Strikeforce Results: 5 Things We Learned During the Heavyweight Grand Prix

Over a year-and-a-half after the opening round of the tournament, the Strikeforce World Grand Prix is finally over.

Now that Daniel Cormier has been crowned the tournament champ, it's time for a little bit of reflection.

Sure, the Strikeforce tournament didn't quite go as planned, but the end result saw the rise of MMA's newest star, and there were a ton of great moments.

Here's five things we learned during the Heavyweight Grand Prix.

Unless it's Bellator, big-name promotions should avoid tournaments.

Especially in the grand prix format, tournaments take too long, are rifled with injury and just generally never go as planned. 

In general, grand prix tournaments are as dead as Pride is.

As the UFC has quickly learned with its UFC 146 card, heavyweights are prone to injury, and it isn't the most reliable division to schedule events around.

With injuries forcing the likes of Alistair Overeem out of the tournament, Strikeforce took a huge hit, as it cost them their star champion.

Next time, stick with the smaller weight classes.

Whether it was expecting Fedor Emelianenko to make a comeback or banking on Alistair Overeem taking the whole thing, the Grand Prix tournament showed us that big-name stars don't always work out.

While the star power did draw in record numbers for the first show, the deterioration of the tournament over the year-plus that it has been going on showed that they aren't always the most dependable.

Over a year-and-a-half ago, when this tournament was being put together, nobody even knew who Daniel Cormier was.

Now that it's over, the former Olympic athlete is now one of MMA's fastest rising stars.

The Grand Prix may not have panned out as planned, but thanks to a few unlikely finalists, it showed that you can never count out the underdogs.  Sometimes, they are just what the doctor ordered.

It wasn't perfect, but it definitely got the attention of the MMA world.

Through all the trials and tribulations, the heavyweights made for some exciting moments that nobody could have scripted.

At the end of the day, the heavyweights are, and will remain, the kings of the sport.

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