Looks like there is some unfinished business between two of the main culprits from the Strikeforce: Nashville Brawl. The opening salvo came from Miller when he was interviewed by veteran combat sports commentator Michael ‘The Voice’ Schiavello.

Which prompted a response by Mr. 209 himself, UFC, Pride and Dream veteran and current Strikeforce welterweight champion Nick Diaz. Props to Middle Easy for the footage.

Middle Easy: Nick Diaz responds to Jason Miller.

From the Gif. wizards at the UG

Not one to let the other guy have the last word, Miller tweeted a succinct rebuttal to Diaz’s offer to fight but only at the 170 pound limit as opposed to the 185 lb middleweight max that Mayhem currently resides.

Regardless of what weight this fight is contested at (a 180 catch weight sounds fine to me) it needs to happen. Scott Cocker should be paying attention and giving his fighters props for hyping a match with out an advertising budget.

Been slacking hardcore recently, so I will just cluster bomb some of the more notable news in mma.

From MMA Junkie

Jon "Bones" Jones

Jon Jones: Heavyweight is an option.

Just four fights into his UFC run, many mixed martial arts fans are already calling for a light heavyweight title shot.

But as Jones prepares for a showdown with veteran grinder Vladimir Matyushenko (24-4 MMA, 5-2 UFC) at August’s UFC on Versus 2 event, the soon-to-be-23-year-old told the crew of ESPN’s “MMA Live” that he’s not necessarily just focused on a 205-pound title. “Bones” might eventually go up to heavyweight, too.

“This training camp has been really tough for me, actually,” Jones said on the most recent episode of “MMA Live.” “I got up to about 231 (pounds) for the first time, and I’ll be 23 on Monday. I feel as if I’m growing into a more adult body.

“Who knows what the future holds for me. I’m always training hard, and I’m going to start to focus more on weightlifting in my off-time. You heavyweights gotta watch out because you never know what’s going to happen.”

This may come as a shock to some but anybody who saw how young and huge Jones was when he made it into the UFC (6′4 & 21 years old) it wasn’t that much of a stretch to think he would outgrow the weight class he started in. If he continues to grow in skill and experience as well as size a move to heavyweight would be seen as a smart one for one of the most promising prospects to enter the sport in years.

From MMA Fighting,

A World Cup sans South America, for shame FEG 2.0

FEG Announces Partnership with PUJI Captital, Declares War With UFC

DREAM and K-1 promoter FEG announced Friday that it is entering a partnership with Shanghai-based investment bank PUJI Capital that could be worth 20 billion yen ($230 million).

K-1 President Sadaharu Tanikawa stressed that FEG had not been sold and in fact it will now be setting its sights much higher.

“This is a declaration of war against the WWE and UFC. From Asia, we will take the world,” Tanikawa stated.

Tanikawa admitted that expansion to American soil would be futile at this stage and under the watchful eye of K-1 creator Kazuyoshi Ishii, they will set their sights on the rest of the world.

“Mr. Ishii is completely supporting us. We won’t stand a chance in the American market so we will spread to the rest of the world.”

….

A call for a drastic change in Japanese MMA has been needed since the collapse of PRIDE, even Tanikawa admitted himself.

“When K-1 and PRIDE were competing against each other, 80% of the martial arts market was in Japan. It is now the opposite and Japan is only 20%. We were worried that Japan would be left behind if we let this continue, it is unacceptable. We needed to change our business model.”

“We’ve let Dana White get a lead on us. Before (Shinya) Aoki beats (Gilbert) Melendez, we must win as promoters.”

With last weeks Dream event we saw Shinya Aoki defend his belt and unofficial title as the best Japanese fighter currently competing in MMA. This victory could also been seen as a defeat or moot point considering how utterly ineffectual Aoki was in his fight against Strikeforce Lightweight Champ Gilbert Melendez. Dream also seemed to be in a transitional period from its revamped lighter weight clsasses to this weeks announcement, Fight Entertainment Group (FEG) may be making a case for long awaited fanboy fantasy of a vibrant high level mixed martial arts scene reminiscent of the PRIDE glory days.

