Frank Shamrock: Zuffa beat up the Strikeforce brand

[MMAfanWA]

MMA veteran Frank Shamrock (23-10) admitted he was emotional after this weekend's final Strikeforce event. He had been with the Strikeforce/Showtime family for many years and watched a lot of the fighters grow up in the cage. Shamrock told MMA Fighting it was a sad ending, brought on by the Zuffa acquisition.

"I think some of the fights could have been more competitive, but I think the main event said it all. Young kid, got a dream, comes from another country, he's willing to train really hard, put everything on the line and, you know, he did the impossible. And that's what Strikeforce was - we did the impossible and Coker made a place for everyone to go be stars ... That's where the Strikeforce relationship fell apart when Zuffa bought it. They took all the talent and they beat up the brand."

www.mmaliveshere.com

 

[Magjee]

Business as usual

 

[Kinku]

No you guys let Showtime runyour MMA org and it slowly killed it until Zuffa showed up and finally put a stake through it.

 

[HaulParris]

Zuffa would not have bought Strikeforce if it wasn't for sale. Strikeforce was for sale because it wasn't making money, and the company that actually owns it (the same guys who own San Jose Sharks hockey team) decided to sell it. The reason Strikeforce wasn't making any money is because they spent more money co-promoting with M-1 instead of putting on less star-studded, but more competitive match-ups. My point is that M-1 and Strikeforce's poor decision-making are the ones responsible for "beating up the Strikeforce brand".

 

[prodigybest]

here we go again

 

[ContinueZero]

The Shamrock's beat up their own brand.

 

[vuco KJV***]

Zuffa ruins nations.

 

[Lawrence]

Poor Shamrock..... Got dem braces fer nothin

 

[davisbe]

Because when Wal-Mart was putting local stores out of business, the massive corporation spent money to keep its local competition open, right?
No, you buy the weaker company, take what you want from it, then put a bullet in its head.
Which is what Zuffa did.
Strikeforce put itself out of business by selling to Zuffa, that's the bottom line.

 

[lapollarecords]

cry more Frankie

 

[IlFenomenoVero]

Business as usual

nothing more, nothing less

 

[Jopo]

more dead mma, same old same old

 

[clinchman]

I'm trying to find the part where Frank says what they did was bad business. He didn't comment on that - he didn't say that Strikeforce was better, that Zuffa screwed up, or even that any of it was unethical. He stated that Strikefore was a great place for fighters and provided good opportunities.

Is what Zuffa did good business? Yes. Did they beat up the Strikeforce brand? Yes.

The two things aren't related at all.

 

[Deleted member 359865]

Because when Wal-Mart was putting local stores out of business, the massive corporation spent money to keep its local competition open, right?
No, you buy the weaker company, take what you want from it, then put a bullet in its head.
Which is what Zuffa did.
Strikeforce put itself out of business by selling to Zuffa, that's the bottom line.

^This, but Zuffa tried to pass it off as a co promotion, kind of like having McDonalds in every Wal-Mart, except this simply was not the case.

 

[accolyte1022]

No you guys let Showtime runyour MMA org and it slowly killed it until Zuffa showed up and finally put a stake through it.

Intruder alert. A true Sherdogger would have said steak. Sucks for SF to go out on such a craptacular note, Showtime really didn't ever seem to actually care about MMA TBH.

 

[SnowBlynd]

It sounds like he thought zuffa was legitimately gonna try to continue running strikefore. Had he seen their history of what happens to companies they buy it should have been no suprise strikeforce was dead as soon as the rights were signed over

 

[mmacrisis]

I agree, Zuffa beat up on Strikeforce because they couldn't retain talent, and were losing money all the time. Yeah that is Zuffa's fault.

 

[accolyte1022]

Zuffa ruins nations.

And employs your favorite fighters.

 

[MMAfansince99]

He's right though, but I guess thats too hard to grasp for the casual Zuffa-Zombie.

 

[Creeping Giant***]

Strikeforce was for sale because it wasn't making money

No......Strikeforce made plenty of money, and that's why it was for sale. They built a brand well enough that Zuffa would rather buy them than to compete.

Coker is just one of millions of businessmen that do the same thing over and over. They take a company, build it up, create interest, then put it up for sale. It obviously couldn't compete with UFC in the long term, but it was by no means in the shitter.

If it was dying, why would Zuffa buy it? No need to buy your competition if it's committing suicide already.