Strikeforce's Odd, Lopsided Tournament Makes A Lot Of Sense, Actually

Eight of MMA's best heavyweights will meet in an honest to god tournament. Awesome right? Until you realize that the best fighters are all on the same side of the bracket.

In the rumblings before yesterday's announcement, we all assumed there would be some kind of seeding, or at least fixing it to make sure Fedor/Overeem, the match everyone wants to see, would be the final (or at least Fedor getting a crack at revenge on Fabricio Werdum). But that won't happen. Fedor takes on Antonio Silva in the quarterfinals, and then gets the winner of Overeem/Werdum in the semis. Kind of anti-climactic, right?

Better than the alternative. Tournaments are, in a perfect world, the best way to crown the best. But it doesn't work that way. Injuries, withdrawals and delays inevitably happen, ruining the bracket's symmetry. Showtime's wonderful-in-theory Super Six tournament has been decimated with fighters dropping out and having to be replaced. Two think that the four winners of the first round of Strikeforce's tourney will make it through unscathed, and that two of them will survive to fight a third match, isn't something to count on. Hell, maybe Josh Barnett will fail another drug test. By putting the money matchups on the same side of the bracket, we've got a much better chance of seeing the fights we want to see, with the fighters at close to 100 percent.

A Fedor/Overeem semifinal, followed by who cares what, is preferable to praying we're not stuck with a couple alternates in the final, and the big names sitting it out.