Strikeforce’s heavyweight tournament is going to fail- here’s why

We’re finally going to get to see Fedor Emelianenko, Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem, Antonio Silva, and other great heavyweights on the Strikeforce roster battle each other. In the tradition of the Pride Grand Prix tournaments of yore, Strikeforce is bringing back the tournament, much to the delight of many fans. Fedor vs Silva and Andrei Arlovski vs Sergei Kharitonov are booked for February, while Overeem vs Werdum and Josh Barnett vs Brett Rogers is expected for April.
I hope I’m wrong on this, but I really don’t see this working out satisfactorily. Yes, Fedor and Overeem are signed, but how interested are they, really, in continuing their MMA careers? Fedor is increasingly involved in his home country’s politics, while Overeem has defended his Strikeforce title once in 3 years and gets huge paydays in K-1. Each side has said the other has been ducking the other, and there has been no indication that artful dodging in the form of more contract renegotiations, mysterious illnesses, etc. will stop if both of them advance to the semifinals.
On the other side of the bracket, is Josh Barnett even licensed to fight in the US? According to Sherdog, he isn’t, and won’t be until February at the earliest. This is also the reason for Strikeforce jurisdiction shopping for the later events. Are we going to rely on the only person who has failed 3 drug tests to be one of the crucial ingredients of this tournament? Additionally, what happens if Fedor and Barnett make it to the finals? Barnett and Fedor have not wanted to fight each other in the past. Are they going to show up 100% if the situation calls for it?
In the Pride tournaments, guys like Kharitonov and Aleks Emelianenko (when they were top 10 heavyweights) served as the alternates. Now we’ve got Lavar Johnson, Shane del Rosario, Daniel Cormier, etc. as the alternates for this tournament. No disrespect to these guys, but this lacks the pageantry and epicness of the Pride tournaments. The final in this tournament could very well consist of 2 fighters who are clearly out of the top 10. This doesn’t have to mean unentertaining fights, but from a business perspective Strikeforce needs current titleholder Overeem to fight as many times as possible, and the only real ratings draw they’ve got is Fedor.
Strikeforce assembled an excellent stable of heavyweights in 2010. How many times did their top heavyweights fight? It’s one thing to sign this many names, but it’s another thing altogether to manage this many egos and turn them into cogs so your tournament machine can run smoothly. I really hope Strikeforce pulls this off, but injuries, renegotiations, and other factors present serious hurdles. Pride was able to do this sort of thing because of lack of government regulations and the fact that Pride was often run like a fascist organisation. We’ll see what happens this year.