(Apparently the tipping point in negotiations was Fedor’s refusal to try Pinkberry)

Well it looks like Dana White is sending a message to fighters whose camps think they’re bigger than the UFC.

According to a report by LifeSports.ru, which cites “a source close to the fighter,” Zuffa has passed on a proposed deal with M-1 to sign the Russian management group’s biggest client, Fedor Emelianenko to a new UFC contract.

M-1′s failed dealings with the UFC over the past few years have been well documented, which no doubt left a bad taste in White’s mouth and likely contributed to the UFC president’s decision to pass on locking in the former number one ranked pound-for-pound fighter.

(“Business as usual,” should include putting on the best fights Zuffa can.)

Since Zuffa announced two weeks ago that it had purchased its closest competitor, Strikeforce, MMA fans and analysts have been clamoring for dream bouts that seemed impossible when the organizations were owned by two different companies.

Although UFC president Dana White has repeated the same three words since the news broke, “Business as usual,” and reports have emerged stating that there won’t likely be any cross-over bouts until Strikeforce’s current fighter contracts run out and they can be locked into new deals with the UFC, that doesn’t stop the inner fanboys in us from licking our chops over some of the fights we want to see happen in the Octagon (or Hexagon).

Check out our list of 20 intriguing post-Zuffa Strikeforce purchase fights we’d get behind.

(“Don’t move, Gina. This is how we’ll get mainstream acceptance.”)

Strikeforce hasn’t announced when  Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos will next defend her belt, and according to the dominant women’s middleweight champion, it’s not because she isn’t ready. It’s because she doesn’t have a contract.

Cyborg told Tatame recently that her contract ran out after her last fight with Jan Finney last June and she hasn’t spoken with Scott Coker and company about re-signing with the recently Zuffa-acquired promotion in the nine months since the bout.

“Currently I don’t have a contract signed, but on my former contract there was something saying that for a year I’m connected to the [promotion] but we might sign a new one.  I believe the fact that the UFC bought Strikeforce is a good thing for women, because we have two years to do a good job and prove them our value —  to prove it to Dana White,” she explains. “I’m not anxious and I’m not worried. I’m happy and I keep on training.”

(Now smile and pretend you like each other.)

If you didn’t know, Miesha Tate‘s turn ons are long walks on the beach and a good Twitter war.

The problem is that her latest intended target,  Tara LaRosa hates the feeling of sand between her toes and isn’t one to take unwarranted abuse lying down. Consequently, the 11-2 Strikeforce women’s  135-pound contender may have bitten off more than she can chew with the outspoken highly-touted 125-pound 14-2 New Jersey native.

In a nutshell, Tate started the ball rolling by saying she would easily beat LaRosa as she claims that she used to “handle” her when the pair trained together when Meisha first started training in the sport. LaRosa scoffed at the claims, and said that she used to go at about 30% intensity with her much larger former training partner.

Of course Tate took umbrage to the intimation that she was fat, prompting her to say that she saw photos of LaRosa in high school and that she had to be about 180 or so — another claim Tara debunked.

The game point of the match went to LaRosa who revealed that a source in the know had tipped her off today to the fact that Tate allegedly employs the use of clenbuterol, a bronchodilator  typically used by asthma sufferers that also doubles as a weight-cutting aid. Tate uncharacteristically ignored the claim by LaRosa and pretended like she didn’t read the tweet (or subsequent tweets).

For those of you who speak Twitter,  the nuts and bolts of their back-and forth are after the jump.

(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).

(Fans may now choose between both kinds of music, country *and* western. Pic: MMAViewers.com)

It was almost like Dana White was shooting for some kind of bizarre performance art during his interview with Ariel Helwani on Saturday announcing Zuffa, LLC’s sudden acquisition of Strikeforce. It was as if the big bossman was trying to underscore what a huge moment this was for his company by assuring us again and again that it was actually no big deal. Instead of jumping up on the $5,000 coffee table and shaking his junk in our faces while yelling “Domino, motherfucker!” he played it cool – indifferent, even. White didn’t gloat, barely smiled and perhaps set some kind of personal record by conducting a 20-minute interview without really swearing at all. It was all pretty telling, in a roundabout kind of way.

