo

When asked when he expects to fight in MMA again, Mousasi noted that his contract states he can only compete on the same Strikeforce shows that feature his fellow M-1 Global fighter, Fedor Emelianenko.

WTF? What a strange clause, what would be the point of this?

vaj3000

....so if fedor gets injured or if mousassi gets injured etc and cant fight on same card then mousassi may be stuck in limbo for a looooong time.

I always understood m1's rational but this is bizarre

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Sonnen On the spider
“If he wants to leave the division, leave the sport, who cares, Beat it, nobody tunes in to watch him anyways, and his little fake ‘I don’t speak English.

HitOrGetHit

I am so glad that the UFC chose not to Co-Promote. This is way too controlling and pretty ridiculous to be honest. I mean, why would they both have to fight at the same time? What does that have to do with anything at all?

Why not promote your fighters as much as possible instead of only when they both happen to be ready at the same time?

Also here is a great question. What happens when they are both set to fight and say Fedor gets injured training, does that mean that Mousasi drops off the card as well?

M-1 is making thing way too complicated. More complicated than they need to be.

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Thanks M.C for the sig!

UFC 161 vBookie Competition

vaj3000

copromotion is the future! If strikeforce remains viable then i'd say its inevitable!

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Sonnen On the spider
“If he wants to leave the division, leave the sport, who cares, Beat it, nobody tunes in to watch him anyways, and his little fake ‘I don’t speak English.

alizio

so if Fedor continues on his 2 fight a year max schedule so will Gegard?? GL strikefarce!!

fightpragmatist

This is retarded, I don't even see the logic from M-1 in this. I love Gegard Mousasi as a fighter and I know he has previously stated he wants to fight every TWO months. So I guess unless Fedor starts fighting more, Gegard is going to be fighting a lot more in Japan then Strikeforce. With that said I'm pretty pumped to see him under K-1 rules again, his boxing is pretty good and I'd like to see him use more kicks than when he fought against Musashi.

DrHouse

Ain't that the co-promotion with M1 thing. Any event with Fedor on is co-promoted with M1, so I'm assuming that M1 fighters have to fight on the same night which is funny considering Mousasi fought Sobral before there was even talk about Fedor signing with SF. To be honest that clause SUCKS, what the hell? Dana was right about M1, they're such assholes.

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Favourite Fighters:

HW: Junior Dos Santos
LHW: Gegard Mousasi
MW: Anderson Silva
WW: Georges St. Pierre
LW: Kenny Florian