Strikeforce: Fedor Emelianenko Vs Brett Rogers, CBS Is Doing A Better
by Correspondent Written on October 20, 2009 
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This is an update for a prior article .
One of the biggest Mixed Martial Arts events in the history of the sport is coming up on Saturday, Nov. 7. “The Last Emperor,” Fedor Emelianenko makes his Strikeforce cage-fighting debut against undefeated Brett “The Grimm” Rogers.
Fedor Emelianenko has won 26 fights in a row. He has 30 wins in his career, and his only loss was highly controversial. He’s beaten all comers, including well known champions, a host of former UFC champions, towering giants and several fighters that you never have and never will hear of. He is effectively 30-0, a mark that no other Heavyweight has ever attained.
As Randy Couture put it, "I don't think anybody's invincible...but he's probably the closest thing."
Strikeforce: Fedor vs Rogers will air live on CBS. Preliminary fights start at 7:00 PM and the main card begins at 9:00 PM Eastern Time.
The card also includes:
• Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Champion Gegard “The Dreamcatcher” Mousasi vs “The African Assasin” Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou
• Jake Shields vs Jason “Mayhem” Miller for the recently vacated Strikeforce Middleweight Title.
• Fabricio Werdum vs Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva
Considering that this is Strikeforce with its comparatively thin ranks of talented fighters, this card actually looks pretty amazing.
Whether you like Strikeforce or hate them; whether you love Fedor or hate him, this event represents a landmark event in Mixed Martial Arts history. This is the first time that a card this stacked with top fighters has been broadcast by one of the big four networks.
This is the first time that a top-ranked fighter of any weight class has fought on a free live broadcast on one of the big four networks.
So it’s week two of CBS promoting this event. How are they doing now?
Let's take last weeks blip:
“Fedor Emelianenko, the world’s greatest fighter comes to CBS, Saturday, November 7th.”
To this week’s lengthier clip:
"He is a man of mystery.
Who trains in the frozen tundra of Siberia.
Fedor Emelianenko is the number one Heavyweight mixed martial artist fighter in the world.
And he's taking on undefeated knockout artist Brett Rogers.
Live!
Free!
Only on CBS!
November 7th"
Much better! This promotional clip was well delivered. Dramatic pauses with a showman’s flair. It was an excellent teaser that actually gets your attention and holds it.
Unfortunately, CBS stayed true to form and only broadcast it once per football game. Yes they nailed the right target audience for the clip. Football fans enjoy watching grown men batter the hell out of each other, so Mixed Martial Arts ought to be very appealing to them.
But once again, they only ran the clip once per game, and on one game I didn’t even find it once. Compare that with the constant promotions for all of CBS’ regular shows: Repetition 'til you were sick of hearing about it...and that’s exactly the right way to do it.
You need to run the thing more than once or people will forget. One clip per game isn’t going to draw nearly as much interest because people will see it and promptly forget about it. Repetition makes it stick in people's memories.
Other suggestions for improvement:
Like I already said, Fedor Emelianenko looks about as intimidating as a newborn kitten. If you want people to realize what a badass he really is, you can't just tell them. You have to show them.
Here’s how you do it:
• Show the stare-down before the Hong-Man Choi fight to show the size difference between the combatants. Then show Fedor finishing of Choi.
• Show the stare-down before the Tim Sylvia fight. It’s the same idea: Here’s Fedor taking on yet another enormous towering brute. Then show him knocking the crap out of Sylvia. Finally show him choking out Timmy.
• Show the stare-down before the Andrei Arlovski fight. This won’t offer the same “David vs Goliath” feel, but it shows that he’s fighting all sorts. On top of that, Andrei is pretty ripped and Fedor isn’t. Then show the clip of him knocking out Arlovski.
Note: All Pride FC footage is owned by Zuffa LLC, parent company of the UFC. The UFC isn't in the business of helping out their competition, so don't expect to see any Pride FC footage of Fedor.
By taking this approach, your TV audience will begin to catch on: This Fedor guy isn’t all that scary looking, but he can beat the crap out of guys that would give most people nightmares looking at them.
CBS also added this video to their web site.
I’m beginning to get the feeling that CBS is reading the articles here and taking the suggestions offered. So if you’re reading, you’re doing a lot better CBS.
You might want to start mentioning the rest of the fight card in the next week or two. People tuning in for this Live and Free event are going to be rewarded with more than just one fight. Strikeforce is putting on five top-10 fighters into this event. There will be one title fight and one champion fighting in a non-title fight. There’s definitely some promotional material in the rest of the fight card.
Another suggestion: Most people don’t know what “Mixed Martial Arts” means. Most have heard of “Ultimate Fighting” but that’s about it. There is also a lot of bad publicity on the sport. These would actually be very compelling subjects. Remember how Don Frye was fired as both a firefighter and a High School coach for his participation in the Ultimate Fighter tournaments?
Remember John McCain’s self-righteous and misguided crusade attempting to destroy the sport altogether? I think there’s more than enough material in the trouble history of MMA for a run on 60 Minutes or The Late Show .
It would do a lot of good to show how very human Mixed Martial Artists are and demonstrate that the sport is not nearly as barbaric as some people make it out to be.
As I've pointed out so very many times: Since UFC 1, more than 71 boxers have died from injuries sustained in Professional Boxing Matches. The UFC has lost zero. All MMA promotion combined have tallied one fatality. This sport is extremely misunderstood, and far less dangerous than other well-established mainstream sports.
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