(Rogers vs. Murphy at EliteXC: Primetime, 5/31/08)

With a proposed fight between Jake Shields and Joe Riggs scrapped from Strikeforce’s April 11th event due to Shields being tapped to headline their May show, there was a spot that needed to be filled on the "Shamrock vs. Diaz" supporting card. FiveOuncesofPain reports that EliteXC vet Brett Rogers has been asked to step in against an opponent to be named soon. Rogers’s return to competition will come nearly a year after his last fight — a 61-second knockout of Jon Murphy (see above) in the first live MMA fight on network television.

Following that match, the undefeated Team Bison product called out Kimbo Slice for his garbage-ass performance (which led to a brief Internet trash-talk war), and was supposed to take on Paul Buentello at an EliteXC event in November. Unfortunately, the promotion fell apart before that event could take place and Rogers has been inactive since. Whoever gets the Grim next month had better protect his neck — all eight of Rogers’s wins have come by stoppage due to strikes in the first round.

MMA Fanhouse adds that Randy‘s third wife Kim "Sugar Free" Couture will be returning to the Strikeforce cage for their May show, also against Unknown Fighter. When we last saw Kim, she was kicking the tar out of Lina Kvokov at Strikeforce: Destruction in November. It was later discovered that Kvokov was actually a spectator who had mistakenly entered the cage on the way to the bathroom. But hey, a win is a win, and Couture’s first-round TKO increased her pro-record to 1-1. As for the real star of women’s MMA, Gina Carano, she and Strikeforce are still in negotiations, with league boss Scott Coker recently comparing her to a contract hold-out at a pre-season training camp. That’s…encouraging?