(Video courtesy of YouTube/MMAInterviews)

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- Chad Griggs Plan Against Overeem: Forehead Down, Throw Bombs (MMAJunkie)

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- How to Open a Beer With Anything (MadeMan)

- Strikeforce Enacts Same “Sponsor Tax” as UFC (FightersOnly)

- Holy Taco’s Guide to Writing a Good Cover Letter (HolyTaco)

- Second ’30 Seconds or Less’ Red-Band Trailer (ScreenJunkies)

- Rick Story Thinks He’s Knock Out Jon Fitch (FiveKnuckles)

- The WAGS of Wimbledon (FHM)

Dan henderson first fight by MMAGLORY

We’re going to try to do an almost daily “On This Day in MMA History” series starting with this appropriate first instalment that features one of the sports most popular and successful fighters, former Pride welterweight and middleweight and current Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson.

14 years ago today “Hendo” made his MMA debut in Brazil against Crezio de Souza in the opening round of the Brazil Open ’97 lightweight (176lbs and below) tournament.  Henderson’s bracket of the one-day grand prix also featured Jose “Pele” Landi-Jons, while the heavyweight side featured Kevin Randleman and Tom Erickson.

Do your worst, comments section: The most terrifyingly unnatural part of this photo is _____________.

Well that didn’t take long, did it? Before we can even finish analyzing the action from last night, Strikeforce has announced the addition of another fight on its July 30^th card, headlined by Fedor vs. Henderson. That fight, according to MMAWeekly.com will be a welterweight scrap between Paul “Semtex” Daley and Evangelista Santos. Santos, as you may remember, was initially scheduled to meet up with Tarec Saffiedine on this card. No word yet on whether Saffiedine withdrew from the card, or if Strikeforce decided to pull him in order to make this fight.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/FightHubTV)

It’s official. The world must be ending soon. How else can you explain the fact that we actually agree with something Gary Shaw said regarding MMA?

In this interview Shaw did with FightHubTV.com about Zuffa’s purchase of Strikeforce, Shaw detailed who the winners and losers are in the deal and his viewpoints were all valid ones.

“Great for the UFC [and the] Fertittas. Brilliant, brilliant move. For the fighters, terrible move because they don’t really have another place to go and bargain. So, if you ask me as a businessman, I think it’s brilliant on the part of the UFC, Shaw said. “I’m not even sure that when Strikeforce’s contract is up with Showtime, that they just don’t fold [the promotion] into the UFC at that point and just make it a pay-per-view. For the fans it’s bad, for the fighters it’s bad and for the UFC it’s terrific.”

(Hey Strikeforce, give this man a fight already. When does Chael get back?)

Strikeforce middleweight champion Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza is not happy with his lack of activity the past year and he’s hoping the UFC’s purchase of the California-based promotion will remedy the frustrating situation.

The decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt (who has not fought since defeating Robbie Lawler in January) has only fought three times in the past 365 days including his championship win over Tim Kennedy last August that saw him take home the vacant Strikeforce middleweight title relinquished by Jake Shields when he moved over to the UFC.

He tells Tatame that he just wants to fight and no matter who it’s against or where or when the bout takes place, he’d just be happy knowing there’s a fight for him on the horizon.

“I want to fight as soon as possible. I don’t fight for a long time and I’m upset about it. For one who works for fighting, not fighting for a long time, when you’re ready to go, is the worst thing that can happen. I had to stop for about a month or two, but I already was good to go, and didn’t know when I would fight again. I’m looking forwards to know when I’ll be fighting and then I’ll tell you guys. There’re many good athletes [for me to face]. Strikeforce is one of the greatest events on earth, so I’m cool with anyone they tell me to fight against. As a Strikeforce employee what I really want is to fight.”

Different styles make for an interesting fight.

Though Zuffa officials have yet to announce the fight, Sherdog.com reports that Dan Henderson and Fedor Emelianenko have officially signed bout agreements to face one another. This match-up has been in the works for a while now and will add some major firepower to the July 30^th event at the Sears Center in Chicago.

This is a big fight for everyone involved. Following two consecutive stoppage losses to Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Silva, Fedor’s unbeatable mystique has been shattered. With Strikeforce’s top heavyweights competing in the Grand Prix Tournament from which he was exiled, this bout gives Fedor a shot at a meaningful win against a highly respected legend. After all the talk of his possible retirement from the sport, a victory here would prove that Fedor is still very relevant in the MMA landscape.