Alternate Business Model Graphic. From Middleeasy.com

Wishful thinking aside this partnership will have to produce results first before this is taken seriously. Even if the declaration of war against two major organizations (WWE and UFC) was just a figure of speech. The sentiment of wanting to compete at the highest levels promotion wise is very palpable. Until this partnership produces compelling cards it will be seen as another sad story of investors looking to make a quick buck off of the illusory cash cow of mixed martial arts. Both White and McMahon giving a crap about this is unlikely but it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility if they did take this news into consideration.

At the end of the day when combat sports and sports entertainment organizations compete: The fans win.

From Bloody Elbow

Jake Shields is Officially signed to the UFC Unofficially…huh!?!?

It’s official. According to Graciefighter.com, the UFC has signed the former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion, Jake Shields (25-4-1) to a contract. They also announced that the #3 ranked middleweight will drop back down to join the UFC welterweight shark tank:

Jake Shields will be debuting at the 170lbs weight division in the UFC. After careful consideration and consulting with UFC representatives it was determined Jake would be finally going back to his original fighting weight.

Jake’s opponent is one of the UFC’s top contenders and will be announced shortly.

Seeing as how there was the Aldo vs Faber photo op with Dana White led to Shields contract not being renegotiated and his belt being put up for an fantabulous 8 man middleweight tournamet that got derailed thanks to The Lone Star State not allowing combat sport tournaments. From MMA Fighting

Strikeforce officials would not comment on the proposed tournament last week, telling MMA Fighting only, “We aren’t doing a tournament there.”

But TDLR administrator Greg Alvarez confirmed to MMA Fighting on Saturday that Strikeforce wanted a one-night, bracket-style tournament for the Houston show, which will air live on Showtime. But Alvarez said that request was denied.

“They asked if it was possible and I told them that when Tough Man was outlawed, the state also did away with tournaments back in 2001,” Alvarez said.

Sec. 2052.254 of Texas’ Combative Sports Occupations Code specifically deals with tournaments. The code states: “An elimination tournament may not be conducted in this state.”

Which led to the subsequent title fight between Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ Souza and Tim Kennedy for the Strikeforce middleweight belt and Shields heading to the UFC.

And lastly, how about some Bobby Lashley news, eh?

From Bloody Elbow.

Bobby Lashley’s opponent at the upcoming Strikeforce show in Houston will be IFL and Rage in the Cage veteran Chad Griggs.

Not much to say here other than “Lashley better not pull out of this fight or risk the mma community completely writing him off”.

That should be enough binge blogging for the day. And now to enjoy a weekend without fights, if that is possible.

This can either be taken as me being either super efficient or outrageously lazy. But this site needs an update and there has been a deluge of mma news/fight announcements/fight cancellations and other goings on in the wild and crazy world of mixed martial arts.I was thinking of doing a link post, cuz hey man everyone else is doing it. But I will just stick to my regular weekend picks post along with an in depth look at all silly side incidents around the event.

Dream.15 Weigh in photo from Sherdog.com

Shinya Aoki (70 kg / 154.3 lbs) vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri (70 kg / 154.3 lbs)
Katsunori Kikuno (70 kg / 154.3 lbs) vs. Gesias Cavalcante (70 kg / 154.3 lbs)
Gegard Mousasi (93 kg / 205 lbs) vs. Jake O’Brien (did not weigh in; reportedly still cutting)
Tatsuya Mizuno (92.5 kg / 203.9 lbs) vs. Melvin Manhoef (90 kg / 198.4 lbs)
Michihiro Omigawa (64.8 kg / 142.9 lbs) vs. Young Sam Jung (64.8 kg / 142.9 lbs)
Mitsuhiro Ishida (65 kg / 143.3 lbs) vs. Daiki Hata (65 kg / 143.3 lbs)
Kazuhiro Nakamura (83.8 kg / 184.7 lbs) vs. Karl Amoussou (83.5 kg / 184 lbs)

Aoki’s comments on his opponents physique has put him on the spot at the moment.

Kawajiri: “I don’t really like to take a look at men’s bodies, so I didn’t really look at him. He said he’ll surprise the fans. I’ll make sure ours will be a shocking fight,”

Aoki: “I like both men and women. His body is a nice body, and if we both fight with men’s spirit, we can have a fight that everyone wants to see.”

