This is the face one makes when he realizes that Cyborg Santos is now his most marketable champion.

Some of you may have been surprised when you read that the UFC has apparently called Bigfoot Silva up to the majors. Not only was he coming off of a loss, but there were better fighters out there for the UFC to call up. Well, don’t worry. The UFC has called up arguably Strikeforce’s best fighter, lightweight champion Gilbert Melendez, according to a report on MMAJunkie.com. Melendez was scheduled to defend his title against Jorge Masvidal on December 17, but it is yet to be seen how this announcement will affect that. So yeah, don’t worry about the UFC not calling up Strikeforce’s best, most deserving fighters. Unless you love Strikeforce and don’t want to see it go under. Then by all means keep panicking.

The date of his UFC debut, as well as his opponent, has yet to be determined. However, according to the aforementioned report there is the possibility that Gilbert Melendez will get an immediate title shot. If that’s the case, I can’t really make sense out of that. Nick Diaz getting an immediate title shot made sense, given that Georges St. Pierre essentially cleaned out the welterweight division. However, the lightweight division is arguably the UFC’s strongest, deepest weight class. There are already plenty of contenders for the winner of the upcoming rubber match between Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard. Then again, there’s also the possibility that the Donovan McNabb will lead the Minnesota Vikings to the Super Bowl, so let’s not read too much into what’s possible.

An “expect a knockout, bro” joke may be cliche, but would you rather us put “Business as usual, You Guys” in the headline?

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that we’re supposed to be pretending that Strikeforce isn’t a dead company, and is by no means being absorbed by the UFC. Cincinnati is practically dead, despite the fact that the Strikeforce Grand Prix resumes there tonight. Strikeforce fighters are beginning to speak out about the lack of promotion that the UFC gives Strikeforce events. Strikeforce’s own champions have their next fights booked with the UFC. So today’s rumored fight isn’t so much of a surprise in the sense that another top Strikeforce fighter has reportedly been absorbed into the UFC, but rather, in the sense that we’re still going along with this “Strikeforce will continue to operate as a separate organization” thing.

In a statement released via his personal website, Vitor Belfort announced that he will be fighting Cung Le at UFC 139 in San Jose. The UFC has yet to confirm the signing of Cung Le, yet alone the announcement of this fight. Still, it appears that Vitor Belfort is already training for Le as his next opponent, as he has brought in Ray Sefo to help him train. Vitor tells fans to “Prepare to see the same dedication he takes to creating his fists the fastest in MMA to his powerful trunks.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but it sounds awesome.

(“U mad, bro?” Photo via MMATKO)

Look, you can’t trust Nick Diaz — but you can always trust Nick Diaz to be Nick Diaz. The Winnipeg Free Press has the story:

Challenger Nick Diaz was a no-show Tuesday so welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre was left to plug their UFC 137 showdown on his own.

The UFC offered no reason for Diaz’s absence in Toronto but the former Strikeforce champion is no fan of such media events…

“I don’t know why he did not show up. Maybe he has personal issues, I have no idea,” St-Pierre said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “I know they bought two flights (tickets) for him and he didn’t show up. I have no idea. I can’t talk about it because I don’t know what’s going on in his life. Hopefully he’ll be OK and I’ll see him in the cage.”

“And then the hair on my arms stood up, and I  felt a cold hand on the back of my neck, and a voice saying … “Well, well, well, motherfucker.” PicProps: AllElbows

Scott Coker commented today during a media call today about the possibility of awarding the Strikeforce heavyweight championship to the winner of the Heavyweight Grand Prix, saying that the decision hasn’t been made, but that the company probably would not do so.

Because, you know, why would you?

After promoting a tournament as a way to “finally answer once and for all who is the world’s most dangerous man” (uh, hello? Ken Shamrock.  /thread), obviously the most rational thing to do is hand the winner a large trophy or a poster-sized check, right? But to go ahead and award that winner the title of “champion”, a title that is currently vacant? Well that’s just not a decision they’re in any hurry to make.

Now call me crazy, but it seems Scott Coker believes that the belts he gives to fighters are cursed. I mean cursed like “made from the skin of blind puppies”, “hexed by crazy-haired blood witches”, “directly connected to Cenobites” cursed. Nothing else could explain the ghost town that is Strikeforce Championville, USA, but that it’s been built on the sacred land of indigenous peoples whose souls rest uneasily.

