I’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that I won’t be watching Fedor fight in the UFC any time soon. So now what is bothering me most is the idea that Strikeforce wants to build up to a Fedor/Overeem pay-per-view fight. While I openly admit that Overeem is probably the toughest fight for Fedor on the Strikeforce roster I just think there is a better way to build to a PPV event that gets Fedor and his opponent some drawing power and hopefully makes for a must see event.
The fight they should be building to is Fedor vs. Brett Rogers. Allow me to play fantasy matchmaker for a few minutes here:
Step 1: Book Fedor vs. Overeem ASAP and call it a champion vs. champion fight on Showtime. Even if you build him a little bit I don’t think Overeem has near the potential drawing power of a guy like Rogers who is big on charisma and has a GREAT personal story to use to hype an event, so get Alistair out of the way now. At the same time put together a Brett Rogers vs. Bobby Lashley fight. Two undefeated guys with considerable charisma and looks means that if somehow Lashley wins you’re not out of a marketable future.
Step 2: Fedor vs. Werdum on CBS with a Gina Carano fight to be your selling point. Again, you’re increasing Fedor’s visibility with a fight he is probably going to win. The winner of the Rogers/Lashley fight should be booked against Andrei Arlovski on the same card.
Step 3: Hopefully Brett Rogers came out as your challenger for Fedor’s third Strikeforce fight and the first event on PPV. If so you talk about his past, his day jobs, his family, how this is his chance to provide for them bigtime…etc You sell him as the guy fans should want to win. The hard working undefeated American vs. the unbeatable Russian. If it’s Arlovski you play up the fact that he was winning the first fight and earned his rematch. If somehow it’s Lashley that is an easy sell too, and he’d have actually earned his shot. Also, you’ve built up a few fights worth of footage to use in selling the PPV fight (something you don’t actually have now).
Right now what Strikeforce needs to work toward is a PPV main event that will sell. This means you don’t worry about what will be the most competitive fight. The endgame is a fight that makes people pay money to watch it. Alistair Overeem probably isn’t that guy in the end and Fabricio Werdum certainly isn’t. The idea should be to build to hopefully Brett Rogers and if not your fallback of Arlovski or Lashley can still sell an event.