My Thoughts On The Release Of Crisitiane Santos: One Of Strikeforce's Biggest Blunders

Well stated comments and I appreciate your honest reflection. The last two paragraphs sent chills down my spine, for its truth and acknowledgement of an outstanding competitor, man or woman, Mrs. Cristiane Santos.

UFC cares as much about WMMA as it does about Strikeforce and Pride FC.
hopefully some smaller promotion will feature WMMA superfights, which can include the best of WMMA, since UFC isn’t interested. ttt 4 WMMA spuerfights!

Leave Strikeforce alone…….your opinions are not important how did you get approved to do this write up?

I for one think that everyone’s opinion is important, more or less. Even if it’s stupid. I’m paraphrasing an old saying, but someone far smarter than me once said “I may not agree with what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

As for how I got approved to do this write-up, I’m basically allowed to write whatever I like because I’ve proven myself as a worthwhile part of this website. I’ve been writing here for over a year now, so I must be doing something right.

In the end, I have a strong opinion on this and I enjoy expressing my opinions, period. If I can drum up a little debate as well as support for Cris Cyborg, then all the better.

I understand that you disagree, but your response just struck me as childish. And even if you disagree, can you at least admit how strange it sounds for a promotion to let go of an unbeaten champion that absolutely demolishes people? For me at least, it just doesn’t make sense.

I’m afraid to say what appeals to the mainstream, and sells, and therefore matters to the organisations that exist purely as a business is sex appeal. You are not being objective if you state Cyborg is the biggest draw, or realistic if you think she can be.

As a fan of MMA I appreciate Cyborg for all the reasons you do, and I’m extremely disheartened they let her go. But if I ask myself what does the layman want from WMMA I have to say two ‘hot chicks’ (in the vernacular of the jocks that I suspect – based on attending and watching numerous events – make up MMA’s casual audience) having a cat fight rates somewhat higher than seeing a woman utterly beat down.

Perhaps I am being unfair on the casual fan to make this assumption, but we vote with our money and our money has let Brock Lesnar and Kimbo Slice become the biggest draws ever seen in MMA. Why would the promotions go out of their way to keep fighters just based on skill?

Oliver:

The only problem with your story is that Strikeforce has NOT released Cyborg….she is still under contract and is until end of year. I noted you did not talk to anyone at Zuffa regarding this article. May want to do that next time.

So the premise of your story is flawed. If you based it on statements made by Cyborgs team, you need to understand they are negotiating and that sometimes people try to use the media to further their position.

So don’t be too hard on Strikeforce, as they really haven’t done anything other then failed to come to terms with a fighter. Since we don’t know what Cyborg is asking for, it may be more on her then them.

145lb woman division isn’t very deep at all. The Strikeforce 145 division is in rebuilding mode with Julia Budd and Rhonda Rosey being there most reconizable names at that division. Do you think it would make any sense to pay Cristina Santos a five figure contract to fight these women that the division is in the infancy state. Look at the Bantamweight and Featherweight division’s in the UFC. Most of those fighters aren’t making anywhere near what Anderson Silva or Tito Ortiz makes. I do not believe Cyborg deserves a huge contract when there is more sence to go cheeper and give young women more chances. It would be most cost affective. And if the UFC does accept 145lb women’s division maybe Cyborg would be more inclined to sign with them given that she can get more exposer and better sponser money.

Good post by the way. But I’m not sure Cristina Santos is the Heart of the 145lb woman’s division.

@Rex

The only problem is that… no, she’s not under contract and she’s not with them until the end of the year. Her contract with Strikeforce has expired, the period of exclusive negotiation with Strikeforce/Zuffa has ended, and as it stands right now, Cristiane Santos is a free agent.

Cage Potato initially reported the story, Tatame gave a quick follow-up stating that Cyborg’s management was still negotiating with Strikeforce and that she would fight in other promotions in the meantime.

This all went down near the end of June.

There’s always a chance Santos could be hired back on by Strikeforce. I’d love to see that happen. But if it doesn’t, my opinion expressed in this article and this article itself will remain unchanged.