(Sorry, kids. Christmas is canceled this year.)

Josh Barnett is currently scheduled to face Sergei Kharitonov in the semi-finals of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix, September 10th in Cincinnati. He was also scheduled to face kickboxing legend Jerome Le Banner in an August 27th pro-wrestling match for IGF in Japan, because he’s Josh Barnett, and fake-fighting dudes that he could just as easily fight for real is what he does, damn it.

But while that sort of thing wouldn’t have batted an eye under Scott Coker’s droopy watch, Zuffa runs a much tighter ship, and won’t run the risk of Barnett suffering an injury in a worked puroresu match two weeks before he has to show up for a legit cage-fight. As Fighters Only reports:

“Say ‘Cheese’ fellas! We’re going to the UFC! Drinks are on me tonight.”

You know, we haven’t always been as friendly and respectful to Scott Coker and company the past few years as we could have been. Some of you have even called us haters, right here to our damn faces. However, since this is CagePotato and not CompletelyProfessionalMMAReporting.com, and since most of you assholes come here because we’re assholes, we figure that’s just peachy. That said, Strikeforce does manage to put together some stacked shows, when they’re given enough time between events.

Case in point: Strikeforce’s June 18 show in Dallas boasts a boatload (a large boat, son) of names taking part in the Neverending Story that is the SF heavyweight Grand Prix. Overeem vs Werdum is obviously the big one, but we’ve also got Josh Barnett vs Brett Rogers, Cormier vs Monson, the other Overeem vs that guy with the sideburns, KJ Noons , JZ Cavalcante vs Justin Wilcox… this is a stacked effing card, you pricks. So there, we said something nice. We marked it on our calendar, so it will be nothing but assholery and dick jokes until the autumnal equinox.

Or until the next UFC-Strikeforce superfight, whichever comes first. And with the recent news that cross-promotional fights are on the table for UFC and Strikeforce, we expect to hear SF champs making their case for a superfight of their own.

(Weird. The “cover your ears and rock back and forth while humming to yourself” defense worked so well in training.)

Inactive and without a fight booked since her squashing of Jan Finney last June, 145-pound Strikeforce women’s champion Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santos is desperate to return to competition — so desperate that she had reportedly been negotiating for gigs with the WWE and a Brazilian fight promotion in recent months. Now she’s moved onto the public-pleading stage of her frustration. Here’s what she had to say yesterday via Twitter:

Hi My dear fans, want to fight too soon, but not dependent on me. This very difficult to renegotiate with scott. They’re not appreciating all I did for the event. I am very sad, but I will not give up. God has another purpose in my life…Maybe I fight the world jiujtsu not going to be the way you like with many punches…but I will give my best to make you guys like it.

Alright, Cris, here’s the deal…

(“OK, if we didn’t call your name, it means we had no idea you even worked here. Anyway, you’re fired too.”)

Kind of like the husband who assures his loving wife he’s only going to have “a couple of beers” with the boys after work, we suspect when Dana White told us back in March that Zuffa, LLC was “not planning any changes” inside Strikeforce he probably really believed it at the very moment the words came out of his mouth. But just as that husband somehow ends his night trying to explain there was no way he could’ve known that 14-year-old prostitute was actually an undercover policewoman, so too does it turn out White’s definition of “business as usual” actually means, “in two months we’re going to lay off 85 percent of you guys.”

(Video courtesy of YouTube/CharlieSpaniard)

UFC  welterweight Charlie Brenneman decided to video blog from the Zuffa Fighter Summit the past couple of days to give us mortals a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at this yearly meeting of extraordinary gentlemen and gentlewomen.

In the clip above UFC president Dana White opines about his bitter nemeses — the much maligned “so called MMA media,” offers suggestions on how to make money after retirement and recommends that his employees embrace social media as a free tool to increase their star power.

(Chael Sonnen will be skipping the 9:25 lecture to play blackjack)

An interesting tidbit to come out of this week’s UFC Fighter Summit is that former Strikeforce president and CEO Scott Coker has been quietly demoted to the role of executive vice president and general manager of the recently Zuffa-purchased promotion.