1 by Zuffaforce

Dana White was interviewed by Forbes $ports Money while he was in Toronto for UFC 129 last month and as always the UFC president had a lot to say.

Among other items, The Baldfather touched on some hot button topics like the UFC’s plans for Strikeforce, whether or not women’s MMA will survive the merger and what prompted the minority stake sale of 10 percent of the company to Flash Entertainment.

Check out the transcription of some of the key quotes from the show after the jump.

(Guess if they’re gonna let *somebody* fight Bisping, it might as well be somebody we like.)

When last we heard from Tim Kennedy, he’d just completed the MMA equivalent of sinking a two-foot putt by choking out Melvin Manhoef in Strikeforce, then went public with his lament that he hadn’t been the one to administer an in-home eye exam to Osama bin Laden. Y’all know we’ve always liked Kennedy. Seems like a super cool dude and admittedly there’s something fascinating about a guy whose typical day might just as easily include either choking out a Dutch-Surinamese kickboxer or smoking the world’s top terrorist. Give or take.

It’s exactly that admiration that led us to be a bit disappointed this week when we heard about Kennedy offering to fight Michael Bisping over at MMA Weekly. Calling out Bisping is one of the more played-out moves a well-known middleweight can make, after all. When we saw Kennedy saying it, we assumed it was just another case of a guy trying to make his bones off Bisping’s inflated reputation and general overratedness. Truthfully, there probably is some of that at work here. But then we started digging into Kennedy’s quotes and realized that A) He’s offering to fight “The Count” basically for free (PR bump notwithstanding) and B) He seems driven to do it out of moral obligation, more than anything else. As far as we’re concerned that – as long as he’s not just bullshitting us – is pretty cool.

(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…

(Hell in the ring, silent on elevators.)

Any time two heavyweights with a history of testing positive get into a bi-lingual war of words, you can book us for a ringside seat. Such was the case this week when Josh Barnett and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva launched into the now nearly obligatory online fighter beef session. Silva got the ball rolling during an interview with Sherdog, wherein (apparently apropos of nothing) he lashed out at Barnett for – among other things – ignoring Brazilian fighters on elevators. So … that was weird.

If we had to guess, we’d say Bigfoot is feeling a little lonely and cranky after being kind of overlooked in all the hype, speculation and gratuitous match-up fantasizing that’s gone on since the UFC-Strikeforce merger. After all, Bigfoot became the latest dude to slay the unslayable Fedor Emelianenko back in February. You’d think that was worth something, right? And then pictures of Barnett exchanging bro-grabs with Dana White show up on the Internet? Why, that’d be enough to set any giant’s blood to a boilin’. His attacks, along with Barnett’s response are after the jump.

That’s right, JZ. Dress for the job you want to have.

Joe Silva isn’t the only matchmaker working overtime lately. Strikeforce matchmaker Rich Chou Sean Shelby has been as busy shoring up the organization’s upcoming June cards.

The second leg of the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix (June 18^th-Dallas, TX) will also feature the return of Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante, who will be climbing into the cage for the first time since his October fight against Josh Thomson, a loss that everyone but the judges thought was close as hell. His opponent will be AKA’s Justin Wilcox, who bludgeoned Rodgrigo Damm in a first round stoppage at Strikeforce Challengers 15 last April.

Two more match ups after the jump.

(“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.

(Sometimes purple lipstick happens in MMA commentating.)

According to a Sports Illustrated report, MMA’s most maligned play-by-play commentator Gus Johnson is leaving CBS to work for Fox.

Not sure if this has anything to do with the fact that the UFC bought Strikeforce and UFC president Dana White has made no secret of the fact that he doesn’t care for Johnson’s fight calling abilities and as such it seemed unlikely that GuJo would be included in their vision of business as usual .

(To defeat Fedor, one must prepare like Fedor. / Props: CombatLifestyle.com)

This morning, MMA Junkie reported that Strikeforce has penciled in July 30th for a major Showtime-televised event, which would put their plans for a pay-per-view event on the back-burner for now. According to the report, the Sears Centre in Hoffman Estates, Illinois (just outside of Chicago), has surfaced as a possible venue, and Fedor Emelianenko vs. Dan Henderson was named as a potential headliner. Scott Coker and Lorenzo Fertitta are currently working to arrange the matchup, while Dana White is doing his best not to meddle. (Said Dana last week at a UFC 129 press-conference: “Lorenzo’s working on it. Me getting anywhere near that thing? You’ll never see that fight.”)

