(“Seems like oooooold times…” / Photo via allelbows)

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- Chael Sonnen vs. Jon Jones Official For UFC 159 in New Jersey (FightDay)

- Gegard Mousasi and the Frustration of ‘Overrated’ (MMAFighting)

- King Mo Lawal Has Boxing Clause in His Contract, Would Like a Fight With Kimbo Slice (BloodyElbow)

- Cub Swanson Says Fight With Dennis Siver Is #1 Featherweight Contender Match (Fightline)

- The 50 Dirtiest Athletes in Sports History (Complex)

- Review: Brian J. D’Souza’s “Pound for Pound” MMA book Is Top-Class Reading (FightOpinion)

- Photo of the day: Ed O’Neill chokes out Royce Gracie on the set of ‘Modern Family’ (Facebook.com/CagePotato)

- Steven Seagal Owns a Bullet-Proof Kimono. This Is Not a Joke. (FilmDrunk)

- If You’ve Never Seen American Psycho, This Rory MacDonald Comic Will Not Make Sense (MiddleEasy)

- 10 Reasons You’re Not Getting Laid (MensFitness)

- Honest Trailers: Inception (ScreenJunkies)

- 17 Gifts for People You Hate (EgoTV)

- A Gallery of White People Acting Extremely White (WorldWideInterweb)

(Let’s just say that Cristiane has a way of “convincing” men to do what she wants. We won’t give away the secret, but it involves a garden hose, a tub of creamed corn, a circus midget, and a LOT of tears.) 

What a difference one year (and a smokin’ hot champion) can make.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen UFC President Dana White pull a 180 on such topics as TRT, fights that “make sense,” and most importantly, women’s MMA. Where less than a year ago, Dana could be quoted as saying that we would “never” see women in the UFC – unless they were informing us what round it is, of course — nowadays, his attitude seems to have shifted in the opposite direction. This could partially be due to the success of such smaller promotions as InvictaFC, but is more a result of Dana’s budding fascination with Ronda Rousey, who he has referred to as “unique,” “a Diaz brother,” and “a f*cking dude trapped in this beautiful body.” We’re not sure how he would consider the second quality to be all that endearing, but needless to say, The Baldfather recently informed Sports Illustrated that WMMA is on its way to the UFC:

It’s absolutely going to happen.

[It] could happen tomorrow, it could happen a year from now.

We’ve just heard word that Scott Coker has hung himself.

(Welcome, gentlemen. We’ve been waiting for you.)

For the second consecutive month, Zuffa has canceled an event on very short notice due to one of the headliners pulling out with an injury. As confirmed in a press release on UFC.com, Gilbert Melendez suffered an injury in training, and was forced to withdraw from his lightweight title fight against Pat Healy at this Saturday’s Strikeforce show in Sacramento. As a result, the 9/29 card has been scratched altogether.

As with UFC 151, the relative weakness of the “Melendez vs. Healy” supporting card was surely a factor in the event’s cancelation. But what makes this situation unique is that Showtime essentially made the decision, not Strikeforce. From the press release:

Without the Melendez-Healy title bout, SHOWTIME®, which determines which fights are televised on the premium network, decided that it would not air Saturday’s scheduled event.

“When SHOWTIME informed us that it would not be airing the event, we made the difficult decision to cancel Saturday’s card in Sacramento,” STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker said. “Without a television partner, we simply could not move forward with this event. We wish Gilbert a speedy recovery and will work diligently and quickly to reschedule the fighters affected by this news on upcoming cards.”

(“It looks like you’re starting an MMA promotion. May I suggest throwing all your money into a pit and lighting it on fire instead?”)

We haven’t had a good Strikeforce Deathwatch in a while, but this one might be my favorite. A month out from their Barnett vs. Cormier event on May 19th — which also features the lightweight title fight/trilogy match between Gilbert Melendez and Josh Thomson — several eagle-eyed fight fans have noticed that Strikeforce’s official website has been drastically scaled down.

Gone are all the sub-sections on Strikeforce.com, which directed readers to event calendars and fight rosters. Instead, it looks like some intern just screen-capped the latest press-release on MS Word — without running spelling-and-grammar-check first, mind you — posted it, and called it a day. The only link on the site is contained in the poster image at the top, which directs to a freakin’ GoDaddy page.

(“I appreciate the recognition, but really, this award belongs to CagePotato. Get up here, guys.”)

