After seeing a thread discussing the nostalgia of the old UFC vs. Pride arguments and noticing it turn into a UFC vs. Strikeforce rant , I decided to see how Strikeforce was doing in a time comparison standpoint. So I went to see how many MMA events Strikeforce had completed and it came out be 42. There have been 29 main cards and 13 Challengers series.
Now you can’t compare Strikeforce 42nd event to the UFC’s 42nd event for a variety of reasons. First, the early UFC events were style vs style match-ups as true mixed martial arts hadn’t developed yet. Second, Zuffa is the current driving force in MMA and they didn’t take ownership until UFC 33. So let’s begin there.
That puts us at a comparison of Strikeforce’s 42nd event vs. UFC’s 75th. Since both the UFC and Strikeforce have maincards and developmental ones (Fight Night/Challengers), we can then compare each of those categories too. By simple addition and subtraction, that pits Strikeforce’s 29th main event against the UFC’s 29th which comes out to be UFC 62.
The match up of the main cards now looks like UFC 62: Liddell vs. Babalu against Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu. (Interesting coincidence to see Renato pop up on both of them) At the time Liddell was probably the stronger fighter, but both have been champions and Henderson is obviously the stronger fighter now since Chuck has been forced to retire. There was also Forrest/Bonnar 2 fight in the UFC which I believe Bonnar got popped for using a diuretic afterwards. The next best fighter I saw on the line up happened to be Strikeforce champ Nick Diaz. You could also throw in Yushin Okami, Cheick Kongo & Jaime Varner as notables on the UFC card. Strikeforce would counter with additional fights Lawler vs Lindland, Daley vs. Scott Smith, with Antonio Silva and Ovince St. Preux. There was a lot of criticism of mismatched fights for Strikeforce but there also happened to be a lot of fireworks.
The UFC won on attendance at 9800 paid to 7100 for Strikeforce, but 2700 people is not a lot when you consider other professional sports are talking about attendance from 30,000 to 60,000. UFC’s buy rate was 500,000 compared to 465,000 peak viewership for Strikeforce. Interestingly, the total purse was listed at $400,000 for the UFC with Chuck hauling in $250,000 of it. I couldn’t find Strikeforce’s purse information.
On to the Fight Night vs. Challengers debate. Pretty simply, Strikeforce has now completed their 13th Challengers Series. When you look at the Fight Night side, you have to add in some other events like TUF finales, so that gets you to UFN 8. Ultimate Fight Night 8 was Rashad Evans kicking Sean Salmon’s head off and since becoming the one-time champion of his weight class and current #1 contender. The other featured fights were Jake O’Brien in a lay and pray victory over Heath Herring and Hermes Franca against Spencer Fisher. Other notables are Nate Marquardt, Clay Guida, Ed Herman and Josh Burkman. Strikeforce’s main event was Woodley vs. Saffiedine plus up and comers St. Preux, Cormier and possibly Nunes in the women’s division. Talent-wise both organizations look pretty even at the stages of the fighters careers to this point. Cormier looks to be the Rashad Evans of Strikeforce’s roster.
To me it looks like Strikeforce is on pace with the UFC in their respective development stages. You could argue that MMA is bigger now than when Zuffa purchased the UFC, so it should be easier for Strikeforce. But the UFC is the brand name of MMA and there is nothing harder to overcome than a dominant brand name. Don’t believe me? Then think about it the next time someone offers you a Kleenex instead of a tissue when you sneeze or ask Pepsi how their doing against Coke and Pepsi has spent billions in marketing their product.
If you think I am missing something or have been biased, go ahead and light me up! Flame away….
08 lurker gonna 08 and lurk
Zuffa took over with UFC 30 and their first show that was done fully under their control was UFC 31
The one thing I tried to work off of memory and FAIL. Still the time frames are similar, I guess I should compare everything to UFC 60.
Besides the other points made, Strikeforce also was able to look at the successful and unsuccessful things other promotions did, and was able to build off that.
Lately liking Strikeforce more than the UFC. But sadly it's due to people getting KTFO lol 
!!!NO COMPARISON!!!
Really? Cause my cable bill says other wise.
HotMetalDachshund -Calhoon - Forget comparing their 42nd to Zuffa's 42nd, I like the free stacked Strikeforce events better than Zuffa's ppv's right now.
Oh, hell yes. "Free" and "stacked" being the key words.
showetime costs me $7.99
Costs me $6.99...where does it say FREE??? Fucking Jokers