It was bad enough when Mike Pyle‘s contract disputes prevented Jake Shields from taking home a well-deserved EliteXC championship belt in November. Now it looks like his fight against Drew Fickett at this Saturday’s Strikeforce/EliteXC event — which many assumed would officially establish Shields as the welterweight title holder — won’t even happen.

It’s being reported that the Shields/Fickett bout is being postponed due to Shields pulling a muscle in his back while training last week. Says FiveOunces:

[Shields] flew to Los Angeles in order to meet with a specialist. While he had experienced some improvement with the injury, it was determined that he would not be ready in time for Saturday’s fight. A decision was then made to postpone the bout. A re-scheduled date for the bout has not been set, but Shields indicated that the title fight could take place within the next couple of months.

I guess that’s what you get for letting Brandon Vera give you a pinkbelly; that shot probably dislodged at least four discs. Shields’s dropout is just the latest blow to an event that had already suffered the loss of one big name, when Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos was forced to pull out of the card due to visa issues.

In related news, an EliteXC lightweight title fight between Yves Edwards and K.J. Noons has been postponed to June 14th. The two fighters were supposed to meet at an April 26th show in Hawaii, but that event has reportedly been canceled altogether. Our first thought is that EliteXC is canceling the show to reserve some talent for their first CBS broadcasts, but we’ll let you know if/when they release an official statement.