A fight that was first seen as a battle that would answer the question of who is Japans best lightweight has turned into an awkward look at a fighters sexual orientation.

If that wasn’t silly enough, poor Ricco Rodriguez who was rumored to fight Strikeforce heavyweight champ Alistair Overeem. What took place resembled a period peice comedy of errors more than matchmaking for a major mma promotion.

“During my training I found out that Andrei Arlovski was not going to be my opponent, and they changed opponents numerous times. I’ve heard names like Tim Sylvia and Minowa. At one point, I received notice that they had found a opponent but that the Dream heavyweight title was not on the line anymore. With all the changes and the title fight no longer a possibility, I simply had to turn down the opportunity.

“The next day, I immediately took a flight to San Jose to hype up my possible fight against the winner of Fedor Emelianenko or Fabricio Werdum. I then heard rumors that Dream had booked me in a fight against Ricco Rodriguez. I want to make it very clear that I never verbally agreed to fight him and I never signed a contract with Dream to fight him. I feel very sorry for Ricco Rodriguez’s camp if they still think the fight is on, and I apologize to my fans that have bought a ticket to see me compete. I hope this statement has shed some light on the unfortunate situation.”

The fun doesn’t end there for Rodriguez, after UFC vet and Dream light heavyweight tournament competitor Jake O’Brian failed to make the 205 pound weight limit. Dream turned to Ricco to take his place against Gegard Mousasi.

Shenanigans squared

And yes, this is the tournament that was actually my first article on theclinch.net evar! The event went from the standard 16 man tournament to 8 and now a paltry 4. Consisting of just Mousasi, Manhoef, O’Brian and some guy named Tatsuya Mizuno. Now that all the known drama has been noted lets get to the picks.

Main Event: Dream Lightweight Title Bout

Shinya Aoki vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri

This will be Aoki’s chance to show if he has improved since his unanimous decision loss to Strikeforce Champ Gilbert Milendez. Granted it was his first fight in a cage and this will be contested in the ring. But Crusher Kawajiri has the same wrestler/boxer style that seemed to give Aoki fits. Since his loss Shinya actually spent some time over at Ceasar Gracies gym to improve his game. It would be awesome to see if he has some new tricks up his sleeve. That being said I still see his static cling grappling game getting nullified by a more athletic fighter and Aoki losing his belt.

Crusher via crushing TKO

Dream Light Heavyweight Tournament: Opening/Semi Final Round

Gegard Mousasi vs. Jake O’Brien

Just like the Aoki/Kawajiri title fight, the main question in this fight is whether Mousasi has learned to avoid or get up from takedowns. Lucky for him O’Brien is a huge step down in actual wrestling talent.

Mousasi – via sub

Tatsuya Mizuno vs. Melvin Manhoef

Manhoefs chin issues aside, he should be able to bully and terrorize Mizuno for an exciting first round stoppage.

Manhoef – via Savagery

Gesias Cavalcante vs. Katsunori Kikuno

JZ is a beast shares many similarities with current UFC Light Heavyweight champ Shogun Rua. His muay thai based stand up is nasty, he also possesses underrated ground game and is injury prone like nobody’s business. Surprisingly enough Kikuno is a contemporary of former UFC lhw champ Lyoto Machida with his modified for mma kyokushin karate striking, namely his liver piercing crescent kick. Ring rust aside Cavalcante has this fight in the bag, unless JZ gets hyptonized by Kikuno’s creepy chesire grin and gets owned like Andre Dida.

JZ – via Sub

Michihiro Omigawa vs. Young Sam Jung

Poor Sam Jung, the man is brought in for a good old fashioned Japanese fighter over Korean can crushing. Seeing as its Michihiro “I hold a BS decision win over Marlon Sandro” Omigawa I will hope it blows up in his face. But I am not completely delusional.

Omigawa – via boring decision

Mitsuhiro Ishida vs. Daiki “DJ.taiki” Hata

Kawajiri’s teammate Ishida should be able to take this. Lets hope that Hata at least makes it exciting/gives up his back and gets Ishida-plexed.

Ishida – via UD

Kazuhiro Nakamura vs. Karl “Psycho” Amoussou

Nakamura is going to get blitzed by a frenchman.