By Jason Moles

This time last year, I gave you a list of predictions that really created a stir. I boasted that the UFC would host an event in Mexico and be legalized in New York. Man, was I ever wrong about that. I apologize. But I also said that Dana White would coin a new phrase, land a network TV deal and that a famous athlete would cross over into the world of mixed martial arts. Not bad, eh? 2012 is quickly approaching so get the champagne on ice and let’s get to those wild predictions…

1. FOX will reprimand Dana White for his inevitable off-handed comments.

“Faggot“, “f*cking retarded”, “dumb bitch” — these are all things that have been uttered by the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White. The UFC may be MMA’s pinnacle and FOX’s diamond in the rough, but if the promotion is ever to secure a spot in the mainstream, it needs to display more control over its mouthpiece and his tongue. Advertisers tend to frown upon such public displays of hostility and bigotry. When Uncle Dana slips again and gives someone an earful, you can be certain that it won’t go unpunished as it has in the past. This goes for you too, Rogan and Rashad.

2. A champion will test positive for a banned substance.

(“BRB….LOL!”)

Remember when Scott Coker said Gina Carano would be returning to the Strikeforce cage in 2011? Well, apparently he was lying.

Great belt, or the greatest belt? PicProps: AnnieSHOSports/Twitter

After another fun night of heavyweight action, the Strikeforce Grand Prix finals are set: Josh Barnett and Daniel Cormier will fight to be recognized as the best heavyweight in the world, except for those guys in the UFC. Or the guys that have left Strikeforce in the past few months. Whatever.

Anywho, you may have seen pictures of the GP championship belt that showed up last week, and heard that Coker and company are still lukewarm about the idea of calling the GP winner the Strikeforce champion. We thought that didn’t really make sense, and Josh Barnett agrees. At the Strikeforce press conference Saturday night, Barnett tried to twist Coker’s arm a bit, asking: “Why don’t we sweeten the pot?” Barnett asked. “Why don’t we put that title on the line between me and Cormier?”

Coker, bless his heart, didn’t want to commit to that, and you have to wonder: “Why?”

“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.

(You don’t *have* to cover your face when you wear this shirt in public — but it couldn’t hurt. Props: Punch Buddies)

After Tuesday’s pep-talk, I’m happy to report that you guys got your acts together and started to produce quality work. So after sifting through the most recent wave of submissions for our Punch Buddies photoshop contest, we’ve chosen five runners-up, as well as two winners who will score “Young Assassin” t-shirts. Check out the Melvin Gulllard-themed brilliance after the jump.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/5thRoundVideo)

Don’t expect to see any Strikeforce champions besides Nick Diaz fighting in the UFC anytime soon.

According to Strikeforce president Scott Coker, Diaz’s crossover to the UFC was a one-off exception that was made to prevent the Stockton native from turning his back on MMA in favor of a boxing career.

Well, Cris “Cyborg” Santos is officially a free agent, which either means that Strikeforce was unwilling to pay her what she felt she was worth, or that Zuffa has decided against continuing to promote women’s MMA under the SF banner. Either way, it’s a blow to the promotion’s women’s division.

A source we spoke to today received confirmation from Cyborg’s management that Zuffa’s exclusive negotiation period with the 10-1 Curitiba, Brazil fighter ended yesterday and that the parent company of Strikeforce and the UFC failed to come to terms with the Strikeforce women’s middleweight champ before she became a free agent at the stroke of midnight.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/UFC)

- He once got busy in a Burger King bathroom (WithLeather)

- Bjorn Rebney talks Bellator’s Summer Series success (MMAJunkie)

- A closer look at Modern Warfare 3 from E3 (TheRugged)

- Florian thinks he deserves a title shot if he beats Nunes (MMAWeekly)

- Zach Galifianakis’ shit list (Clutch.MTV)

- Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka says he would have loved to fight in MMA (TheGarv)

- Crazy Chicks 101 (HolyTaco)

- Scott Coker talks Zuffa purchase, Barnett, TV and more (CageWriter)

- Warner Brothers covering up Ed Helms’ Hangover II tattoo (ScreenJunkies)

- The Score Fighting Series free live stream for tonight’s show with Zaromskis, Mein, Doerksen, Carvalho, Sokoudjou, Fioravanti and more starting at 7:30 pm ET (TheScore)

- Cecilia Bonelli (TuVez)

- Randy Couture’s UFC 131 pics (FightLine)

- Twitter fails and panty analysis (MadeMan)

(“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.”

(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.

(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.

(“Give me your fired, your poor, your troubled Diazes yearning for THC, blacklisted fighters you don’t want any more…”)

When the news dropped last month that the UFC had bought Strikeforce, one of the least talked about stories was where would the move leave Strikeforce’s contracted female fighters, should Zuffa decide to cease promoting women’s MMA. UFC president Dana White has long been a vocal opponent of having women fight for him as there aren’t, in his opinion, enough top female fighters to make it a worthwhile endeavor.