According to SBNation’s Jonathan Snowden, sources from both camps are now saying that the fight is on for 7/30 at the Sears Centre. Josh Gross adds that the bout will be at heavyweight. No official word from Strikeforce yet; we’ll update you when we know more. The Sears Centre was the site of Emelianenko’s last victory, against Brett Rogers back in November 2009. Since then, he’s suffered back-to-back stoppage losses against Fabricio Werdum and Antonio Silva. Henderson last competed in March, when he defeated Rafael Cavalcante for the Strikeforce light-heavyweight title.

(How many muppets must die for Jason Miller to dress in the manner to which he’s become accustomed? Pic: ESPN)

Truly spoken like a dude who’s used to being asked to leave. Some pretty classic quotes out on Tuesday from fighter, television host and all-purpose awesome dude Jason “Mayhem” Miller re: recent reports that Strikeforce literally couldn’t find him a fight during the last year of his contract because he’d become persona non grata at both Showtime and parent network CBS. Turns out, though he knew he was in hot water after his participation in the April, 2010 Nashville brawl, nobody at any of the above corporate entities bothered to inform Mayhem that he was no longer welcome on the two television stations and – therefore – damaged goods for Strikeforce. Instead, they just put him on the shelf to rot.

“I asked, and guess what? Nobody would tell me,” Miller told MMA Fighting. “This is a political environment. Nobody’s going to tell you. They’re just going to be cowards about it. That’s the way of the world. Nobody’s going to tell the crazy ultimate fighter guy to his face, ‘Hey, screw you.’ They’re not going to do that.”

(“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.

(“I survived the Full Tilt Poker bust and all I got was this crappy jacket.” Too soon? Pic: WSOP.com)

The federal indictments lobbed at three top poker websites late last week – including noted fight sponsor Full Tilt Poker – continue to cause a troubling ripple effect in the MMA world, new reports indicate. You may have already seen the stories over the weekend about how much the sudden absence of such poker site dough may or may not adversely affect the bottom line of individual fighters, but notable sports business reporter Darren Rovell (who works a lot on ESPN) now says the charges against Full Tilt also mean the loss of an important upcoming deal for the UFC.

“The UFC had a huge new sponsorship deal on the table with Full Tilt that will now go out the window with the feds bust,” Rovell tweeted on Monday afternoon. This came on the heels of a story from MMA Junkie quoting agent Ken Pavia saying the poker shutdown “will severely impact fighters’ sponsor revenue, which traditionally matched their show pay for our televised clients.”

So yeah, any time big sponsors drop out (or get indicted) and their money gets taken out of the pockets of fighters and the coffers of the only important company left in the industry, we have to do the Dennis Hopper voice again: Bad things, man. For those of you who may have actually gone outside or done things with friends/family over the weekend, a short recap of the story and some reflection on what it might mean for MMA are after the jump.

(Vid: YouTube/ClinchGear)

When Dan Henderson tweeted a link to the above video interview with his boys at Clinch Gear Radio earlier today and promised it contained the “real deal” about his potential fight with Fedor Emelianenko, we didn’t exactly expect a bombshell. Didn’t get one, either, as Hendo and Co. spend most of the 10:45 talking about the Zuffa, LLC acquisition of Strikeforce and his light heavyweight title victory over Rafael Feijao. When the topic does finally turn to the rumored superfight with Emelianenko, Henderson says he’d be all for it, with one sort of surprising caveat: He says he wouldn’t take the fight if it is offered to him at 220-pounds.

Nope, as if to confirm his status as an all-around badass, Hendo sounds like he wants no part of such made-up nonsense, he’ll take Fedor at heavyweight or not at all. Watch the vid if you don’t believe us. “It would be an honor to fight him and if I did fight him, there would be no catchweight,” Henderson says. “I don’t do those at all. If I’m going to fight him at his weight, I’m going to fight him at his weight … I wouldn’t take the fight if it was at a catchweight.”

