Why does Strikeforce let the guy who lost his last fight get a title shot?

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said the promotion is considering a heavyweight championship bout between Alistair Overeem and Fedor Emelianenko next, despite Emelianenko’s recent defeat to Fabricio Werdum.

Werdum submitted Emelianenko with a 69-second choke triangle-armbar at Strikeforce/M-1 Global “Fedor vs. Werdum” on June 26 in San Jose, Calif. It was the 33-year-old Emelianenko’s first loss in 29 fights and nearly 10 years.

Emelianenko’s M-1 Global management, which co-promotes select events with Strikeforce, has already requested the rematch with Werdum “right away,” according to Coker. Under the current contract, Emelianenko will return to the U.S., at least one more time to compete under the Strikeforce/M-1 Global banner.

“My feeling is maybe Fedor should fight Alistair Overeem and whoever wins that fight gets to fight Fabricio Werdum,” Coker told the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show last week. “Alistair vs. Fedor? I’d love to see that fight happen.”

Coker said negotiations to extend the agreement between the two entities for more co-produced events featuring Emelianenko are forthcoming.

“We just saw Fedor fight Werdum. I’m not saying we couldn’t do the rematch first,” said Coker. “I’m just saying there are a couple of options on the table and the other option would be to fight Alistair…but until we sit down with M-1, these are all just the options…For me, the times have changed and it’s going to be an interesting negotiation now.”

As for the promotion’s heavyweight champion Overeem, Coker quelled talk that the 31-year-old Dutch striker’s attention might be divided with his preliminary plans to enter a K-1 tournament this summer.

“I talked to Alistair and have really good contact with his management and they told me his priority is going to be fighting in America,” said Coker. “If he does want to enter the K-1 tournament, I have no problem with that. We’ll schedule around that because I know he has a personal goal that he’d like to win that tournament.

“I think (Overeem) wants to fight Fabricio Werdum really bad and I think he wants to fight Fedor really bad,” added Coker. “He is our champion, so we’ll put those fights together for him.”

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news/Coker-M-1-Requests-Werdum-Rematch-Fedor-Overeem-Possible-Next-25490

This has already been posted.

The reason should be obvious if you really think about it. None of the fighters recognize or give a shit about that irrelevant Strikeforce title, with no lineage or prestige behind it. Fedor, and more importantly the man who beat him, retain the real bragging rights. Werdum's lineal title is worth more even to Strikeforce's president Scott Coker. I totally agree with this myself, Werdum is their real HW champion, Overeem is like an interm champ, but I think Strikeforce is making a promotional error in openly devaluing their own belts. I feel they're inviting this type of criticism by the thread starter by not merging the titles. They keep attempting to use their own title as a stepping stone and promotional tool to sell rematches, but they're learning the dangers of setting fights up and counting chickens before their hatched. I think Fedor's loss devalues the Pride lineage to far too many people in the Lesnarverse to make this kind of promotion work.

Make Werdum vs Overeem and the winner defends against Fedor. Much simpler. Or is it? It's just a matter of getting their two famously difficult superstars in Overeem and Fedor to both agree to this. Good look with that.

Didn't see that it was posted.

I agree match up Werdum and Overeem, give Fedor someone and when he beats them give him the Werdum/Overeem winner.

I wouldn't even need to see Fedor fight anyone else. Antonio Silva I guess would be a decent comeback but I'd just as soon give him a fight with whoever wins between Werdum and Overeem.

In a way they'd have to not have him fight because his contract would then be over.

3 words

Because it's Strikeforce

Overeem vs Werdum should be next. Then you can either hype Fedor getting a rematch with the guy who took out the top 2 heavies in SF or the fight that everyone actually wants to see to begin with and if Ubereem happened to destroy Werdum, it would be Fedor's comeback against the seemingly new bad boy on the block who would've taken out 2 men in a row easier than Fedor could

Well, i wouldent do it like that if i was a promoter but i'm not...other than that, i don't really see any reason to complain about Overeem vs. Fedor...it's still the main matchup everybody wants to see in Strikeforce HW division. Let's not let armchair promoting get in the way of the fact that this matchup is better than the others.

Werdum is going to be out for awhile because he's about to undergo surgery on his arm, so there is that.

Didn't know about the surgery.

It is crap like this that makes them a 3rd tier organization. I would rather watch Bellator, they put on a good show and if the fighter wins he wins the big check.