In spite of White’s proclamation that both companies would be running “business as usual,” after the purchase, there have already been a significant number of changes to the company that have fans, fighters and pundits are left wondering if Strikeforce’s fighting females have a secure future with their new employer.

(“That whole Zuffa thing was just a gag too, right? No? That one was for real? Rats.” Pic: Prommanow)

From a Strikeforce press release …

STOCKTON, Calf. — Strikeforce CEO Scot Coker held a press conference here on Friday to announce that tonight’s scheduled Challengers event at the Stockton Arena was just an elaborate April Fool’s Day joke, one that he admitted had gone too far.

Saying the whole idea was “just a goof,” Coker said he was surprised more people didn’t catch on sooner. “Come on, like we’re going to host an event in the most miserable city in the country, headlined by Rodrigo Damm?” Coker said. “Not even Showtime would go for that crap.”

(Vid: HDNet)

To hear Scott Coker tell it, the story of Strikeforce is one of a plucky little regional promotion battling its way out of the shadows into the national spotlight, then cashing in its chips at the height of its popularity. At least that seems to be the rhetorical strategy Coker employs in the above video on HDNet, as he makes his first significant public appearance since Zuffa, LLC. bought his company 10 days ago. Coker allows Bas Rutten to fire cartoonish questions at him for more than 15 minutes, all the while appearing dutifully optimistic about what his new employers plan to do with the MMA organization he built almost singlehandedly.

THE REEM 2 EPISODE 1: COMING TO AMERICA from THE REEM on Vimeo.

It’s been a while, but Alistair Overeem’s web-based mini-documentary series “The Reem” is back with another season. Season 2 picks up with Alistair getting the invite to appear on K-1′s NYE  Dynamite! card opposite last-minute replacement Todd Duffee. Following the impressive KO win, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker approaches Overeem and offers him a slot on the promotion’s planned heavyweight grand prix and “The Demolition Man” immediately requests a rematch with Fabrisco Werdum in the opening round. So much for his detractors saying he only takes easy fights.

(Sure they lead to some bullshit stoppages, but we support anything that has the ability to break Brandon Vera’s face in three places. Props: Cagewriter)

Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, and Scott Coker held a media conference call earlier today to respond to questions about Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce, and despite DW’s previous claims that Strikeforce will operate the way it always has, at least one notable change is already in the works. Elbows to the head of a grounded opponent — a somewhat controversial staple of the Unified Rules of MMA followed by the UFC, but not utilized in Strikeforce — will now be legal in Strikeforce matches, effective immediately. Said Lorenzo Fertitta: “The one change we’re going to do as a promoter of the show is the unified rules that you see in the UFC.”

The move should reduce confusion among fans who might not understand why two MMA promotions that now share an owner would adhere to different rule-sets — though it was also announced that Strikeforce would still use its six-sided cage, and not the Octagon. A few more notable updates from the conference call are after the jump (via MMAFighting and Sherdog).

(“…on the bright side, me and Vadim were offered high-paying jobs as ‘consultants.’ So don’t worry about us, guys, we’ll be fine.”)

Saturday’s announcement that Zuffa purchased Strikeforce represented such a monumental shift in the MMA landscape that it was hard to process all at once. There are so many ways that this thing could play out, it’s almost useless to speculate about what might happen. Then again, what else are we going to do? Here are the possible effects that the Strikeforce buyout will (maybe) produce in the coming months, years, and decades…

Strikeforce will go the way of the WEC
When Zuffa bought the WEC in December 2006, they also vowed to keep “business as usual.” And for four years, they did; the WEC existed as a separate entity, and their consistently entertaining cards and smaller fighters were beloved by MMA fans. Eventually, Zuffa decided that the WEC had gone as far as it could as a promotion, and absorbed their featherweight and bantamweight divisions. A similar arc is highly likely for Strikeforce. Zuffa will keep the promotion running for a while because fans appreciate its fighters and entertainment-based matchmaking, but when Strikeforce’s contracts with its fighters and Showtime run out, the UFC will cherry-pick the best talent for its own roster and disband the operation.

