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.

(Finally, some competition. PicProps: MMA Core)

From yesterday’s conference call where Nick Diaz accused Josh Koscheck and Georges St. Pierre of fighting lesser competition as Diaz himself prepares to defend his Strikeforce title against, uh, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos to Cesar Gracie telling Ariel Helwani that he doesn’t think Greg Jackson is actually that good of a coach, things are just getting bizarre with the Scrap Pack these days. Whatever planet these dudes are living on, it’s clear that they own the place, while the rest of us are just visiting.

Enter Gilbert Melendez, who tells RingsideReport.com this week that he’s the man to beat at 155-pounds right now. All this noise about Frankie Edgar and Gray Maynard? Melendez ain’t trying to hear that, see. But just in case you’re wondering if Melendez might be interested in proving his point, of signing with the UFC so he can actually fight the other top contenders in his weight class: Forget it. It’s those guys who should be coming to him.

(A milion bucks would buy a wicked PC, a shit ton of weed and a pretty wicked bulletin board.)

Strikeforce held a conference call today ahead of its January 29 Diaz vs. Cyborg event in San Jose, and as expected Diaz proved to be the main of interest.

Overshadowing his upcoming fight with Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos were Nick Diaz’s incendiary replies to the media’s questions about him turning down a fight with longtime nemesis Jason "Mayhem" Miller and his thoughts on the UFC’s welterweight class.

According to the Strikeforce welterweight champ, he feels that for the fight with Miller to happen, he would have to be offered at least seven figures and that highly-touted UFC fighters like Georges St-Pierre (who he thinks will be destroyed by his training partner Jake Shields at UFC 129) and Josh Koscheck are over-hyped and protected by the promotion.

Surprisingly, not one reporter thought to ask Diaz if he was high during the call.

Check out some of the highlights of Diaz’s diatribes after the jump.

(The photo above was paper-clipped to the front of M-1′s memo to tournament participants that drug testing will be mandatory for the GP. Subtle.)

When Dana White’s favorite Crazy Russian, Vadim Finkelstein speaks, the MMA world listens, mostly just because he usually has a lot of bizarre demands to make.

In a recent interview the head of M-1 did with Russian sports news site Sports.ru, Finkelstein touched on a lot of topics including the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix, Fedor’s contract status and his recent statement he made about mandatory drug testing in the later rounds of the tournament.

Check out what Vad-Fink had to say after the jump.

(Rebney’s thinning patience with Coker showed in this recent Twitter posting.)

By CagePotato contributor S.C. Michaelson

CHICAGO — With the recent announcement from Strikeforce that it will put on a 2011 heavyweight grand prix tournament, the MMA community has been abuzz with excitement and intrigue. Many analysts predict that a successful tournament could be the catalyst to Strikeforce becoming more of a major player in today’s market. However, not everyone is as excited about the prospect of the proposed tournament — enter Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney.

"Tournament schmurnament," spat Rebney. "Hello, does anybody remember what Bellator is? Our whole company is based around tournaments. Hell, we just had a heavyweight tournament last year!"

Video courtesy TMZ. Josh Barnett Does Karaoke – Watch more Funny Videos

Recently signed Strikeforce heavyweight Josh Barnett may be way too busy to attend his next California State Athletic Commission license reinstatement hearing in February, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have time to belt out a few karaoke tunes.

Judging by the video above that was taken of Barnett last week at a bar in Los Angeles, it’s probably safe to say that the Babyfaced Assassin won’t be releasing an album anytime soon, but if he does, he might want to consider hiring a better hype man.

("I’m not sure what this has to do with the movie, Mr. Spielberg, but if you say Kate Capshaw auditioned topless, I’m cool with it, too.")

Well, it looks like Scott Coker is still under the impression that the former face of his promotion, Gina Carano will be back competing for Strikeforce this year. 

