When I previewed this event earlier in the week, I listed several key points that would indicate whether this would be a make-or-break show. After watching tonight’s show on CBS, one thing is clear — the promotion absolutely is screwed as far as future live telecasts on CBS is concerned.

There was no reason whatsoever to book three “title fights” in a 2-hour time block. First of all, the title belts mean very little to the fans watching the show. Second, it guarantees that each fight could go five rounds. And they did. 75 minutes of largely boring action, combined with commercials, ring introductions, and what you have are some unbelievably pissed off network affiliates across America screaming that their 11 PM news casts got postponed because of a low-rated MMA event that draws a bunch of people who likely aren’t going to watch network news telecasts. This was exactly why I indicated that if Strikeforce didn’t have everything go its way that it would force the promotion to consider a tape-delayed broadcast in the future in order to save the CBS deal. (See: Bellator’s shows on FSN versus their tightly-edited show on Telemundo HD the next day.)

As for the fights shown on CBS, these were not the kind of fights that hardcore fight fans were anticipating watching. Why? The hardcore fans are tired out. They’ve watched so much MMA this calendar year that once the action started to get boring, changing the channel became a lot less painless to do. I’m sure this happened across the country. There is such a thing as MMA fatigue right now. All the Strikeforce fights going to a decision did not endear the promotion to anyone.

It was hard for the casual fans who tuned in to really care about the match-ups in general. As we saw with Aoki, nobody knew what DREAM was. Nobody knew there was an “interpromotional feud” going on. If anything, what we saw with the lack of promotion by Strikeforce and Showtime on this front was a microcosm of the way Showtime has promoted the company since Scott Coker signed a business deal with them.

Winners

Jake Shields – He not only beat a name who is a big deal in the eyes of casual MMA fans, he did it with relative ease in the finishing rounds. And, to top it off, Shields openly said before the fight that Dan Henderson had no idea how to defend off his back and that he would exploit it.

Shields fought as well as he could have. He can’t punch and he will get punished for it when (I said when) he heads to UFC. A fight against Josh Koscheck right now would be fascinating to watch. Koscheck would bring the leather and would also give Shields a real good test defensively. As a #1 contender’s match for St. Pierre’s Welterweight belt, I would definitely dig that (should Koscheck beat Daley in Montreal). If Paul Daley beats Koscheck, then Shields would have to fight St. Pierre right away.

Shields fought a guy much bigger than him and won with skill. Good for him.

Dana White – Everything that could have gone wrong for Strikeforce and Showtime did. And everything that needed to go right for the UFC President went exactly right.

Shields gets his big win over Dan Henderson. Now it’s going to cost a ton for Strikeforce to keep Shields or they will have to let him go to the big show. Henderson losing in the fashion he did and for how much he got paid to fight also validates White’s strategy of letting Strikeforce financially sink itself with such a heavy contract. Third, while Strikeforce had a good crowd on television for presentation, this organization is struggling to find an identity and is struggling to figure out what it wants to do and how it wants to go about doing it. Right now, they just put on some shows and that’s about it.

UFC – As far as rankings lists go, you can practically count on more non-UFC guys getting shedded off of lists and more UFC talent filling in those new slots.

Losers

Dan Henderson – Financially, I still think he would have made more as a PPV headliner in UFC than what’s he getting with Strikeforce. Physically, he’s looks in great shape but MMA is a very unforgiving business as far as fighting Father Time is concerned. I only consider Henderson a minor loser tonight because I don’t think a lot of people watched this CBS event and I expect that the fans that did watch will largely forget about this loss or not care all that much.

As for Henderson’s reaction from the crowd on Saturday night, I’m going to use a dreaded pro-wrestling analogy (but hang with me if you follow wrestling. Otherwise, skip this part.) Dan Henderson in Strikeforce is like Jeff Hardy in TNA. In WWE, Jeff Hardy was one of the most passionately-cared about wrestlers in 2009. When he went to TNA, the WWE fans in large part don’t pay attention or don’t know. It doesn’t mean that they forgot who Jeff Hardy is, but they’re not watching him in TNA. Hell, a bunch of WWE fans probably think he’s on vacation. Same with Henderson — he’s fighting in a smaller promotion and while the show is on CBS, I don’t think tonight’s loss will be as damaging to his career as it would have been in the UFC cage.

Scott Coker – The matchmaking right now sucks. There’s no promotional rhythm. Any goodwill the promotion has right is gone. Signing away a lot of the control to Showtime is proving to be a negative in terms of creative control. The promotional champions mean nothing. Nothing the promotion has done lately has been a positive impact on the business.

DREAM – Both Gegard Mousasi and Shin’ya Aoki put in worthless performances. I can’t reveal where I had both men ranked on my personal MMA rankings list, but I can say that I looked at Mousasi definitely as a top 10 Lightweight and I had Aoki in the Top 10 of Lightweights (albeit not as high as others). I will say that I had Crusher Kawajiri ranked significantly higher than him and I’m glad that I did. Would a Kawajiri/Melendez re-match turn out the same way that the first one did?

Is it safe to say that the shiny pants are to Aoki what brass knuckles used to be to an old-school pro-wrestling heel?

Other thoughts

Gilbert Melendez needs to head to UFC as soon as he possibly can.

King Mo now the 205-pound promotional champion. Do you feel that he is one of the Top 5 Lightweights in the world?

Gus Johnson is great as a basketball commentator. Even though his call of Seth Petruzelli knocking out Kimbo Slice is incredibly memorable, Gus is not a natural fit for MMA PBP. It showed on Saturday night.

I don’t want to hear anyone in Strikeforce talk about “cool match-ups” being their motivation to bring some Japanese influence to their promotion. Like everyone else who isn’t UFC, it seems that all the MMA promotions follow what happens in Japan religiously but take none of the elements that made Japanese MMA so special and apply it to their own product. The biggest element missing? Japanese-style production on the broadcast side. Yes, I know Fuji TV and TBS are producing K-1 events, but look how many years ahead of the curve they are compared to who is producing the MMA events Stateside.

A note on Mayhem Miller — If Strikeforce is WCW to UFC’s WWE, then Mayhem decided to pull a Tito Kevin Nash Ortiz bit and get some self-promotion. We know he’s a self-promoter and he’s good at it. It’s his best skill. He’s no dummy. If anything, Miller just got attention for himself. People who are screaming that this was a travesty are caught up in the moment. Like Strikeforce itself, most fans will completely forget that this happened in a month or so.

Unless, of course, he finds himself in legal/criminal trouble after tonight.