If White’s very un-Dana demeanor didn’t clue you in to the fact his new “business as usual” catchphrase is total bullshit, well, you must be new to the sport. This is a dude who keeps a Styrofoam tombstone in his office bedecked with the names of his fallen enemies and over the weekend his company essentially sewed up total, indefinite control of the marketplace moving forward. Chances are, underneath it all he was pretty pumped. The Strikeforce deal may not give Zuffa a legal monopoly on our sport, but it sure looks like the company now has a practical one. So, maybe – just maybe – White’s “ah shucks” act and constant downplaying of this moment is a bit of strategery. Perhaps he’d like it very much if the rest of us would forget that this news is very, very good for him and his partners and very, very bad for almost everyone else.

(“…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.

At least we’ll probably get this in the next UFC videogame…

There is zero need for sarcasm here. No reason at all for me to act like you haven’t already heard that Strikeforce has been purchased by the UFC. Mac Danzig is a fan of the acquisition. Paul Daley, not so much. While most of the implications of this merger are still up in the air at this point, let’s make one thing clear: There will NOT be any UFC vs. Strikeforce cards. If Dana White says it, which he did, then he’ll never, ever reconsider. Just ask Karo Parisyan.

Are we really to believe that Strikeforce will be the UFC’s version of the D-League? Dana White purchased his biggest rival in the hopes of harvesting a small time promotion that occasionally produces a Chris Andersen, but usually produces a bunch of journeymen? Or maybe he plans on giving his new acquisition the Bamboo Lounge treatment. Well…

“Konichiwa, bitches!”

There are a lot of things we’ve come to know about Dana White over the years. He loves his Pink Berry. He relieves stress by pulling mediocre pranks on his subordinates. He’s an astute, cut throat businessman. And he holds a grudge like a mother fucker. It’s these last two traits that we’ll be examining at this time. With the UFC’s latest acquisition, Dana is in the position of working directly with many of the folks he’s either banned from the UFC or burned bridges with when attempts to work with them didn’t pan out. Aside from the recent legal quandary surrounding Roy Nelson’s employment, Zuffa has proven through aggressive litigation and hard ball negotiation that they know their way around a contract. This makes it very likely that Dana will do just as he says in honoring all current Strikeforce related contracts.

But virtually all contracts come to an end at some point, and when Strikeforce’s agreements reach their expiration date it’s a whole new ballgame. Some Strikeforce staples, such as open, non-exclusive contracts and event co-promotion are sure to disappear. The same is certain for many of the organization’s familiar faces, both in front of the camera and in the cage. Despite Dana’s vindictive nature, he didn’t get where he is today by letting hard feelings get in the way of good business. Let’s take a closer look at who’s on the chopping block when the legal obligations dissolve and Dana is wielding the axe.

“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.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/NewzFirst)

Former WWE wrestler Shad Gaspard is claiming racial profiling in an incident that occurred just hours prior to Saturday night’s Strikeforce show in Columbus, Ohio. Gaspard was crossing the street with Strikeforce heavyweight Josh Barnett and another friend when an altercation with a motorist prompted police on foot patrol to swoop in to  tackle and handcuff the 6’8″ 300-pound Brooklyn, New York native who now lives in Houston, Texas.

(This man could well be a millionaire by now. How does that make you feel? Pic: Combat Lifestyle)

For anyone still holding onto lingering questions about why Dan Henderson opted to sign with Strikeforce over the UFC in late 2009 or why the company fast-forwarded him into a second title shot on Saturday with a promotional record of just 1-1, here’s pretty much everything you need to know: According to numbers released on Monday by the Ohio State Athletic Commission, Henderson earned a $250,000 flat fee (read: no win bonus needed) for knocking out Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante to claim the Strikeforce light heavyweight title.

Those of you scoring at home will note that’s a full $60,500 more than all 19 other fighters on the card COMBINED. It also equals each of the official salaries he earned for knocking out Michael Bisping (minus his “KO of the Night” bonus) at the gala UFC 100 and for a decision over Rousimar Palhares at UFC 88, though both those totals included $150,000 win bonuses. Once you consider that he’s making the same money just for showing up in Strikeforce as he was to show up and win in the UFC, that much publicized contract decision must have been kind of a no-brainer for Henderson.

(Security guard is mildly amused by Coenen’s standing-guillotine.)