While on MMAFighting.com’s The MMA Hour Monday, Coker said that he’s confident that the former Strikeforce female 145-pound standout who hasn’t fought since losing her strap to Cris "Cyborg" Santos 17 months ago in August of 2009 will make her much-anticipated return before the end of 2011 — a lofty claim he made last year as well, that didn’t materialize.

"I believe she’ll be back in the cage this year. From what I know of her, she is a competitor at heart; she’s going to want to fight," Coker told Ariel Helwani. "She’s not going to want to end her career the way it ended. So, I think she’ll be back."

(Now that MMA is legal in Ontario, the bandwagon will undoubtedly carry in a glut of Dana White wannabes. Let’s hope the OAC knows how to weed out the legit promoters from the scumbags.)

It looks like the UFC might get beaten to the proverbial punch when it comes to holding the inaugural sanctioned MMA event in Ontario.

CagePotato.com has learned from a source close to the situation that several promotions, including San Jose-based Strikeforce and Edmonton’s Maximum Fighting Championship have applied for promoter’s licenses in Ontario and pending approval by the Ontario Athletic Commission, at least three shows have been penciled in ahead of the UFC’s April 29 show in Toronto.

Although none of the shows have been given the go-ahead by the province as of time of writing, a number of venues have been tentatively reserved — some by first-time promoters — across the province in such locales as Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton and Orillia. 

(This is, like, the only bag in the gym that would agree to be kicked by Tim Kennedy. PicProps: MilitaryTimes.com)

About a month ago we brought you news that bonafide badass Tim Kennedy was having a tough time finding an opponent in Strikeforce’s 185-pound division. Well, as of this writing Kennedy has been out of action nearly five months and with nothing yet scheduled he apparently got so fed up with waiting that this week he decided to say "fuck it" and start naming names. Dig this interview with MMAFA.tv, where Kennedy alleges that nearly every middleweight in Strikeforce has said “thanks, but no thanks” to a meeting in the cage with him during the last few months.

“It’s absolutely atrocious,” Kennedy says. “Strikeforce approached me for the December and January card. I said, ‘Definitely, just give me a name and I’ll take the fight.’ Benji Radach was the name, I said yes. Then they tell me he doesn’t want to fight me. Joey Villasenor was another name, but I understand him saying no because we trained at Jackson’s (team) together. Matt Lindland was another guy who said no. Robbie Lawler has turned me down three or maybe four times. They asked Melvin Manhoef to fight me and he said ‘(expletive) no.’ ”

("I am ecstatic about new contract. I have not stopped smiling all week.")

Strikeforce moved one step closer this week to ensuring that its heavyweight tournament doesn’t implode and that Fedor Emelianenko *could* eventually fight heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem.

According to a report by MMAFighting.com, "The Last Emperor" has signed a contract extension with the San Jose-based organization that will see the Russian fighter compete in the planned 2011 heavyweight tournament. Although terms of the agreement were not released, as per Strikeforce policy, the report indicates that sources close to the situation said that the deal is for four fights. The new deal will commence with a February 12 first round tournament bout with Antonio "Bigfoot" Silva in New Jersey.

The question is whether or not it’s too little too late for Strikeforce to put together the most anticipated tilt in its promotional history between Emelianenko and Overeem.

("Say, ‘DANA!’")

Strikeforce announced today that welterweight champion and Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt Nick Diaz (23-7, 1 NC) has signed a new multi-year, multi-fight deal with the San Jose, California-based promotion.

Details of deal, including the duration and whether or not the contract is non-exclusive were not released, but with the signing Diaz put to bed rumors that he was angling for a return to the UFC to compete alongside his Team Cesar Gracie teammate Jake Shields when his Strikeforce contract ran out.

“I’m looking forward to continuing my career with Strikeforce,” said the 27-year-old Stockton native. “When I first got here, there weren’t a lot of great 170-pound fighters for me to fight, but that’s definitely changed. There’s a lot of really good fighters in the division now and I’m ready to fight anyone who thinks they can beat me.”

