A behind-the-scenes chess match has resulted in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and its top rival, Strikeforce, running head-to-head television specials on April 17.

Strikeforce earlier in the week made the official announcement of an event on CBS, from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, featuring three championship matches: Jake Shields vs. Dan Henderson for the company’s middleweight title, Gegard Mousasi vs. King Mo for the light heavyweight title and Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki for the lightweight title.

On Thursday, UFC president Dana White confirmed a live show on the same date, “Ultimate Fight Night 22,” on Spike TV. While UFC countered an Affliction pay-per-view show in 2008 with a live event featuring Anderson Silva, if things don’t change this time, it will be the first time the two top promotions run major nationally televised events simultaneously.

No matches are confirmed for the UFC show, however. Thursday, White attempted to make Matt Serra vs. Mike Swick, but that will be impossible since Swick just suffered an arm injury and will likely need surgery. UFC sources indicated Kimbo Slice vs. James Toney was under consideration, but the talks hit snags.

No site has been confirmed for the UFC show, although it is known at least two locations are under consideration in the state of Tennessee, including Nashville’s Vanderbilt University.

The UFC’s announcement, though, may be just the first in a chain reaction. According to Strikeforce president Scott Coker, he and business partners at CBS and Showtime will be discussing the potential of moving their show back a week, – to April 24 – putting it head-to-head with Zuffa’s first-ever World Extreme Cagefighting pay-per-view show.

“Moving to April 24th will be discussed,” said Coker. “That was the first date CBS wanted the show. [CBS vice president] Kelly Kahl wanted to take the high road and avoid going against their pay-per-view.”

A potential issue in moving the broadcast is that Showtime has a boxing special on April 24 as part of its “Super Six” super middleweight boxing tournament.

Coker said Showtime’s research has shown that even though boxing and MMA are cross-promoted, they draw different fan bases. It’s an issue in running MMA on CBS on the same night as Showtime boxing, but it’s not a hurdle that can’t be overcome.

The Strikeforce promoter expects that the head-to-head maneuvering is not going to be a one-time deal, because both companies are running more dates and there are only so many Saturday nights available, so it’s inevitable that there will be conflicts.

“There will come a day when there will be a free show, with Fedor Emelianenko and/or Dan Henderson, going against one of their pay-per-views,” he said. “That is going to be interesting.”

Unless UFC has a major television fight lined up for April 17, a special on CBS will draw more viewers simply because of the numbers advantage CBS has over Spike. But the equation would change if a major UFC star headlines the show. If Slice vs. Toney can be salvaged, that would change the dynamic because Slice is a proven ratings draw. The match, while not being the slightest bit relevant when it comes to the upper echelon of MMA fighters, could garner significant public curiosity.

MMA is at best marginal programming on CBS. The last Strikeforce show drew 39 percent lower ratings than CBS usually does in the same time slot, but it still has value to the network because it skews far younger and more male-oriented than usual Saturday night fare. It gives the network an outlet to attract sponsors who aim at the hard-to-reach male 18-34 demographic.

The April 17 show is a test, because if it does well without proven draws Emelianenko, Slice or Gina Carano, it’s a major feather in the cap of Strikeforce going forward on the network. That is probably why UFC is looking at countering.

A live UFC event on Spike is likely to do double, if not better, than Spike’s prime-time average. If a UFC show can whittle away a decent percentage of the audience that would have watched the Strikeforce show, the potential is there for Strikeforce to get a bad rating. Even if the counter-programming backfires and UFC doesn’t do well on that night, UFC is Spike’s highest priority programming and one bad night is not likely to do any long-term damage.

A Strikeforce move to the 24th would have its own significance.

Going against a WEC pay-per-view, even with the Jose Aldo Jr. vs. Urijah Faber featherweight title fight being the biggest match in WEC history, is not going to have a major impact on CBS’ ratings. But the availability of a free show on CBS featuring an interesting lineup for hardcore fans, the main audience WEC also appeals to, has the chance to significantly affect the success of a WEC card billed at $44.95.

WEC is not established on pay-per-view, and if a free television show whittles away even a small percentage of viewers who decide to save money and watch the free show, that could be a devastating impact on the WEC brand as a PPV entity.

It should also be noted that UFC and Strikeforce do not draw from the same audiences. The Strikeforce events on CBS draw an older audience in general than the audience that watches UFC, which relates to CBS’s generally older demographics. The cities where Strikeforce does its best television numbers have little similarity with the markets where UFC does its best pay-per-view numbers.

But if Strikeforce moves its show, and at this point the company hasn’t, it is almost a sure thing that it will only inspire another counter from White.

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/news?slug=d ... &type=lgns

I find it really odd that they can point to statistics that show Strikeforce and the UFC's viewers are of such a significantly different proportion that they can claim a seperation in audience. Just goes to show the brand loyalty (fanboyism) that the UFC has managed to generate, leaving Strikeforce with more veteran MMA fans (possibly then being of an older age) and those who were already watching CBS regularly and so just decided to watch the fighting. For me, I'd be watching all the televised MMA I could, no matter if it was called "UFC whatever" or not.

obs....

yeah its always gonna happen dana will give them a lil slap here and there so they remember who the daddy is.
Deep down they know the viewers will watch both...win win.
Find the Fedor situation strange...then again he is russian so business is done on the next level.

And thats exactly what we do isnt it

I agree 100%