Whether it was the plan all along or not, Strikeforce today has officially announced that current lightweight champion Josh Thomson will fight former champion Gilbert Melendez on their upcoming Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz fight card.
Thompson and Melendez first fought last June where “The Punk” won a unanimous decision victory over “El Nino” Melendez who was the reigning Strikeforce champ. Melendez has not fought since, while Thomson last fought at Strikeforce at the Playboy Mansion II this past September where he defeated Ashe Bowman via TKO.
Since their purchase of ProElite, Strikeforce has all along confirmed that both Thomson and Melendez would appear on the April 11 fight card, although they were never expected to fight each other.
Strikeforce apparently ran out of options for opponents for both men, and decided to put together the rematch fight now and have the lightweight title on the line for their debut event on Showtime.
Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz is currently scheduled for April 11 in Anaheim, CA. Also appearing on the card are matchups between Scott Smith and Benji Radach, Jake Shields vs. Joe Riggs, and the main event between Frank Shamrock and Nick Diaz.
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this looks like its shaping up to be a pretty good card. there you go B, you where worried that the death of Elite was going to leave another void but it looks like there was just a little break and Strikeforce is going to pick up the slack.
Hell ya RJ, great card, im glad Strikeforce is stepping it up like you said, they have the potential to be the #2 MMA organization in the world (depending on how Affliction does) and it looks like they might intend to do that. Theyre a bit hit and miss with events though and kind of inconsistant in terms of when they schedule their events. Like back in oct-nov they had 3 events, now were looking at a 5 month gap without anything. Maybe the Elite thing played into that a bit taking more time juggling contracts, etc..
Pull it together guys, this is the time to shine.
there is a big need for good competition for the UFC, it helps drive that hype wagon. people will be talking more about fights like Robbie Lawler or Cung Le vs. Anderson Silva if we get to see those guys fight more often, it wont even matter if we never see the fights just people talking about them raises interest in the sport all together and thats always a good thing.