(While he’s fairly confident you all know who’s #1, Frank Shamrock still doesn’t like to chance it.)

Five Ounces of Pain reports that when Frank Shamrock headlines the April 11 Strikeforce card, he’ll be doing so against former EliteXC 160-pound contender and weed-loving hard-ass Nick Diaz.  On one hand, this has the makings of a great fight.  Both men are slightly insane in their own special ways, and both are liable to say/do absolutely anything in the lead up to a fight.

On the other hand, should they even be fighting?  Shamrock has competed most of his career at middleweight and above.  He weighed in at 185 for his bout with Cung Le.  Diaz has been hovering in the 160-170 pound neighborhood as of late, and doesn’t exactly have the kind of frame you can pack a lot of weight on to.  It’s unclear at this point whether Shamrock will cut down or whether Diaz will munchie up, though if we had to guess we’d put our money on the latter.

But even as I sit here perplexed by the decision to pit these two against each other – and disappointed by the fact that it isn’t a Diaz brothers vs. Shamrock brothers tag team match – I am forced to admit that I wouldn’t miss this fight for anything.  

It’s not a bout that will have any longstanding implications in whatever division it’s contested in.  There’s no title on the line, no more than the same general feud that exists whenever either one of these guys fights anyone.  Whoever wins, whether it’s Shamrock beating the smaller Diaz or Diaz beating the older Shamrock, it won’t do too much to change either man’s standing in the MMA landscape.

And yet, what can’t happen in a Diaz-Shamrock bout?  It’s as if we’re guaranteed a certain baseline level of showboating and/or middle-finger waving, not to mention unorthodox striking styles and surprise finishes.  And that doesn’t even take into account the smacktalk before and after the fight.  

Clearly, the people at Strikeforce know what they’re doing.  This is a main event that has real appeal.  Maybe not the GSP-Penn kind of appeal, but not the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson kind either.  It’s somewhere in the middle, where good, experienced, credible though not elite fighters who are both batshit crazy, come together for a night that ought to be, if nothing else, memorable.  And you know you’re going to watch.