8-0 in his past eight fights, Diaz has only lost one fight in the past two years, which was a result of a stoppage due to a cut he sustained in his first bout with KJ Noons at Elite XC: Renegade in 2007. He was released by the UFC following back-to-back wins over Josh Neer and Gleison Tibau in his last two Octagon appearances.

(No, really, I love it. It’s much better than something practical like a new hoodie or pair of glasses.")

Since it’s the holidays and we haven’t been spitting out as many Photoshops as we used to, we figured it would be appropriate to put together a collection of illustrations depicting what a handful of fighters and MMA luminaries are angling for this Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa or putting up with obnoxious relatives just so you can get a crappy token gift day.

The possibilities were pretty much endless, but these are the best we could come up with on an hour’s notice.

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Strikeforce has denied Craner’s story, and claims they have records of paying her for all her appearances and travel expenses.

Of all the ring girls that have come and gone in the employ of Strikeforce, Nicole Craner was one of the all-time greats. These days, the 29-year-old Idaho native holds cards for Shark Fights — which seems like a downgrade until you learn that Craner wasn’t getting paid at her old job. As she revealed on a recent episode of TUF Crap Radio:

“I think when you’re an organization like the UFC, they value their [Octagon] girls. They treat them well, they’re part of the family, and that’s something that I wanted to do with Strikeforce…With Strikeforce I can honestly say that I don’t think Scott Coker even knew my name. I don’t think he knew any of his ring girls’ names and I’ve never really talked about this before, but it came down to not getting paid; And for me, I treated it as a job and I put a lot of effort into it and when you’re not respected or valued enough, it makes you want to go somewhere else…

So I mean you can pay Frank Shamrock 340,000 dollars to lose but you can’t pay your ring girl 400 bucks?…There were promises made that we were going to do contracts and that we were going to travel and they had me host something that they said Josh Thomson and Cung Le would be hosting, but it was something that they didn’t host or never were going to host and I never got paid for it. So those kinds of things, to me, made me just quit. I felt that if I’m going to put passion into it and I’m going to go out there and put your name out there that I should at least be respected enough and valued as part of the company."

Damn, even the eye-candy’s taking shots at Strikeforce now. But when you consider that NFL cheerleaders make just $50-75 a game, you can’t really expect an MMA ring girl to be compensated with anything more than complimentary booty-shorts and an occasional wink from Mauro Ranallo. Of course, this is all just an excuse to run some more photos of Nicole. You can find those after the jump…

(You don’t want any part of this, Nick. No part whatsoever. / Photo courtesy of ESPN.)

It’s official: Nick Diaz vs. Jason Miller ain’t happening, at least not in the near future. With both sides failing to come to an agreement on weight class, Strikeforce has decided to move on with their welterweight champion, reportedly booking Diaz to defend his belt against Chute Boxe veteran Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos. The fight is expected to take place on the January 29th San Jose card that will also feature the middleweight title fight between Ronaldo "Grappler" Souza vs. Robbie "Striker" Lawler.

(It’s the kind of moment that makes you wish competitive judo used the same commentator as NBA Jam. Photoprops: AlumniRoundup.com)

Rhadi Ferguson — four-time Judo national champion, 2004 Olympic Judo competitor, BJJ black belt, American Top Team strength-and-conditioning coach, Doctor of education, and cousin of Kimbo Slice — is about to make his televised MMA debut. After picking up two first-round TKO victories this year in southern regional leagues, Ferguson has been signed to the Strikeforce light-heavyweight roster, and will make his first appearance on the main card of Strikeforce Challengers: Woodley vs. Saffiedine, January 7th in Nashville. His opponent will be 1-0 Canadian rookie Ion Cherdivara, whose list of credentials isn’t nearly as long as Dr. Rhadi’s.

(Surprise, Strikeforce may be making a mistake with matchmaking.)

I never thought I’d ever speak out against a grand prix tournament, but because the proposed Strikeforce heavyweight tournament has so many question marks surrounding it, I’m almost hoping it doesn’t happen.

