Overeem's Title Not On The Line, Strikeforce Heavyweight GP Rules

[blaze778]

http://www.mmanews.com/news/89117

Alistair Overeem's Strikeforce Heavyweight Title will not be on the line in the opening round, or any round after, of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix when it begins.

Scott Coker announced the rules of the tournament today and also announced that the winner of the tournament will be crowned the GP Champion and will then fight Oveereem for the title, if Overeem doesn't happen to win the whole thing.

The rules of the event are:

- Three-round fights up until the final bout, which will be a five-round championship fight for the newly created Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix title

- Alistair Overeem's title not up for grabs

- If any fight is ruled a draw, there will be a fourth judge that will determine which fighter should continue on in the tournament

- If a fighter cannot continue on in the tournament due to injury or other circumstances, a five-person Strikeforce committee, headed up by Strikeforce rules director Cory Schafer, will determine a replacement from reserve bout winners and eliminated tournament fighters.

[kaps]

http://www.mmanews.com/news/89117

Winner, if not Overeem should get an immediate shot at the belt...

[blaze778]

Winner, if not Overeem should get an immediate shot at the belt...

That's what they are planning on.

Read this on another site. Possible negative for the tournament. As a fan, I'm just happy to see the tournament take place, but hopefully this scenario doesn't happen:

There's an argument that an Overeem loss in the tournament sets up a big fight for the Strikeforce Title afterward, but that depends on how he loses and who he loses to. Again, if Werdum defeats him in the first round and wins the tournament, he'll be the established best heavyweight in Strikeforce; but in order to be the division's Champion, he'd have to defeat Overeem for a third time. How does that make sense?

And the argument that it's somehow unfair to Overeem and his opponents if they were fighting five round fights while others in the tournament aren't is simply wrong. Overeem is the Champion. He should be defending his title when he fights in the organization, and title fights are five rounders. If this wasn't being pushed as a tournament, he'd be fighting Werdum in a five round fight for the belt. It's that simple.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/1/13...elts-and-media

[blaze778]

Here's more on the fourth judge concept:

Prior to being asked about it by ESPN.com on Thursday, Lembo was also unaware of Strikeforce's intention to use a fourth judge, independent of the three assigned by whichever regulatory body oversees that event, to determine an advancing fighter in case of a draw.

"Strikeforce could utilize a fourth judge for their own tournament advancement purposes, but the fourth judge would not be an NJSACB judge, and such would not effect the official recorded result," Lembo said.

While a fighter would continue onto the next round of the tournament, his official record would reflect the result as a draw, Strikeforce rules director Cory Schafer confirmed. The fourth judge would score the fight as a whole, similar to Pride Fighting Championships' old scoring method.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/1/13...elts-and-media

[ƒallenloki]

I think the underlying story here is that Scott Coker lied to everyone in saying that the athletic commissions had an issue with 5 round non-title fights. It was reported today by Josh Gross (ESPN) that no athletic commission questioned had an issue with the 5 round fights. I guess Coker didn't want to admit that a 5 round stinker could ruin a main card, but eh... Why not just tell the truth? I don't think any of the fights in the tournament will need 5 rounds, but it would have been awesome to take steps toward getting more rounds for fights that require it in the future. Example: Rampage-Machida, I wanted to see more rounds.


Either way, this tournament should kick ass.

[GoldenBoy23]

Disappointing news. The GP sounded much more interesting when the belt was gonna be on the line throughout and they were 5 round fights. Still gonna be great though

[BJJHunter]

As far as I can remember the champion didn't defend his title during the PRIDE Grand Prix, so why is this even an issue?

[GoldenBoy23]

As far as I can remember the champion didn't defend his title during the PRIDE Grand Prix, so why is this even an issue?

Who said anything about Pride? What's that got to do with Strikeforce? It's an issue because a few days ago he said the plan was to have Overeem(or whoever defeats him) defend the belt throughout the GP and have all fights as 5 rounders and then changed his mind. And as a previous poster said, the commissions didn't seem to have a problem with it so doing this would have been no problem but he just lied