According to a Twitter post this morning by Sports Illustrated’s Josh Gross, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker is planning to move the upcoming April event from the 17th to the 24th in order to directly compete with WEC who is airing their first ever Pay-Per-View event on that same night. The April Stirkeforce event (which has yet to be named) is expected to feature the world’s undisputed number one heavyweight Fedor ‘The Last Emperor’ Emelianenko (31-1-1) against the top ranked Fabricio Werdum (13-4-1) as well as the recently signed Dan ‘Hollywood’ Henderson (25-7-0) in a middleweight title bout against current champion Jake Shields (24-4-1).

This monster event is set to air for free on CBS as part of the broadcast deal Strikeforce negotiated last year that brought in huge numbers for 2009’s Fedor vs Rogers event.

Coker has thrown down the gauntlet in going head-to-head against WEC’s inaugural PPV, a sly move that will undoubtedly hurt the overall buy rate for UFC’s sister promotion. Given the choice between paying $40 to watch lesser-known lightweights go at it versus seeing literally the best fighter in the world compete for free really isn’t much of a choice at all. On top of that, there has already been a lot of skepticism regarding WEC on PPV in that the promotion may not be able to showcase enough top talent to justify the price tag.

The move by Coker is clearly in response to UFC President Dana White’s decision to consistently run top UFC programming in direct competition with major Strikeforce events. Most recently, White ran ‘UFC 107: Penn vs Sanchez’ Saturday night on SPIKE to compete in the same time slot as Strikeforce: Miami which aired on Showtime. UFC claimed 2.2M viewers to Stirkeforce’s 517,000, a number that would have been much higher had fans not been presented with a choice of mixed martial arts programming that night.

Moving the April event is more than just a retaliatory move by Coker as he is going after the UFC’s weakest link. Though WEC offers some of the best action around, in terms of viewership and fan popularity it ranks a distant third behind UFC and Strikeforce and Coker is looking to capitalize on its vulnerability. Hurting WEC hurts UFC, which is exactly what Strikeforce is seeking to do as they continue to build their brand and expand market share. For fans this kind of competition only means one thing – more awesome fights.

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