Oliver… The exclusive period has not ended. Your information is wrong…trust me on this one.

And listen, just because Cage Potato or Tatame says it does not make it true. Question, in your story, did you confirm this with any Strikeforce or Zuffa officials?

@rex

“A source we spoke to today received confirmation from Cyborg’s management that Zuffa’s exclusive negotiation period with the 10-1 Curitiba, Brazil fighter ended yesterday and that the parent company of Strikeforce and the UFC failed to come to terms with the Strikeforce women’s middleweight champ before she became a free agent at the stroke of midnight.”

From the original Cage Potato article, which was posted last week and has since made its way around the internet and was featured on several other major sites.

I don’t understand why you’re questioning the credibility of the original article I’m responding to. You’re virtually the only one of the many comments I’ve read online about this story that did. Since this story made its way around the internet last week, virtually no one in any sort of position to clarify the situation has come forward and stated that the original Cage Potato article isn’t true.

If you’re going to pull the “just because it’s on the internet doesn’t make it true” card, then we’ll be here all day debating back and forth what makes Cage Potato and Tatame and any number of other major MMA websites credible. That’s not the point of this topic.

I can’t “trust you on this one” because I have no idea who you are and you’re voicing a concern that practically no one else has raised. I don’t mean to insult you as a person, but if you’re asking me to believe one random person on the internet instead of a major website… I’m going to trust the website, especially when many other major sites picked up on this story and never questioned its credibility.

I really don’t care if you believe me, i just happen to know your wrong. AGAIN, did you contact anyone at Zuffa to verify your story…see, I ask because I know the answer is no

And if your premise for gauging whether stories are correct or not is based on how many MMA sites pick it up, then your entire journalistic outlook is skewed. That’s actually an absurd standard…we all know the 1000’s of stories we’ve read over the years about whose fighting who etc. etc. that have turned out to be false.

Oliver, all Im doing is pointing out to you that you have no idea if her contract is up since you haven’t spoken to both parties in the negotiations. I’m not sure how long you’ve been involved in (or reported on) sports negotiations, but please understand that many times one side will represent things that may not necessarily be the truth in order to either force the other sides hand or gain some advantage. Which is the case here.

And to your point about me being the only one challenging your story, I wouldn’t expect anyone else to question it as they are not be privy to the facts.

My point is that before you go off with reporting on a story, you should step back and consider your sources, then make sure you’ve spoken to both sides before formulating an opinion.

Finally, why not try to dig a little deeper and over the next couple of days reach out to people that possibly would have insight and see what you find out….instead of reading it on Cage Potato and then formulating an opinion which is based on false information.

@rex

I see a story from a credible website, I see it get picked up by other credible websites, I see them say that they have their own sources that basically confirm what’s being reported. That’s credible enough to me. It’s a “chain of credibility”, and as I said, the fact that this story was posted a week ago and was pretty big news makes me believe that, if no one credible and closely tied to the situation has come out yet and said that it’s not true that Santos became a free agent last week, I’m going to believe what’s being reported.

This was one of the biggest news stories of last week, and I waited until the dust settled to give my opinion on it. I’ll say it again: I just can’t trust the credibility of one random person over the internet over one of the bigger MMA sites on the net, especially when it’s a story that got picked up by even bigger, even more credible MMA sites.

And as I’ve said countless times to my readers on this site, I consider myself more of an opinion columnist than anything, and an MMA fan first and foremost. As a fan, I read things on the internet from sites that, as a fan, I’ve grown to trust. And then, as a fan, I give my opinion on those stories. This is not “my story”, it’s my reaction to a story that I read online from what I consider a credible source.

That’s all I did here, that’s basically what I’ve been doing since I first started here.

Well said Saenz. You do alright by me, I mean this is my favorite MMA site mainly because of the articles you write. I may not always agree with the opinions that you publish; but I value your point of view. So you cried yourself to sleep a few nights over this whole Santos/ free agent thing. I don’t think it makes you any less of a man. And so you didn’t hear from Cyborg herself that she is a free agent. So what! That doesn’t make you any less of a writer either. Keep up the good work bud.@Oliver Saenz