(The temptation to suggest a tickle fight for the belt must have been damn near overwhelming for Scott Coker.)

As Strikeforce bravely soldiers on toward what was supposed to be an epic event on Showtime before being brought back down to earth via a gypsy curse, it’s time we take a look at the fights oddsmakers are still offering betting lines on.  With Jesse Taylor in as a replacement for Nick Diaz against Jay Hieron, most online bookmakers are staying away from it at the moment.  Either they feel poet laureate “JT Money” is too much of an unknown quantity as a last-minute replacement, or they just assume that Nick Diaz will show up on fight night, stoned out of his mind, and refuse to allow this fight to go on without him.  We’re hoping for the latter.

The most favorable lines on the internet come to us courtesy of BestFightOdds.com:

Gina Carano (+161) vs. Cris “Cyborg” Santos (-170)
Renato “Babalu” Sobral (+200) vs. Gegard Mousasi (-205)
Mitsuhiro Ishida (+200) vs. Gilbert Melendez (-215)
Mike Kyle (+435) vs. Fabricio Werdum (-515)

The breakdown…