When Scott Coker mentioned earlier this year that Strikeforce was either going to piss or get off the pot when teasing its fans with heavyweight fights that never seem to come to fruition because of those crazy Russians for whatever reason, I thought he meant it.

What Sco-Co should have said was, "We’ll likely milk the current roster for whatever we can and if we can make the fights fans want to see, then we will, but we likely won’t."

According to Tatame, the California-based promotion is planning on stretching the tournament over three events and will likely anchor Strikeforce’s foray into pay-per-view TV — a move necessitated by the fact that it’s unlikely that CBS will be having them back on network TV in 2011 and the costs of greasing the pockets of M-1 Global for each Fedor-featured event are likely more than most Russians make in their lives.

(Uh-oh, I think we’ve got a workout video on our hands. Somebody get Jay Glazer on the horn, STAT. PicProps: Connect.in)

If you looked at yesterday’s reports that a bout between Fedor Emelianenko and Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva was being considered for Strikeforce’s Jan. 29 show and thought to yourself, “Self, that seems awfully soon. Almost too soon,” well, you were right. We hate it when you’re right. Anyway, it turns out the aforementioned January date is “not on the table” for Fedor’s next yawn-worthy matchup in the Strikeforce cage, M-1 Global spokeshipster Evgeni Kogan said on Friday. As reported by MMA Junkie, Kogan wouldn’t elaborate further on the matter except to say that everybody involved has “been steadily working toward an agreement.”

The Junkie also notes that a couple months back M-1 boss Vadim Finkelstein said the rent-a-Fedor outfit was “negotiating primarily with Showtime to secure Emelianenko’s return.” Not to read too much into that, but it pretty much makes it sound like Strikeforce itself is the least important party in these talks. It also indicates that maybe Kogan wasn’t just blowing smoke recently when he said M-1 was trying leverage its own live fight events onto Showtime. If they can pull that off, well, I wonder if they could also speak to my mortgage lender.

(Oh yeah. The person who made this wallpaper just *gets it*.)

After months of negotiations between Strikeforce and Fedor Emelianenko‘s useless management company, the Last Emperor may finally have a return date. According to MMA Weekly, Emelianenko will face fellow heavyweight contender Antonio Silva at a yet-unannounced January 29th Strikeforce event. It will be Emelianenko’s first fight since his shocking submission loss to Fabricio Werdum in June. Silva also dropped a fight to Werdum last November, but has posted wins over Andrei Arlovski and Mike Kyle since then. Emelianeko is already 1-0 against fighters with acromegaly.

The January 29th event is expected to take place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, and will allegedly feature the return of Herschel Walker, and — get this — the third meeting between Jason Miller and Tim Kennedy, now that the trash talk between Miller and Nick Diaz has officially reached a stalemate, with neither fighter willing to leave their weight class.

But enough about non-freak-show fights. Let’s get to the good stuff…

(Hopefully somebody Rangers Up soon.)

According to a report from FiveOuncesofPain.com, Strikeforce middleweight contender Tim Kennedy is having a hell of a time finding an opponent for his next fight.

The 12-3 retired Army Ranger who last fought and lost by decision to Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza for the Strikeforce middleweight strap four months ago was offered two opponents for last weekend’s Strikeforce: Henderson vs. Babalu event, but both declined the fight, leaving Kennedy in the lurch.

“I said yes to two different names for the December 4th card but both guys turned down the fight,” Kennedy explained. Though the humble 31-year old did not reveal names, he did explain he’s being proactive about the situation – a quality [that] likely serv[ed] him well throughout his decorated military career.