(A few more fights and Melendez will finally realize his dream of owning matching gloves. Pic: ESPN)

In the weeks since the UFC seized control of Strikeforce, there has understandably been a ton of talk about the potential for cross-promotional superfights. Even as honchos from both companies hold firm that it these dream fights won’t happen right away, the fanboy in all of us can’t help but titter a bit over the thought of Overeem vs. Velasquez, Diaz vs. St. Pierre or Fedor vs. Couture. Fine, maybe that last one would’ve been better had it gone down back in the ’70s, but you see our point. With apologies to the abovementioned dudes however, in the wake of last weekend’s “Diaz vs. Daley” show we can’t help but feel the most valuable commodity the UFC acquired with Strikeforce may well be Gilbert Melendez.

And we mean, like, right now. Immediately. As long as we can all agree that Strikeforce is just beginning its trudge toward the slow, painful death of the dinosaur, dodo and WEC (which we do, right?) there is simply no reason to confine Melendez to a terminally ill roster where he is essentially the only legitimate lightweight. Especially when the UFC lightweight division – arguably the best, most competitive weight class on the planet – has so many current problems. Problems that the abrupt addition of Melendez might solve right away. We explain, after the jump …

(Video courtesy of RuTube/IronWorld)

During a recent interview with the Russian sports news website MixFight.ru, M-1 Global president and the manager of Fedor Emelianenko, Vadim Finkelstein spoke a bit more about his thoughts on the recent acquisition of Strikeforce by Forza LLC, an offshoot of the UFC’s parent company Zuffa LLC. According to the man often referred to by Dana White as one of the “crazy Russian,” he is one of a growing number of people who aren’t buying the UFC president’s claims that in spite of the purchase, things will be business as usual for both promotions.

“The news of the acquisition of Strikeforce by Zuffa caught me so off guard that I initially did not believe it when I got the call from our partners telling us about it, but the next day the deal was reported on both of their official websites. What are my impressions? First of all, I do not believe that Strikeforce will somehow maintains its independence from the UFC and the organizations will continue to work as they did before. I do not believe that they will fight for the fighters’ best interests. I think that the fate of Strikeforce is quite predictable and will be a repeat the fate of other organizations that the UFC purchased.”

(Will watch.)

In spite of the fact that both former PRIDE champions are from completely different weight classes, it looks like a proposed bout between Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Dan Henderson and former pound-for-pound king Fedor Emelianenko has been agreed to in principle by both fighters.

According to a report by MMAFighting that cites Henderson’s manager Aaron Crecy as well as “a source with knowledge of the situation” and an unnamed rep from M-1 Global, Hendo and “The Last Emperor” have both said they would accept the fight if offered.

(My God, the muckraking! Pic: Strikeforce)

After being denied media access to cover last weekend’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley for CBS Sports (and apparently buying a ticket and going anyway), longtime reporter Loretta Hunt conducted a video chat with fellow scribe Jason Probst on Monday to discuss the ongoing banishment of many of the sport’s best-known journalists from events controlled by the UFC. We missed it, but since Zuffa, LLC’s brazen efforts to marginalize media it doesn’t deem friendly enough to its own interests is perhaps the biggest story consistently ignored by “credentialed” MMA sites (for obvious reasons, right?), we figure some of it needs repeating.

For starters, Hunt claims the honchos at CBS Sports are not impressed that Zuffa continues to conduct media relationships like a 13-year-old girl deciding who can ride the pony at her birthday party. It appears that heavy-hitters like CBS are used to a certain amount of professionalism from the entities they cover and the UFC obviously sorely lacks in that department. Zuffa has been such a pain in the ass that Hunt says CBS might just chuck it the fuck-it bucket and stop covering MMA entirely. So, that seems counterproductive. Her quotes – with props to Fight Opinion for the original transcriptions — and some of our own musings are after the jump …

(At least he’s done his research. Pic: ESPN)

Uh-oh, we bet somebody is going to get their Twitter in a bunch over this: Former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal spoke with Five Knuckles over the weekend, breaking down the current Jon Jones-Rashad Evans beef with the kind of simple analogy any pimp could understand. Lawal said that in going back on his original oath never to fight a friend and training partner, Jones displayed the personality traits of a common street prostitute and now “Bones” – ahem – should be treated like one.