The UFC will become the only brand in MMA
50 years from now, MMA fans will think of Strikeforce and PRIDE the same way we think of the ABA for basketball or the AFL for football — temporary competitors to the major leagues that had to be swallowed up for the sport to enter its unified, modern period. Some fans and fighters seem to be nervous about what a “monopoly” might mean for MMA. And maybe for good reason. If you’re a fighter like Josh Barnett or Paul Daley who’s on a permanent UFC blacklist, your career options just took a hit, especially with the Japanese MMA scene taking its dying breaths. Plus, the UFC’s revenue model is pay-per-view driven, which makes the comparison to basketball and football an imperfect one, especially in terms of how fans consume the sport. But in the long run, a single major-league promotion might be the best arrangement — the UFC as the NFL/NBA of MMA, with smaller regional promotions standing in for the collegiate system that those other leagues rely on. (Hell, maybe there will even be a full-fledged annual UFC draft at some point.) By comparison, boxing’s decline can be blamed in large part on the glut of competing promoters and sanctioning bodies. There’s reason to be optimistic here.

“Who has two thumbs and rules the entire MMA universe? This guy!”

The landscape of MMA has once again changed forever. Just like the UFC’s purchase of Pride, the UFC has enveloped another key competitor and solidified their stronghold on the MMA marketplace beyond what was previously thought possible. In his exclusive twenty-one minute interview with star reporter Ariel Helwani , Dana White sticks to the mantra “business as usual”, insisting that Strikeforce will continue to operate as its own entity. Sound familiar? Fortunately, running Strikeforce won’t entail dealing with the Yakuza. In fact, Dana casually likens the deal to purchasing a house. A house full of dudes that beat the shit out of each other for a living on national television.

Excerpts and notes from the interview are after the jump, but do yourself a favor and watch the whole thing.

(“OK Shane, now make vacant, dead-eyed love to the camera … beautiful …” Pic: DwightMcCann.com)

Remember the clamor of self-righteous public outcry that sprang up a couple weeks ago – mostly from the vigilant moral watchdogs who write for this website – when it seemed like Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker was already angling to get Fedor Emelianenko back in his company’s heavyweight tournament mere moments after his loss to Antonito “Bigfoot” Silva via aura-shattering doctor stoppage? What about all those so-called alternate bouts, we shrieked, voices cracking. What about 10-1 Chad Griggs and poor, overlooked Valentijn Overeem? What about Shane del Rosario, who we thought clearly put himself in the pole position with his slick submission on Lavar Johnson during the closing minute of the first round? We were fucking outraged. Oh, the hypocrisy!

Yeah, as it turns out, del Rosario told Sherdog this week he’s actually not that worried about it. Like, at all. Quotes after the jump.

(“Is there any way you can hold those poses until the summer?”)

It struck us as blindly optimistic when Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker announced that the second leg of his heavyweight tournament quarterfinals would take place on April 9th, even before he had a venue (or a host country) locked down. If it was just a matter of finding an arena with an open date on its schedule, it wouldn’t be a problem, but Josh Barnett‘s licensing issues made the task a lot more challenging.

So it’s really no surprise to read this new Sherdog report, which claims that Strikeforce’s remaining heavyweight tournament quarterfinals — Barnett vs. Brett Rogers, and Alistair Overeem vs. Fabricio Werdum — won’t be happening on April 9th after all. Sources close to the promotion tell Sherdog that Strikeforce will host their 4/9 event in California (a forbidden zone for the Babyface Assassin), but with no tournament fights on the card. Instead, the event will feature a lightweight title fight between Gilbert Melendez and Tatsuya Kawajiri — a rematch of their bout at PRIDE Shockwave 2006 — and possibly another welterweight title defense from Nick Diaz (opponent TBA, though Paul Daley and Tyron Woodley are options).

Anyway, that’s what some sources are saying. Other sources hear it differently…

(After drowning his sorrows until closing at a New Jersey Dairy Queen, Emelianenko was overheard telling his priest, “Dah. I may fight again.”)

Scott Coker stopped AOL’s studio today to talk with MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani about the successful first show of the opening round of his promotion’s heavyweight grand prix that took place Saturday night at the IZOD Center in New Jersey. Talk quickly turned to former top pound-for-pound king Fedor Emelianenko and whether or not Coker felt that “The Last Emperor” will indeed walk away from the sport forever as he intimated following his loss to Antonio Silva this past weekend.

Following the post-event press conference at “Fedor vs. Silva” on Saturday night, I was able to get a couple minutes with Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker, who ran down his thoughts on the insanity we’d all just witnessed — as well as some other big topics swirling around his promotion. To summarize:

- Coker still feels that Fedor Emelianenko‘s heart is still in competing, mainly because the first round of his fight against Antonio Silva wasn’t a total blowout. (By the way, a draw after two rounds? That second round was a clear 10-8 for Silva in my opinion, and the first round wasn’t a clear-cut win for Fedor either.)

