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Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker Lays Out 2011 Agenda | 5thRound.com – UFC News, Strikeforce and MMA News, UFC 123 Play-by-Play Results

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker Lays Out 2011 Agenda
Written by Tom Ngo
November 28th, 2010
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As Strikeforce closes in on their last major promotion of the decade, CEO Scott Coker recently laid out his company’s aggressive game plan for 2011. The soft-spoken promoter told USAToday they plan on holding a total of 20 shows in the next year, with half coming in their Challengers series.

That’s a slight increase for the UFC’s stateside rivals, as they will host their eighth major card of 2010 when “Henderson vs. Babalu II” goes down on December 4th. They arranged seven Challenger events this year.

Octagon president Dana White recently laid out his plan of attack, as well. The sport’s most powerful figure predicted roughly 31 total events in 2011. While their tally may appear significantly higher than Strikeforce’s, the UFC added more shows due to the WEC merger.

The UFC held 24 fight cards in 2010 – including “numbered” shows, UFC Fight Nights and a two Versus specials – while the WEC hosted eight events.

Their next order of business is their highly coveted network deal. Unfortunately, “Strikeforce: Nashville” was the company’s biggest black mark and CBS hasn’t been back inside an MMA cage since last April’s debacle.

While the eye channel has decided to drag their feet on another show, leading some insiders to believe they are done dealing with Strikeforce, Coker claims they will be on the network in the coming year.

“I think the relationship is good. You guys know what happened in Nashville. We’re going to revisit [the CBS relationship] in the beginning of the year. I think there are some other opportunities with CBS that we’re working on – let’s say we’re working on it together to do some other things,” Coker told Sherdog. “I think that probably, I don’t know maybe in the beginning of the year, we’ll have some things to announce.

“By no means is the relationship a bad relationship. It’s just we’re going to revisit it in the beginning of the year and take it from there.”

Speaking of partnerships, one would imagine signing the ever elusive Fedor Emelianenko to a contract extension would be priority number one. While they have negotiated for several months, the Russian still has just the one fight remaining on his current deal.

[TBEAR]

I don't believe Coker until it happens

[GangGreenWarrior]

The first thing that Coker should plan out for 2011 is a legitimate HW title defense. The second thing should be that if he gets Overeem or Fedor to fight this year in SF, please market the fight properly.

[rivethead]

Coker should really just be quiet until he's got signed bout agreements in his hand. He's doing great with the Challenger's series--that's the stuff that should be on CBS for now--but his name is so muddied at this point, he can't win by talking.

rh

[Y2JUBAE]

So basically nothing so far lol.

[carbondioxide830]

so the plan is to meet later to make plans? come on cokehead!

[the_dark_angel_4ever]

So yet again, he announces that they are going to make an announcement at a later date. Wow, just wow.

[GL Jeff]

SF puts cards together either way to far away from the card,or way to close. Not to mention their fighters have little to no respect for the promotion, and have shown time and time again they can walk all over Scott and face no consequences. I highly doubt they pull of 20 cards, I think their HW division will be the death of them, and their going to lose two of their top fighters next year, at least.

[Sakara=Excitement]

Its gonna go something like this....

Coker - "Yeah we may have some title fights. Not sure though. Umm that Overeem guy is gonna fight...but not for us. Fedor's management still is fucking me in the ass while I rape DREAM. I'll give the fans nothing of what they want by putting together a bunch of matches no one wants. Oh and fighters will continue to get title shots after losing their fights. Umm oh and Dana is the white Don King Devil Spawn."

[Northman]

I thought it was going to be "lays out... like a doormat".