An interesting conspiracy theory from Saturday night’s women’s welterweight title bout between champion Marloes Coenen and challenger Liz Carmouche was that Carmouche actually tapped out to Coenen’s tight standing guillotine in the second round.

We decided to give the video a second look and we took the liberty of making an animated gif of the sub attempt. It’s a moot point since Coenen was able to secure a fight-ending triangle in the fourth round to retain the strap, but had Carmouche won, Team Golden Glory may have had a decent case for an appeal.

Check out the gif after the jump and decide for yourself whether or not “Gorilla” pulled a Sonnen.

(“I’m not doing a fist pose.”)

Well it’s time for another Strikeforce liveblog. I spent the last two hours on my roof in the pouring rain trying to get my satellite dish set up at my new house and I’m in no mood for witty banter, so let’s get to this biotch.

Spoilers are after the jump, yo.

(“I think we women really have to unite, keep coming up with really good fights and also be feminine outside of the ring as well.”)

We had the opportunity this week on The Bum Rush Radio Show to speak with Strikeforce welterweight champion Marloes Coenen who is set to take on Liz Carmouche at  Saturday night’s Feijao vs. Henderson event in Columbus, Ohio. As always, Marloes was an articulate class act, demonstrating why, besides her in-cage prowess, Strikeforce holds her in such high regard as a person, a fighter and a champion.

In the brief conversation we had with the Golden Glory-trained fighter, Coenen touched on a number of topics including original opponent Meisha Tate’s injury and miraculous recovery, representing Women’s MMA with class, finishing fights, her relationship with her Golden Glory trainers and teammates and much more.

Check out what Coenen had to say after the jump.

(Overeem is hoping to add the GP belt to his growing gold collection before the end of the year.)

When Strikeforce announced today that it was postponing the second half of the opening round bouts of its heavyweight grand prix tournament until June, critics quickly began hypothesizing that the promotion’s current heavyweight champion, Alistair Overeem would likely not sit out from competing elsewhere while the tournament brackets get sorted out.

According to Overeem’s trainer Martijn de Jong, “The Reem” will stay true to his proclamation that the grand prix is his number one priority this year and the K-1 and DREAM heavyweight champion will not fight for any other promotion until his tournament obligations are fulfilled, even if it takes all year.

(Will Strikeforce pull off this tournament?)

Strikeforce announced today via press release that its planned April 9 event which was supposed to play host to the remainder of the opening round bouts of its heavyweight grand prix tournament will be put on hold until the summer. According to the promotion’s CEO, Scott Coker, they ran out of time to properly promote the event.

“Strikeforce is coming off a record presale and impressive attendance for the kickoff of the Grand Prix at IZOD Center in New Jersey that also drew a record viewership on SHOWTIME for live MMA,” said STRIKEFORCE CEO Scott Coker. “To build on the tremendous momentum from New Jersey we needed the proper time to promote an event of this magnitude, which is why we have decided to continue the Tournament on June 18 at American Airlines Center in Dallas, a venue that has been identified as one of the premier sports and entertainment venues in the U.S.”

So let me get this straight. Strikeforce wanted to build on the tremendous momentum created by the success of its first grand prix quarter final event, so it decided it would be best to delay the second event by two months? Seems like a logical way to keep the momentum going.

(You win again, knee brace fetishists. Pic: Fight! Magazine)

Those of you who were waiting to see how many outfits Miesha Tate would bring to Strikeforce: Columbus on March 5 are going to be very disappointed by this news. Unfortunately, Tate is out of her scheduled 135-pound title match with Marloes Coenen after injuring her knee in training, the promotion announced via press release on Wednesday. Instead, undefeated prospect Liz Carmouche will step in as Coenen’s first championship challenger on just 11 days notice.

The injury undoes what was shaping up as a compelling bout between two of Strikeforce’s more popular female fighters. It also renders essentially moot the careful groundwork laid by the one-night welterweight tournament Tate won in August of last year to claim No. 1 contender status. On the bright side, this story will momentarily distract us from the rumored postponement of the company’s next round of heavyweight GP quarterfinal bouts. Win some, lose some, we guess.