Amoussou – via living up to his nickname

This vid showcases the main event and the second biggest fight (Hansen vs Takaya) on the card. The footage of Diaz training also has him talking about Dream Lightweight champ Shinya Aoki and his time spent in the Ceasar Gracie camp after his lost to Strikeforce Lightweight champ Gil Melendez.

I hope Shinya will start a renaissance of Japanese fighters and trainers coming stateside to pick up modern training techniques and practices. It would be a shame to see Japanese mma to fall to the wayside completely due to outdated and inefficient training methods.

While Dream’s future may be a bit foggy, I want the organization to survive mainly due to Pride nostalgia and their gallery of amazing event posters. The Japanese based organization also produces some of the event promo and intro’s in the business. A fact reinforced by the Dream 14 trailer.

Fame can be a volatile and fickle beast, in this interview Enson Inoue reveals the origins and current status of one of Japans most promising fighters Norifumi ‘Kid’ Yamamoto.

Props to Middle Easy for the find.

As the deluge of mma events in April 2010 come to a close we are greeted with the unfortunate news of not only the delay of Dream 14 but the cancellation of the organizations light heavyweight tournament. Via Josh Gross’s twitter

While no official reason has been given yet, its safe to assume that with the defeat of the last great japanese hope in Shinya Aoki at the hand of Strikeforce lightweight champ Gilbert Milendez, that the land of the rising sun is not too interested in MMA as of late.

Fight Opinion took a more in depth look into the other possible contributing factors. Either way the mma scene in Japan hasn’t looked this bleak in a while.

Early Monday morning or late Sunday night depending on how you are looking at it, Dream.13 went down. MMAJunkie has the full blow by blow of the event. Minowaman once again dispatched an over-sized opponent via big toe crank. Cole Escuvedo put himself into early KO of the year contention with his monstrous head kick of Yoshiro Maeda. A knockout made even more ridiculous with Escuvedo hopping on top of Maeda’s already prone body before the ref could end any more continued savagery. Katsunori Kikuno pulled off one of the more slick finishes of the night with the ol’ Kyokushin Karate one-two of liver kick to right hook combo. If you listen closely you can hear Bas Rutten screaming with glee as Kikuno got his first round KO over Kuniyoshi Hironaka.

Ryo Chonan and KJ Noons, won one sided decisions against Andrews Nakahara and Andre Dida respectively. Mighty Mo fought Josh “Affliction Killer” Barnett received a particularly brutal nut shot that and I quote from Mighty Mo himself was “”The hardest I’ve ever been kicked in the balls in my entire life,”. This coming from a former K-1 fighter.This turned into the most akward part of the card as the Hawaiian was immediately dropped to the canvas. Things got even more weird as Mo’ real name Saila-Mou Siligia while still recovering on his stool whilst a gang of officials had a huddle in the middle of the ring. Barnett apperantly bored lounging in the neutral corner ventured over to offer words of encouragement to the man he almost neutered. After almost 20 mins of wincing & recuperation Siligia was ready to fight, Barnett happy the fight wasn’t ended obliged Mo with some back and forth striking before promptly taking him down and submitting the K-1 veteran with a kimura.

In the title match last years Featherweight Tournament winner Bibiano Fernandes took on former Dream Lightweight Champion and mma vet Joachim Hansen. This being his first time at the featherweight we saw a thinner version of Hellboy, but the decent striking and poor takedown defense was still there. For most of the fight Fernandes showed comparable striking and countering too keep Hansen at bay, along with a surprisingly quick double leg takedown that yielded little as the Norwegian was able to stay out of trouble and get on his feet rather quickly. But after 15 mins of tenuous striking and scramble filled ground work Bibiano retained his title in a somewhat inexplicable spit decision. Even a Hellboy fan like myself saw him doing good but not nearly enough to take the belt from the young bjj world champion.

In an event that mirrored its American counterpart in regards of groin shot/illegal blows and vicious knockouts Dream 13 was more than enough for the mma glutton who was not sated by UFC’s first show on the Versus network. Check out the distinctly original (i.e. Japanese) intro video if you haven’t already, it has a dual purpose as it also promotes 2010 as the year of DREAM vs Strikeforce, enjoy.