(Propers: YouTube/ShoSports)

If you insist on framing Saturday night’s dueling MMA action as a head-to-head matchup between Strikeforce and the UFC – and we do, since we’re media types, meaning we can always be counted on to find the easiest storyline and absolutely beat it to death – then you have to consider it a victory for Scott Coker and Co. Strikeforce came into the evening with the better card on paper and on this night the chalk held up. By virtue of back-to-back-to-back-to-back knockouts (if you count Antonio Silva’s TKO over Mike Kyle, which we do), last night Strikeforce was the metaphorical broken clock that turns up right twice a day, the dog’s ass that finally catches some sun. Meanwhile, every live fight on the UFC’s broadcast of the “Ultimate Fighter” season 12 finale went the distance. Both shows were decent, but after months of incessant bitching we should know by now that MMA fans will take a night full of stoppages over a night of scorecard verdicts every time.

During any given week on this website we give Strikeforce an unending raft of shit on the basis of its general incompetence, so it only seems fair to hand out some props on the rare occasion when the company doesn’t screw up in any obvious way. Good job, Strikeforce. We’d love to sit here and tell you last night’s show was indicative of the promotion “figuring it out” somehow, but frankly it seems like it just got lucky with a bunch of dynamic knockouts. Still, the fact this show went off as well as it did after the original fight card got scrambled by late injuries is sort of remarkable. Now it just remains to be seen how many people actually watched it.

(Video courtesy YouTube/shosports)

Despite the fact that its card is better from top to bottom than the competition’s on Saturday night, Strikeforce’s  Henderson vs. Babalu broadcast on Showtime will likely top off at less than half as many viewers as The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale show on Spike TV.

In an effort to win over a few sets of eyeballs who are indifferent in preference between the two cards, Showtime has released some highlight videos this week featuring main card fighters, Renato "Babalu" Sobral, Dan Henderson and Scott Smith.

Now, I only took two marketing courses in college, but wouldn’t it have been wiser to have released these videos a few weeks ago and to have more than three fighters featured in them?

Regardless of Strikeforce’s head-scratching business decisions, the shorts are pretty well done. 

Check out Scott Smith’s highlight and the original Babalu-Henderson bout after the jump.

("In Stary Oskol, these ARE weights.")

Fedor Emelianenko did a rare fan Q&A session this week on a Russian website championat.ru where he opened up about a lot of interesting topics, including his thoughts on Cain Velasquez, the prospect of universal champions and whether or not he is considering signing with the UFC over Strikeforce.

I apologize for the somewhat shoddy translation in advance. I was pressed for time since the interview was three pages long, and Fedor likes to talk in Russian slang, but the overall messages are there.

Check out the translation after the jump:

Here are Fedor’s thoughts:

Werdum talks Ubereem – Watch more Funny Videos

After a hard workout at Rafael Cordeiro’s Kings MMA gym in Huntington Beach, Strikeforce heavyweight contender Fabricio Werdum sat down with CagePotato West Coast correspondent Ruben Vera to discuss his health and Strikeforce return. If all goes according to plan, Werdum says he’ll be back in March, fighting Alistair Overeem for the heavyweight title. Werdum and Overeem met once before at Pride Total Elimination Absolute in May 2006, with Werdum winning by second-round kimura. At the time, Werdum says he had zero standup training to speak of. Now, he’s a more complete fighter, and is certain that he’ll finish Overeem in the first round of their rematch. "Overeem is my son, there’s no problem" Werdum says with a laugh.

Other notes: His elbow is in good shape, and he’s currently going through physical therapy following his recent surgery. He doesn’t consider himself the world’s #1 heavyweight after upsetting Fedor Emelianenko in June — he still thinks Fedor is #1, though Cain Velasquez is right up there. As for Saturday’s fights, Werdum predicts that his training partner Babalu Sobral will defeat Dan Henderson in the main event, and tells us to keep an eye on the undercard fighter Fernando Bettega.

("Does Jake Shields have a watch like this? That’s what I thought.")

Three years ago, Renato Sobral made a rash decision that would change his career and his life.

Following a submission victory over David Heath at UFC 74, Sobral refused to relinquish the fight-ending anaconda choke despite commands by referee Steve Mazzagatti to let go and he put "The Headhunter" to sleep.

He was subsequently released by the UFC and was fined half of his $50,000 purse by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for the infraction, but the biggest hit he took was to his reputation. 