“I think it broadsided (Evans), because they both made an agreement (not to fight) and all of a sudden someone reneges,” Lawal said. “I would never fight Daniel (Cormier) definitely, and he would never fight me. Then all of a sudden if he went behind my back and said, ‘I’ll fight Mo on TV’ … that’s a ho move and a ho move deserves an ass whipping. I know none of my training partners that are my brothers would ever pull a ho move like that. If I say I ain’t going to fight my brother, I ain’t going to fight my brother.”

(The pudgy Russian scamp during happier and more certain times.)

When rumors began circulating that Fedor Emelianenko was considering a drop to light heavyweight to face Strikeforce 205-pound kingpin Dan Henderson, representatives from M-1 were quick to quash them.

“At this time it is all rumor with no truth. It’s not anything M-1 has considered at all,” M-1′s head of PR Eric Nicholls told MiddleEasy last month. “Should it be decided that Fedor would consider dropping to 205, M-1 would make an official announcement.”

Well, it looks like Nicholls was just pretending that things were business as usual at M-1 as Fedor has now admitted that he is considering dropping down a weight class.

(Pic: Tapology)

It’s hard to even know what to think about Paul Daley anymore. Given what we understand about the current MMA landscape, the ’60s radical in us wants to pump our fist and shout out a Hopper-esque “Right on, man!” every time Daley goes on record saying he’s not going to “kiss ass” for the UFC empire. Then again, Daley himself is so thoroughly detestable that it’s also hard not to hope Nick Diaz takes him down and chokes him out in like 45 seconds this weekend during their Strikeforce welterweight title match. Then, if Diaz, Daley, Brock Lesnar, Georges St. Pierre and BJ Penn joined hands in the cage, sang “We Shall Overcome” and announced they were filing a joint antitrust suit against Zuffa, LLC, well, that’d be about perfect … as long as one of them didn’t try to steal a bunch of beer from a riverboat casino later that night … but anyways …

Of the five betting websites we perused this morning, only one – Bookmaker.com – is offering lines on all four of Strikeforce’s scheduled televised bouts as well as a couple from the undercard. Most electronic bookies are steadfastly avoiding Gegard Mousasi vs. Keith Jardine, likely because they don’t want to be complicit in Jardine’s untimely demise. Not Bookmaker though, those brave motherfuckers are posting odds on that fight and somehow still allowing prop bets on the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix. A guy can still get Fab Werdum to win it all at +550 over there, if you’re interested. In order to stay focused on the here and now however, after the jump are the lines for Saturday night’s “Diaz vs. Daley” show courtesy Bookmaker, plus our picks.

(“Attn journalists: Instead of writing that Fedor ‘lost’ we’d appreciate it if you would use the phrase Fedor ‘almost won.’ Thank you, that is all.” Pic: All Elbows)

Since we figure our readers don’t spend a ton of time poking around the “fine print” section at the bottom of UFC.com, we assume very few of you noticed recently when Zuffa, LLC quietly began imposing its “Professional Journalism Policies” on Strikeforce. All told, the policies (which you can read right here, if you really want) are almost 1,500 words of dense legalese that spell out what it takes to be deemed worthy of a Zuffa (or in this case “Forza, LLC,”) press credential and the rules writers and photogs will abide by in order to stay in the company’s good graces. Basically, it’s two full pages that boil down to one big “Or else!” for MMA journalists. While this may be Business As Usual at UFC events, it charts a bold new direction for how Strikeforce will deal with the media moving forward.

We won’t bore you with many of the details, because it’s all pretty standard: No shooting video of the fights, no cheering on press row, etc., etc.. The policies themselves aren’t much different from the ones imposed on journalists by other major sporting events. The difference here is that the people making the rules have historically been fairly heavy-handed in their dealings with the media. The UFC certainly hasn’t been afraid to hand out indefinite bans to some of MMA’s best known and most “professional” journalists, many times for seemingly very petty reasons. This latest development also means that a few major MMA outlets that were formerly credentialed by Strikeforce (including some of the sport’s most veteran journalists) likely won’t be welcome anymore. Any way you slice it, that’s scary news.

TROLL POWER!

While we were busy thinking of Strikeforce related April Fool’s Day pranks, it turns out that Strikeforce was busy finding a replacement for Mike Kyle. Due to the timing of the announcement, I’ve been skeptical to report it as real news. However, it appears that Keith Jardine will be stepping in for Mike Kyle on April 9^th to fight Gegard Mousasi.

Go figure.

(“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.”