(“So, which one of you broads is the lucky lady?” PicProps: Esther Lin)

We never thought we’d say this, but Old Dad’s latest “My First Fight” piece with Frank Shamrock actually makes us look at the metal-mouthed Strikeforce color commentator in a whole new, halfway positive light. Say what you want about his broadcasting skills (oh, and we do, we do) but after reading this story on MMA Fighting.com it’s hard not to consider the man’s life on the whole an overwhelming and unlikely success story. As an added perk, you also find out why Shamrock’s nose looks so funny on TV. It’s because when he was 24 years old, Bas Rutten kicked him in the face.

We’ll get to that in a minute. First though, this gem: Within the first two graphs of the narrative, our man Fowlkes deftly tells us that Shamrock may have been the first and last person in the history of mankind to (fresh out of prison) find himself deciding between a career as a health care professional, a mixed martial arts fighter and a male stripper. Channeling his 1994 self, Shammy explains thusly: “I was going to be a physical therapist or an exotic dancer, or I was going to do this no-holds-barred fighting thing that Ken (Shamrock) was doing. And I didn’t know anything about any of them.”

A decade later we all know the path Shamrock chose, in the process likely saving the bachelorettes of the early Clinton years an incredibly awkward night they would remember forever …

(How did nobody notice this guy in the stands?)

When a story came out today by a Russian news site quoting Fedor Emelianenko’s coach Vladimir Voronov blaming “The Last Emperor’s” loss to Antonio Silva on illegal psychological control maneuvers employed by “Bigfoot’s” camp, most of us shrugged it off as bullshit, however there might be some truth to the story.

(In hindsight, perhaps we shouldn’t have thought this guy was invincible. Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

By Cage Potato Contributor Seth “Too Cool for Graduate School” Falvo

My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of tournaments. Ruined lipstick. This wasted cage. But most of all, I remember The Last Emperor. The man we called “Fedor“. Yes, it’s a clichéd way to start off an article in this Post-Fedor Apocalyptic Wasteland where betting on a doughy Russian guy to do something athletic all of a sudden seems illogical, but it’s too appropriate to pass up. After all, this is clearly the beginning of the end for Strikeforce. When you spend so much time and effort hyping a guy who loses in the first round of your tournament, you might as well quit while you still have something resembling your dignity. Didn’t you learn anything when the UFC hyped up Brock Lesnar as MMA’s next big thing, only to watch him get submitted by Frank Mir in his first fight with the organization? The UFC went bankrupt and Dana White was too embarrassed to ever leave his house again.

Oh wait…that didn’t happen.

Yes, everyone following an MMA pundit on Twitter knows how incredibly awesome Fedor has been. Yes, most of you who’ve followed Fedor’s career are probably done caring about the tournament now that Fedor vs. Overeem won’t happen any time soon. There’s only one problem: The fact that you’re even reading this means that you’re a member of a very small minority.

(“Retire? No, I said I was going to ‘relax.’ That crazy translator lady always misquotes me.”)

Returning to his Russian homeland following his disappointing defeat at the hands of Antonio Bigfoot Silva on Saturday night, Fedor Emelianenko told reporters at the airport that he will likely fight again and that the pseudo-reitrement announcement he made following the fight was a knee-jerk reaction to racking up the second legitimate loss of his MMA career.

“I rushed to declare my retirement out of frustration. I will fight more. Possibly, I will return to the [Strikeforce] Heavyweight Grand-Prix,” Fedor told LifeSports.ru. “I am confident that I am capable of having a few more fights. I didn’t make any analysis yet on why I lost. I need to recover. I can’t see very well yet.”

‘Nuff said.

Being a judge for Strikeforce events must be the easiest gig in town. You can say what you will about their matchmaking, but—Challengers series aside—their last 13 consecutive televised fights have ended without tallying up the scorecards. Strikeforce has been steadily building its reputation as a promotion that puts on exciting fights, if not always competitive ones. And while the general public will gravitate toward the action, exciting fights are something that any promotion can deliver on any given night. That’s why last night’s event was about so much more to Strikeforce. It was about bringing back the energy and momentum of the tournament format. It was about distancing themselves from the pack and making a name for themselves as the promotion that takes risks and carves their own path. So, did the gamble pay off? Let’s break it down.

If you live in New York and you’re an MMA fan, Tuesday is a very worthwhile day for you to call in sick and take a trek downtown.

There are two big events happening that day in the Big Apple.