Sobral was a fan favorite in the UFC, but the backlash he received for that split-second decision followed him and he says he is cognizant of the effect his mistake had on his fan following and he says he has worked to rebuild his reputation.

Sometimes fans forget that fighters, like us, are human and that they sometimes have a bad night, a lapse in judgment or personal issues. They tend to look at athletes as larger than life beings, akin to superheroes who don’t have to deal with the everyday issues that plague mortals like us.

Karo Parisyan shattered that facade recently and proved that no matter how pissed off Dana White may be at a fighter, the door is never closed to a possible return to the Octagon.

We recently sat down with the former Strikeforce light heavyweight champion ahead of his December 4 bout with Dan Henderson and we broached a number of subjects including whether he thinks about going back to the UFC, what his family thought of him becoming a fighter and the trend of round winners in MMA.

Check out what Babalu had to say after the jump.

(Sometimes the metaphor is just … too perfect. PicProps: Showtime)

So … not to be overly cynical … but we find it pretty hard not to start snickering from the very first line of USA Today’s recent holiday weekend interview with the Strikeforce CEO, when the newspaper boldly (read: blandly) proclaims: Scott Coker is approaching 2011 with optimism.

Well yeah, no shit. We’d be stoked about the new year too if we’d just witnessed our MMA company spend much of 2010 looking like a scared stray dog trying to work its way across a busy four-lane highway during rush hour traffic. Just to recap, this year Strikeforce — among other fails — staged an enormous brawl on national television, watched its awesome-sounding middleweight tournament go tits up before it even got past the planning stages, gave its middleweight champ to the UFC, stood dumbfounded when Fedor Emelianenko fucking lost to Fab Werdum, gaped while two Brazilian dudes nobody has ever heard of captured gold in two different weight classes, showed a complete and total inability to book the right fights and continued to slap itself on the proverbial forehead while suffering the whims of its largely absentee heavyweight champion.

Somehow, the stray dog made it to the other side of the Interstate but frankly we’d rather hit our own dick with a hammer than endure a year like the one Strikeforce just had. So forgive us if we can’t quite take Coker at face value when he implies that 2011 is “about more than surviving” for his company. It’s actually all about surviving and as much as the boss promises a 33 percent increase in Strikeforce programming next year, we can’t help but notice that for the bulk of this interview Coker just sounds like a dude who is taking it one day at a time.

(Nothing awkward about that. PicProps: MMAZone.nl)

It is with a heavy heart that we must bring you news that Valentijn Overeem – the older but slightly less impressive brother of Alistair – withdrew from his scheduled fight with Bigfoot Silva over the weekend after suffering an elbow injury in training, according to multiple reports. We know, it’s an epic bummer for those of you who were really looking forward to seeing the two middle-of-the-pack heavyweights slug it out on premium cable television. Seriously though, try to pull yourselves together. After this latest injury, Strikeforce is going to have to make some tough decisions and you’re not gonna wanna miss it.

As of this writing, none of our intrepid internet brethren have yet been able to contact anyone at the snakebit promotion to find out how it will cope with the news of a second fight being redacted from its scheduled televised lineup due to late injury. When Herschel Walker dropped out of his glorified sparring session with Scott Carson last week, Strikeforce scrambled to boost middleweights Benji Radach and Lucas Lopes into a light heavyweight bout to fill the void. What will it do now that Overeem is out? Try to find a heavyweight willing to step in against Bigfoot on less than a week’s notice? Press on with just four televised fights, one of which is already a last-minute replacement? Elevate a bout from the typically D-list undercard? We’re not seeing a lot of great options here.

("So … you holdin’?" PicProps: Some dude’s blog)

It was pretty clear back in April that Dan Henderson came to Strikeforce: Nashville fully intending to knock Jake Shields out in the first round. When that didn’t quite happen, it looked to a lot of people watching at home like Henderson just took an “ah, fuck this” attitude to the next four rounds. In conceding a unanimous decision loss, Hendo sent Shields cruising to the UFC on a high note while simultaneously raising a lot of troubling questions about his own future in the sport and exactly what Strikeforce got when it signed the 40-year-old former Pride champ to a deal after Big DW passed on him.

