2011 was unquestionably one of the greatest years in the short existence of mixed martial arts. The UFC has continued to grow and expand, Bellator has begun to find a stable foothold and produce stars, and Strikeforce will continue to air on Showtime, handled as a completely separate entity from the UFC, despite the fact that Zuffa now owns the promotion. Although the Japanese scene continues to struggle, MMA has caught like wildfire in the United States, and only promises to reach more households worldwide as time unfolds, which could certainly see a turn-around for promotions based in Japan.

The Strikeforce/UFC’s Continual Merger: Dana White has made it abundantly clear that Strikeforce isn’t going anywhere. However, White and the UFC have been importing some of their sister promotion’s finer talents, like Alistair Overeem, Nick Diaz and Fabricio Werdum, to name just a few. With the influx of new talent in the UFC, the depth of each division slowly swells, making for some intriguing scenarios and a pool of potential match ups that we would not be privy to if not for Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce. Gone are the days of champions “cleaning out the division”, there’s now plenty of new talent to factor into the equation, and it’s going to make for some truly fascinating matches come 2012.

Written By: Aiden Rudd

“When Strikeforce was purchased by the UFC’s parent company Zuffa LLC in March, Strikeforce chairman Scott Coker, has professed that it is ‘Business as Usual’ for the companies. Strikeforce was still to operate as a separate promotion, it would still co-promote with M1-Global to keep the whole Fedor fiasco from collapsing. However, 7 months later is that statement still realistic?”

With several big attractions defecting to the UFC in search of bigger fights and even bigger paydays, can Strikeforce still operate as a ‘Major Promotion’? With talent such as Nick Diaz, Jason Miller, Alistair Overeem and Dan Henderson trickling down to the UFC, the promotion’s increasingly obsolete titles are for the large part vacant. As out of the 5 male weight divisions, only two have currently got a title holder. Luke Rockhold recently defeated ‘Jacare’ Souza to capture the Middleweight title, and Gilbert Melendez, who has been documented as being unsettled at the promotion’s lack of legitimate contenders to his Lightweight title, that he is currently preparing to defend for the 3rd time in December against Jorge Masvidal.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship and its parent organization, Zuffa, released a number of interesting news bits into the mixed martial arts world on Tuesday.

To begin, the UFC announced a matchup that was completely different than what the MMA Zone announced yesterday. Instead of facing Stefan Struve, heavyweight Brendan Schaub will now face off against MMA legend Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at UFC 128 in New Jersey. Reportedly, contracts have been signed by both fighters to take part in this competition.

Schaub is riding a three fight win streak that includes a victory over one time UFC contender Gabriel Gonzaga. Schaub’s only defeat came at the Ultimate Fighter Season 10 Finale in 2009 when he faced off against Roy Nelson. During Schaub’s eight- fight career, he has only been out of the first round once.