From the land of the rising sun we are treated yet again to some authentic Japanese mma. With freakshows (Minowaman vs Amriz) high level lighter weight bouts (Fernandez vs Hansen, Escovedo vs Maeda) and the fan favorite tune up fight (Barnett vs Mighty Mo). Legitimacy be damned, exciting and entertaining fights is what this all about so lets get to the picks.

Champ Bibiano Fernandes vs. Joachim Hansen (for DREAM featherweight title) : This should be an awesome and interesting fight, at 5′10 Hellboy will be a pretty big featherweight and coming off a loss to Aoki after a year long layoff from an injury, it’s nice to see the Norwegian Nightmare get back into the mix. But Bibiano is no joke, the man fought his ass off to get the belt going up against probably the toughest comp in the featherweight tournament. As a world champion bjj practitioner Fernandes has an advantage on the ground but Hellboy is no slouch on the mat either. If Hansen can outclass Fernandes on the feet and stays out of trouble on the ground. Hansen by Decision.

Josh Barnett vs. Siala “Mighty Mo” Siligia – How the mighty have fallen…no pun intended. Barnett by whatever he wants once he gets it to the ground

Cole Escovedo vs. Yoshiro Maeda – Remember those old looney tunes cartoon fights where two guys would stir up a dust cloud and all you would see is segments of limbs . This will be fun to watch but barring some slick jits action Yoshiro should be able to smash his way to victory. Maeda by TKO

Kuniyoshi Hironaka vs. Katsunori Kikuno – I can already hear Bas Rutten rejoicing as Kikuno crescent/liver kicks his way to victory. Kikuno by TKO

Andre “Dida” Amade vs. K.J. Noons – Expect a slobber knocker between a kick boxer and a boxer. Noons hasn’t fared too well with kick boxer in the past and Dida is kind of a one dimensional striker. Unless these guys have added some new tools to their arsenal, these guys are going to blast each other in the face until the first one falls. Flip a coin…but I’m guessing Dida will take it in the end Noons has been dicking around in boxing and hasn’t fought MMA since 2008.

Ryo Chonan vs. Andrews Nakahara – The last man to have a legit win over Anderson Silva vs a discount version of Lyoto Machida. Andrews may be too green for Chonan, but Chonan is all things considered totally beatable while still being far from can/chump status. This should be a very competitive fight. Chonan by split decision

Jimmy Ambriz vs. Ikuhisa Minowa – Token freakshow fight. Minowa by speedo power

Breaking news from mmajunkie, Dream is hosting another tournament this time in Light Heavyweight 205lb/93kg division. So far the newly acquired Renato ‘Babalu’ Sobral is the only fighter listed to compete. But with the well known partnership between Strikeforce & Dream, it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t have any problems exchanging fighters.

We here at The Clinch are all enthused to hear about any major promotions putting on fights with high level talent. But one has to wonder, with a tournament in the division filled with more stars than a monolith…a monolith with a UFC logo to be more precise. How are they going to scare up any noteworthy lhw talent. Its safe to assume that current Strikeforce LHW Champ not to mention the last man that smoked Babalu, Gegard Mousasi will be included. Along with other Japanese fan favorite and freak crusher Rameau Sokodjou who has also been beaten by the Young Vagabond (That’s right I’m bringing back the old nickname, we could even start a poll … once I figure out how its done.)

Granted the side bonus of tournaments like these are for unknown up and comers to darkhorse their way past a favorite and gain some notoriety. Which is totally possible but thanks to Zuffa holding the contracts of the majority of the top 10 and 11 to 20 lhw’s in the world. It will be hard for anyone to see the tournament winner as the best in the world.

Assuming Gegard throws his name into the mix I have him picked as the favorite to win. A query made even more tenuous with the possibility of injury during his first title defense against King Mo. But with the widely held perception of being the single best light heavyweight fighter outside the Zuffa umbrella, one can’t help but see him continue to buzz-saw through all his opponents until/if he fights in the UFC.

Either way it is Dream and Strikeforce’s monumental task of finding exciting talent to fill out the rest of their brackets for this 16 or possibly 8 man tournament.