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JR's Blog: Strikeforce Thoughts from Saturday Night..Random Thoughts...JR's Original BBQ Sauce Selling

Posted: Apr 19th 2010 By: CMBurnham

It's a rainy weekend here in Norman, Oklahoma and the talk of the town is the OKC Thunder who play the LA Lakers later today in game one of their NBA playoff series. The grill's hot so let's start cooking...

Strikeforce on CBS was an interesting TV show Saturday night that I watched live and then watched again later in the evening. Was Strikeforce the most compelling MMA TV show that I can remember seeing in the past few weeks? No. Was I sorry that I watched it? Absolutely not.

The talk of the show, which one can assume that some novice, MMA fans likely thought was lackluster, was the post main event brawl that no one saw coming as evidenced by how it was shot by CBS and by how the broadcasters reacted.

Mayhem Miller seemed to go into business for himself when he stepped into the cage to confront Middleweight Champion Jake Shields who had just won a unanimous 5 round decision over heavily favored challenger Dan Henderson. The act of making a challenge wasn't indictable but the overreaction of Shields' camp to Millers grandstand ploy was not desirable.

Miller tried to 'cut in line' of the list of challengers for Shields' title and to obviously make himself relevant to Strikeforce fans and create a ground swell to earn a main event fight with Shields who beat Miller in 2009.

The most negative thing that came our of this m?l?e was that the 'thug element' perception that many casual sports fans have regarding elements of MMA was underscored. The NFL is a cash cow for the networks and the NFL is held in high esteem but even the NFL is trying to clean up their act through the efforts of Commission Roger Goodell. MMA isn't established to the level that their unsavory moments will be tolerated or taken lightly by a network partner such as CBS.

The actions of many involved in the post game fiasco cannot be tolerated and penalties of significance should be doled out.

The number of corner men and/or the fighter's entourage allowed at cage side needs to be addressed and lessened.

Why was Miller even allowed to enter the cage in the first place. Brock Lesnar was professionally brought into the Octagon after Shane Carwin destroyed Frank Mir to set up the July 3 Lesnar-Carwin fight but Brock conducted himself like the big time, professional athlete that he is. Lesnar did not go 'thug life' or in business strictly for himself but did make me want to see Brock fight Carwin for the undisputed heavyweight title in UFC.

It's like a storyline in pro wrestling or a game plan in football....it all comes back to the same basic element and that is execution. I have no issue with Mayhem Miller making a grandiose challenge but I do feel how it was handled by all involved was bush league and not a good thing for MMA in general.

Other thoughts from Saturday night:

Mo Lawal fought through fatigue and won the Light Heavyweight Title from an uninspired and unimpressive Gegard Mousasi who never looked the same after he got out of the first round, a round that Mousasi had been disposing of many of his opponents. 'King Mo' is a former Oklahoma State wrestling star who took Mousasi down at will and persevered to win his first title of a fledgling, MMA career where his record is now 7-0. Nashville fans were not 'King Mo' supporters, or so it seemed on TV, and I can only assume that was because they were not buying his pro wrestling shtick. Bottom line, promoters can earn money and TV ratings for fans to emotionally invest in fighters to lose much like they have for decades with pro wrestling villains.

Melendez vs. Aoki was a real clash of styles but the announcers did a nice job of describing the differences of the two fighters styles. However, after the third round the Japanese star showed no outward sense of urgency which was disappointing.

Enjoyed the natural sounds that I was privy to hear during the show which adds to the presentation. Three man booths are challenging to successfully pull off and I am not a huge fan of the three man booth for MMA fights as most trios seemingly become competitive and viewers are rarely treated to a needed 'lay out.' The refs being mic'ed up was a nice touch.

I have great respect for Dan Henderson as a world class athlete but being 39 years of age and obviously having issues with cutting so much weight had an adverse affect on the two time Olympian. Henderson had one of those nights where he simply did not have 'it' but one has to also assume that a proud man like Henderson will force himself to step back into the cage to attempt to right Saturday night's performance.

Seeing Bobby Lashley in only a suit and not in a succinct highlight back inside the cage was a mistake.

Where was the Fedor personality profile or highlight package? Isn't Fedor allegedly the baddest of the bad and if so why was his persona not enhanced on CBS? Are there issues with Fedor's 'people' or was this an oversight that saw Strikeforce's biggest, MMA, mainstream star ignored?

Hopefully, Strikeforce and CBS will take Saturday night's experiences and learn from the show that ran too long and ended with unmanaged chaos.

Bottom line is that if CBS earns a good or better TV rating within Men 18-49 years of age that some of the broadcasts blemishes will be forgiven.

On other issues...I am anxiously awaiting Monday Night Raw because it appears that the Raw crew will be unable to make it to New Jersey in time for the event if the Weather Channel is accurate in their report that air space throughout Europe is still closed. One would assume that means nothing is landing and certainly nothing is taking off until weather conditions improve. The good news is that the Smackdown crew arrived in Newark late Saturday night around 2 a.m. Eastern time so there will be plenty of available bodies to produce an entertaining, 2 hour TV show.

In essence, Monday Night Raw will take on a different feel for one night which isn't a crime.

My view on these calamities is that they are simply opportunities for talents to step up and turn head's and the Smackdown nucleus has plenty of issues established to help WWE roll into their next PPV which is Extreme Rules in Baltimore.

Legend has it that the late, great and colorful Gene Kiniski was such a talker that he was once banished from his team's own offensive huddle because 'Big Thunder' talked SO much that the quarterback couldn't get a world in edgewise to call a play. I think that any one who has ever interviewed or had the privilege to speak with the former NWA Champion and 'Canada's Greatest Athlete' will know of which I speak.

We received some excellent questions this weekend and I have updated the Q&A section of our site. Please check them out.

If you order your BBQ/Grilling products today we will ship them out tomorrow and our sales of our JR's Original BBQ Sauce are amazing. Yes, I'm biased but I love "Q" and our Original Sauce is awesome and I'm ready to prove it. Remember to take advantage of FREE SHIPPING on many, many excellent packages.

I'm amped about the Cauliflower Alley Club function this week. Check out all the great things that they do at www.caulifloweralleyclub.org.

Boomer Sooner!

JR

Tags: Jim Ross, NWA