Tuesday, July 20, 2010 @ 12:41 AM
Jake Shields is finally home
Jake Shields was disrespected in Strikeforce, period. After moving up from welterweight to middleweight, as to not fight fellow Cesar Gracie Jiu Jitsu camp member Nick Diaz, Shields dominated Robbie Lawler winning with a devistating Guillotine Choke in the opening minutes of the first round. He then went on to win the 185 title after dominating Jason "Mayhem" Miller for a full five rounds. After becoming champ he had one remaining fight left on his contract, so of course the sensible thing to do would be to resign him so you could keep your champ, right? Apparently not, because instead of resigning Shields they signed former Pride 183 and 203 champion and UFC veteran Dan Henderson. Instead of having Henderson fight for the number one contender spot they gave him the immediate championship bout and didn't even bother to resign Shields assuming the large middleweight in Henderson would easily dominate the undersized middleweight in Shields. The day of the fight rolled around and Strikeforce was all but sure that Henderson would dominate Shields, finish him quickly, and then let Shields hobble off to some obscure fight organization. But then something strange happened, Henderson couldn't finish Shields in round one, or two, or three, or four, or five. Infact outside of round one Henderson could not mount any offense whatsoever against the champion and lost to Shields via unanimous decision where the world saw Shields dominate Strikeforces new star. After the fight Scott Coker, CEO of Strikeforce, unintelligently remarked that Shields contract had a one fight option on it after Shields last fight and they would be picking up that option. Unfortunately for Mr. Coker he didn't study the option to hard, because if he had, he would have realized that both parties had to agree to it, as in Strikeforce and your now rightfully pissed off abandoned champion would need to agree to the option, which of course, Shields didn't. Though Shields was a humble man and never spoke harshly about Strikeforce, he did something worse when he was spotted sitting with none other than UFC president Dana White, grinning ear to ear, at WEC 48. Strikeforce was still technically an option until July 1st when they released Shields from his contract, citing "negotiating problems", the problems being, in the words of Dana White "They suck and we don't he's coming here". The release being borderline pathetic, almost like a lover knows their partner has become uninterested, and decides to break up with them first just to make it seem like they had the upper hand, when in reality they still want them and are the only one at a loss. Of course only 15 days later the shocking news broke that Shields had agreed to a contract with the UFC, and that he would be dropping down to his natural weight class of welterweight and fighting Martin Kampmann, giving the UFC a new bonafied contender at welterweight and Strikeforce with no champion. Perhaps Strikeforces disrespect was for the best, without it Shields would still be the champ of a C grade organization,fighting at an unnatural weight class, and probably fighting Dan Henderson again in an unwarrented immediate rematch. With the UFC he has a chance to fight in the best organization in the world, and against better competition. His upcoming fight against Martin Kampann will prove to be exciting, Kampann being a Danish Kickboxer who has adapted a good ground game and recently outwrestled Paulo Thiago, one of the best Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practitioners in the sport. It's definately a challenge for Shields, most likely more than anything Strikeforce could throw at him, and could catipult him into title contention in the UFC, which is every mixed martial artist dream.
Thanks for reading guys, I'll be writing more about football soon, it's just a slow part of the offseason, though training camp is right around the corner so there should be some very interesting news soon.
Feel free to check out my personal blog http://danthemanwyatt.blogspot.com/.
I'll be posting more personal subjects on that blog if you want to get to know me better.
Also check out another blog that I just started with fellow 602k7Low blogger and personal friend Kyle Dunston, http://croutonsports.blogspot.com/
We just made it so right now there aren't any post, but we'll be posting vlogs on it discussing a plethora of sport related topics.
And feel free to email me any questions or comments at danwyatt221@yahoo.com
Labels: Cesar Gracie, Dan Henderson, Jake Shield, Martin Kampmann, Nick Diaz, Strikeforce, UFC