- Whatever Andrei Arlovski does next is up to his camp, but Coker doesn’t sound too enthusiastic about putting him in the cage again.

(Props: shosports)

Tomorrow night in New Jersey, Strikeforce will launch a tournament that will either establish the promotion as innovative big-dogs of the MMA industry — and arguably produce the #1 heavyweight fighter in the world when the dust has settled — or invite even more ridicule when the thing goes tits-up. Who knows how it’ll play out? Right now, all we can say is that Fedor Emelianenko is fighting this weekend (and coming back from the first loss of his career), and that’s a pretty major event in itself.

Weigh-ins for ‘Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Silva‘ go down today at the IZOD Center in East Rutherford, NJ, beginning at 5 p.m. ET. The event is open to the public, and will be televised on a live episode of Inside MMA. HD Net will also be broadcasting the preliminary card tomorrow beginning at 8 p.m. ET, featuring TUF 12 vet Marc Stevens against John Cholish, and Igor Gracie vs. John Salgado.

Come back to CagePotato.com tomorrow night for round-by-round results from the Showtime broadcast, beginning at 10 p.m. ET.

(Antonio Silva is fascinated by Fabricio Werdum’s freakishly normal-sized chin.)

Photos and text by Matthew Kaplowitz

Strikeforce has graced the East Coast with their presence throughout this week, as the hype machine for their massive heavyweight grand prix is in full flux. Starting on Tuesday with a meet-and-greet for fans at the Roseland Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan with all eight of the tournament fighters, and continuing on Wednesday downtown with their press conference, Strikeforce is leaving their imprint on the tri-state area, informing natives of New York and New Jersey that the business of MMA has more than three letters.

This journalist/nerd was in the house for their press conference, which saw not only all members of the tournament, but the reserve fighters as well, packed into the swank Lighthouse 61 at Chelsea Piers, the skyline of New York dramatically posed behind them. Personally, I was excited to see that Strikeforce was feeding the reporters, and quite well at that, but even more exciting was the realization that this epic tournament was happening in my area. With MMA still illegal in New York, and very few big shows coming to neighboring states, having Saturday’s event a thirty-minute drive from The Big Apple was bound to help shed some light on how much of an impact MMA can have on the NY economy.

("I hear Dothan, Alabama is beautiful this time of year." PicProps: SB Nation )

Strikeforce appears on the verge of a solution to its Josh Barnett problem on Friday, as at least one internet report contends the company is close to a deal to take the MMA veteran/troubled teen to Japan for the first round of its heavyweight grand prix. MMA-Japan.com – a site affiliated with the good folks at Middle Easy – published the four-line story alleging that Strikeforce will partner with Real Entertainment and “possibly M-1 (Global)” to  stage a show on April 10 that will go down in “the afternoon hours (in Japan) in order to be shown live in the United States.” The story cites no sources and just states all of the above as fact, but since the boys at the Easy usually know their shit, we figure it’s worth repeating.

Obviously, rumors that Strikeforce is eyeing an international venue for this leg of the GP have been percolating for a few weeks. If true, it’ll mark the first time one of America’s two “major” MMA promotions has ventured to Japan since UFC 29 back in 2000. It also means the company will have found a temporary way around Barnett’s ongoing legal issues. In addition, the April show is expected to include Alistair Overeem’s opening round bout against Fabricio Werdum and staging it overseas would save The Reem from having to “pass” any more of those "independent drug tests." That’s what you call a “two birds, one stone” approach, kids.

("Diaz vs. Miller? I’d love to, but I think I’m busy that weekend." PicProps: MMA Convert)

Even after last week’s revelation that it would take “a couple fucking million dollars” to get Nick Diaz to meet Jason “Mayhem” Miller at a catchweight, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker says he’s still interested in making that fight … just not so interested that he’d actually take an active role in trying to book it. According to a story out on MMA Weekly this weekend, Coker says he didn’t even call Diaz manager Cesar Gracie during the recent period of negotiation when the fight almost happened, then didn’t.

“Sometimes I’ll call Cesar, but on that occasion I didn’t call Cesar and I let my guys handle it, and it was really close,” Coker said. “I thought it was going to happen, but at the last minute it fell apart. I know weight was definitely one of the issues. The weight they say, ‘Oh it’s only two pounds, three pounds,’ but you know what? When you’re two or three percent body fat, five percent body fat, there’s just not a lot to lose and we just couldn’t bridge the gap. In the future, I’d still like to put that fight together because I think they have some unfinished business with that match-up.”