Cageside Quote - Jim Ross Says It's "Important for Strikeforce to Sign Dave Bautista"

From his highly recommended blog:

As I have written before, Dave Bautista is serious about his MMA career and is realistic in that Dave knows that by getting such a late start int he game that he will have to accelerate his training and then maximize the time that he has to be physically productive in a MMA environment. UFC would not be a good place to seek employment for Dave but his negotiations with Strikeforce do make sense. If the two sides can strike a win/win financial deal and Showtime finally figures out how to promote a fight and make it be perceived as special while at the same time build a star on all the platforms that are available to them, then a Bautista-Strikeforce arrangement could help all involved.

Bautista isn't professionally one dimensional and I get the feeling that he's not going to give his services away cheaply as he knows that, at least for the first fight, that Bautista is a special attraction that could bring new sets of eyes to Showtime's presentation of Strikeforce. Do you think that Showtime thinks that way?

Strikeforce is still struggling with perception/image issues so it's important for Strikeforce honcho Scott Coker's group to sign a Bautista type guy and for Showtime to do a better job in presenting and promoting their handful of fights per year. Coker is a good man who is totally dedicated to his brand but he doesn't control the TV presentation of his brand. In essence, Showtime controls Strikeforce's TV image which is totally unlike UFC, the NFL of MMA, who controls their own image and how they are presented in all TV formats. That's much like WWE and is smart, business positioning.  

I don't understand why so many people think signing Bautista would be such a big deal for Strikeforce. Being a pro wrestling blog, we here at Cageside know better than anyone what Bautista brings to the table athletically and it's not much. He's an old man, from a sporting perspective, and he gets injured more often than he doesn't. What exactly is he going to bring to the table? He's never going to reach the upper echelon of the heavyweight division and unless he has a huge impact in terms of ratings, the amount of money he wants them to pay him would represent a huge loss.

So far, from all accounts, he's been difficult to deal with for Strikeforce. Here is what he had to say to MMA Junkie regarding his MMA career path.

"My thing is I want to do a multi-fight deal. I want to have a guarantee of at least three fights. I want a tune-up fight, I want a big fight, and I want a pay-per-view fight."

That's a pretty tall order for a guy who has done absolutely nothing in the sport. Does he really think that just because he wrestled in WWE for all that time that he can come in and make demands like these? Does anybody in MMA get guaranteed contracts? Another thing to think about is the fact that he actually stated that he wants a tune-up fight. So if we know his first fight with the company is just going to be a way to get him a win and prepare him for a bigger fight, who is going to watch it?

The idea that pro wrestlers can just transition over to MMA because Brock Lesnar did it is ludicrous. Bobby Lashley tried it and has largely failed and looked like a joke in the process. I fear that's what would happen with Bautista as well. These guys don't have anything close to the athleticism Lesnar does and they certainly don't have the promotional muscle that Lesnar enjoys with the UFC. As long as Showtime and Strikeforce are the ones doing the marketing, it's not worth the time.