"I am what the casual fans want."

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Cung Le spoke to Jeremy Botter of Heavy.com and Le wants to assure the hardcore fans that his fighting style is exactly what the casuals fans want to see.

Heavy.com:: There seems to be a perception on the internet, at least among the hardest of the hardcore fans, that you are either handpicking your opponents or Scott is hand-picking easy opponents for you. Why do you think that perception exists?

Cung Le: I don't know. Those fans aren't the ones handling the promotion of the show, or trying to sell tickets. They're not the ones putting these shows together. Everyone is going to have their own opinion, of course. And I understand that there are hardcore MMA fans. But in order for this sport to grow, the sport needs your average fans like the NFL, like baseball or basketball. 

We need those people to follow MMA and to become fans of MMA. And sometimes the matches that the hardcore fan wants to see might not appeal to the regular, casual fan. And I think Scott Coker, out of everyone involved with Strikeforce, understands that. He understands that in order to move the company to a higher level, to the level of other major league sports, to the level of football or baseball or basketball, you have to get more fans. And if we're just trying to put the fights together that hardcore MMA fans want to see, how are we going to move forward?

You're right Cung, the sport needs to grow and in order to grow you have to bring in more fans. But what happens if we cater so much to fans who don't understand the ground game? Doesn't MMA just become kickboxing with 4oz. gloves?

SBN coverage of Strikeforce: Evolution