(“What, that bright light? It shines down on us from heaven. Come see how it feels, Scott. Nice, right?”)

Despite everybody’s continued claims that things have never been better inside Strikeforce, we know the UFC has already taken over the company’s relations with the media and begun poaching its biggest stars. Now, it seems UFC executives are also neck deep in Strikeforce’s business, reportedly working (at least for the time being) to make sure the smaller fight promotion’s top remaining draws are happy. That’s the word out of Toronto on Thursday, where multiple reports say Dana White will meet with Strikeforce welterweight champ Nick Diaz after UFC 129 and that co-owner Lorenzo Fertitta is already seeing to the task of making the proposed superfight between Fedor Emelianenko and Dan Henderson become a reality.

First and foremost, White seems understandably concerned with Diaz’s apparent designs on bolting MMA for boxing. As quickly as plans to have the Stockton bad boy fight Fernando Vargas fell apart a couple weeks back, new reports surfaced saying former super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy might be interested. Perhaps most interestingly, White said this week Diaz’s contract actually does allow for such foolishness – which is another good example of why UFC people need to be up in SF’s business – but he’s obviously not crazy about the idea.

(Jake, you be Strikeforce. Jason, you be the UFC. Now, show us how the next few months will go …)

It’s been three days since Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s sudden jump to the UFC and we still haven’t heard anything substantive on the topic from Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker or anyone else in the lame duck MMA company. A week ago Coker went on a popular MMA “radio” show and danced around the issue of Miller’s future in Strikeforce. He said the promotion was talking to Mayhem’s management about a fight this summer. No mention of the fact Miller was twisting in the breeze without a contract. No mention that the UFC might stick its beak in. Used to be, it felt like a waste of time to ask Coker questions because it was hard to get a straight answer out of the guy. Now it feels like it’s a waste of time because he may no longer even know what’s going on inside his own company.

For all his talk about his ongoing commitment to “growing Strikeforce and making it work,” it’s pretty clear that Coker (and maybe Strikeforce itself) has become the metaphorical equivalent of a WWE referee. He’s just a dude standing the middle of the ring in an official-looking outfit, desperately pleading for order while the battle rages heedlessly around him. No one is listening. No one is even pretending he has any power anymore. That’s sad, because Coker seems like one of the sport’s legitimate good guys, but the quiet loss of Miller last week is maybe the most compelling evidence yet that it’s only a matter of time before that phone call from Vegas comes in, informing the Strikeforce staff that the charade is over.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/CaptainC01)

About a year ago during an email exchange with a member of the UFC’s PR team about an interview I was setting up I pointed out a terribly uninformed article about UFC 115 printed by one of the most influential newspapers in Canada. “I guess Canwest can kiss their media credentials goodbye,” I quipped.

Obviously the sarcasm of my joke was not evident, perhaps due to my lack of a “winky face” at the end, and I got back the following reply:

“As to Canwest, it is unfortunate that the reporter took this view on the event but it would be unfair, and unprofessional, to attempt to combat this view by denying them future credentials. The press are free to print an opinion that may reflect negatively upon us and we would hope to further educate them so that future articles would be more even handed.”

Apparently Dana White doesn’t share the same view.

News came to light today that several longtime members of the MMA media who have attended countless Strikeforce events have now been denied media credentials for this weekend’s Diaz vs. Daley event.

Josh Gross, Loretta Hunt and Jeff Sherwood were all shut out of Saturday night’s first major Zuffa-run Strikeforce show. All three have tumultuous past history with White and it looks like the UFC president isn’t one to forgive and forget.

(The Authentic Sports Management Christmas party might be a bit awkward this year if all of the firm’s fighters attend.)

Jen Wenk, the ex-UFC director of public relations announced today that her new firm, StarPR™ Las Vegas, will be taking over the public relations duties for Authentic Sports Management, the agency representing several MMA fighters including UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and number one contender Rashad Evans.

“I am honored to have worked for the UFC and with owners and visionaries Lorenzo J. Fertitta and Dana White for the last six years,” Wenk said via press release. “I only hope to continue my good public relations work in representing this dynamic new management company and many of the organization’s top fighters, including the new UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jon “Bones” Jones, former UFC champion Rashad Evans and more. “