First, the Coalition to Legalize mixed Martial Arts in New York will be holding a lunchtime rally at 250 Broadway in Manhattan across the street from city hall at the district office of Sheldon Silver, the Speaker of the New York State Assembly.

Organizers ask that you bring thoughtfully worded picket signs, but no audio equipment.

"If you are a fan, fighter, gym owner, business owner, or organization official who wants to start the 2011 New York State legislative calendar by letting our government know we want legalized and regulated mixed martial arts in New York State, please come show your support! Let’s gather together to show our legislators that New York State is not respecting the wishes of its voters! Let’s remind our legislators that mixed martial arts is a professional sport and in need of regulation! Let’s remind our legislators how much business our state loses and how many jobs are lost to neighboring states where mixed martial arts is properly sanctioned," CLMMANY’s Stephen Koepfer said in a press release sent out in December. "Let’s remind our legislators that we care about the safety of our athletes! Let’s remind our legislators that it is the people of New York State who vote for them, and that WE WANT LEGALIZED AND REGULATED MIXED MARTIAL ARTS IN NEW YORK STATE !"

If rallies and protests aren’t your bag and you have an aversion to the cold, you can head over to the Roseland Ballroom to meet all eight of the contestants in the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix. Besides the opportunity to snag a few fist-pose photos and autographs, there’s also the opportunity to win merchandise and tickets to this weekend’s event in New Jersey.

("Guess who can afford a new car now motherfuckers?")

The California State Athletic Commission released the salary, attendance and live gate figures today for last weekend’s Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Cyborg event that was held at the HP Pavilion in San Jose Saturday night.

Topping the list of money earners for the event was Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz who made $150,000 followed by middleweight champ Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza who earned $85,000. The pair took home a combined $235,000 — more than half of the disclosed $463,500 payroll for the show, whose live gate amounted to $533,214.50.

Attendance for the show topped off at 9,059, with 8,817 of those being paid attendees and 231 who received comped tickets from the promotion.

("Hey, I thought you guys said you would call me if you were gonna do anything tonight." PicProps: Fighters Only)

Well, this is only going to fuel more speculation about you know what. As Strikeforce moves to finalize its March 5 card in Columbus (tickets go on sale tomorrow, y’all), the recently postponed rubber match between Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Tim Kennedy has been scrapped entirely, at least for the immediate future. Instead, Kennedy will fight Luke Rockhold, the company announced on Monday via press release. That’s at least some compensation for an already pissed off Kennedy, who went public recently with a list of fighters he said had turned down bouts with him and his complaints that Strikeforce was leaving him to die on the vine from sheer inactivity.

No reason for the change was given, though MMA Junkie quotes PR spokesperson Mike Afromowitz saying (in fairly typical Strikeforce fashion) that “the matchup had never been signed in the first place.” In any case, it appears to complete a four-fight card for the cleverly named “Strikeforce: Columbus,” and essentially leaves Miller without a date. Interesting (but probably coincidence) that this switch goes down less than 48 hours after middleweight champion Jacare Souza successfully defended his crown against Robbie Lawler and longtime Miller crush object Nick Diaz stretched Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos to retain his welterweight belt. Wild speculation, anyone?

("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.”

By Cage Potato contributor S.C. Michaelson

(Hmm..Guess they ran out of space for Cyborg and Gracie on the poster.)

Saturday’s Strikeforce event is the promotion’s first non-Challengers event of 2011. Unfortunately, it’s been toiling in the shadows of the much-anticipated Heavyweight Grand Prix and hasn’t received much in the way of coverage. There are quite a few reasons to tune in this weekend.

Here are five big ones.

Herschel Walker, Genetic Freak
Though only a novice in the game of mixed martial arts, Hershel Walker is no stranger to high levels of competition. His athletic accolades read like a novel. College football Heisman trophy winner, All-Pro NFL running back, track and field star, black belt in Tae Kwon Do, Olympic bobsledder. Yes, Olympic bobsledder. And after all of this, Walker decides to throw his hat into the cage and try MMA. Did I mention he’s 48? Now, in MMA that may not seem special as we have our own version of a 48-year old wonder in Randy Couture, but Couture looks every year of 48. Walker, on the other hand, could pass for a man in his early 30s and has the physique that men in their athletic primes dream to attain. Herschel Walker, at 48, might be the greatest physical specimen to step foot in an MMA ring or cage…ever.