Now, Henderson says it wasn’t boredom or lack of training that made him look like a guy who’d rather be back home in California wolfing down fish tacos and watching the tide roll in for the final 20-minutes of his promotional debut.  It was, uh, the pain pills. Yeah … not sure if this makes it better or worse, but Hendo recently told MMA Weekly that the meds he was taking for his aching back turned his weight cut to 185-pounds for that bout into a real doozy and that it left him feeling not quite himself by the time he stepped in the cage.

(Radach and Lopes will step in with just nine days notice.)

With heavyweight Herschel Walker forced out of his planned December 4 Strikeforce bout with WEC veteran Scott Carson due to a deep cut he sustained training with Daniel Cormier on Friday, a light heavyweight scrap between usual middleweights Lucas Lopes and Benji Radach has been put together at the last minute to help fill in the dwindling Henderson vs. Babalu fight card.

Earlier in the week yet-to-be matched up Jesse Finney, who was originally slated to face Scott Smith before "Hands of Steel" was instead matched up with Strikeforce newcomer Paul Daley, was forced to bow out of the event due to an eye injury.

Sources close to the situation told CagePotato.com Thursday that Lopes (19-10), who is one of Finney’s training partners and holds a win over UFC standout Thiago Alves, has agreed to face Radach on the card. Radach (20-5), whose record includes wins over Murilo Rua and Gerald Harris, hasn’t fought since being knocked out by Smith last year, but he is a crafty veteran Lopes would regret taking lightly. 

Another source we spoke to informed us that Strikeforce was unable to find a suitable opponent in time for Carson, so the 4-1 veteran whose return to MMA after a nine-year absence in June was spoiled by a first round knock out by Lorenz Larkin.

(Diaz insists all negotiations be handled through the proper channels. PicProps: CombatLifestyle.)

Don’t fret homies, Nick Diaz is totally down to fight Jason “Mayhem” Miller in the Strikeforce cage just as soon as that organization actually gets around to offering him the fight. So said Diaz mentor and trainer-to-the-stars (seriously, any stars) Cesar Gracie during an appearance on MMA Junkie Radio this week. One problem: Gracie said Mayhem can’t make welterweight and Diaz damn sure isn’t going all the way up to 185-pounds to fight him, so CEO Scott Coker (or maybe somebody who really wears the pants in Strikeforce) is going to have to figure out a catchweight. Any implication to the contrary is just Miller running his mouth, Gracie said.

"If that fight was offered, yeah, we’d probably take that fight," Gracie said. "We’d just have to look at what weight class it’s going to be in and apparently, Mayhem can’t make 170. We’re not going to accommodate going to 185 … That fight just hasn’t been offered to us in an official manner yet. I know Mayhem goes on his websites and (says) Nick is ducking him and everything.  It’s kind of hard to duck someone when you haven’t even been offered the fight. It’s just Mayhem talking about that. Until it’s been offered, you can’t say yes or no."

Strikeforce held a conference call on Tuesday ahead of its next major event December 4 in St. Louis. Besides CEO Scott Coker, also on the call were the card’s two main event fighters, former Pride welterweight and middleweight champion Dan Henderson and former Strikeforce light heavyweight title holder Renato "Babalu" Sobral.

Coker has intimated that the winner of the bout will likely be next in line for a shot at current Strikeforce 205-pound champ Rafael "Feijao" Cavalcante, so the implications are much bigger than just a rematch that fans want to see.

The pair first squared off in 1999 under the Rings banner where Henderson took the split decision. Although Sobral says he isn’t approaching the fight as being his shot at avenging the debatable decision, but it’s clear that he still has a bitter taste in his mouth from the loss.

The highlights of the call are after the jump.