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Strikeforce April 17th main card Announced

Several fights were confirmed yet not officially announced by Strikeforce today, including three title fights for their April 17^thevent on CBS. Originally thought to be headlined by Feder Emelianenko, that idea was nixed by M-1 over the weekend. Fedor is now scheduled to fight on the promotions card in May which will likely also be on CBS, his opponent will be Fabrico Werdum.

The long rumored Middleweight title fight between current Strikeforce champ Jake Shields and the former Pride Middleweight champ/UFC veteran Dan Henderson was confirmed by Shields today. This will be Shields first title defence since winning the vacant Middleweight title over Jason ‘Mayhem’ Miller in November of last year. Shields is currently riding a 13 fight win streak but this could  possibly the toughest fight in his professional MMA career. Henderson will look to make a big splash in his Strikeforce debut by winning a title, something he was unable to do while in the UFC. The fight will serve as the nights main event but the night will be full of main events.

Another fight talked about for a while was the Light Heavyweight showdown between current champ Gegard Mousasi and raising star ’King’ Mo Lawal was finally confirmed by MMA Weekly today. Considering the trash talking had been going since Lawal beat Mike Whitehead in December and both fighters wanted the fight it seemed only a matter of when rather then if. This fight holds some mysterywith it as both fighters are highly touted but relatively new to the US MMA scene. Lawal only has 6 professional fights under his belt and Mousasi (28-2-1) will be a big step up in his level on competition. Mousasi is currently riding an impressive 15 fight winning streak dating all the way back to 2006 when he was fighting in Pride. Since coming to Strikeforce Mousasi had beaten Renato “Babalu” Sobral for the Light Heavyweight title and Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou.

The last title fight confirmed came out of left field and to me is the most anticipatedfight of the night by far. Since Strikeforce began co-promoting with dream the talk of Gilbert Melendez fighting the Dream Lightweight champ Shinya Aoki has been swirling. There is no need for swirling talk anymore as we are going to get to see the fight happen in just over a month. Aoki (23-4) is the Dream Lightweight champ and a submission expect who is known for wearing his colorful grappling pants. Aoki has never fought in the US and has only fought inside a cage one other time as Japan usually uses the boxing style roped ring. One of the original poster boys for Strikeforce, Melendez is a former WEC champ and two time Strikeforce Lightweight champ. After defeating Josh Thomson to reclaim the belt Melendez had talked about wanting to fight Aoki over a possible third fight with Thomson. Both Josh Gross and Sherdog has confirmed the fight which will be under Strikeforce rule thus only Melendez’s belt will be on the line. There supposedly is a if needed proposal that calls for a rematch of the bout to take place in Dream’s ring under their varied regulations at a later date. Would be pretty for either fighter to hold both belts at the same time.

Hard to imagine a night with three title fights being on free tv but here it is. This should be a massive night for MMA fans and more importantly to CBS and Strikeforce massive ratings. I have the date cirled on the calander and cleared the day as this will be one awesome night of fights.

Current Strikeforce fight card [April 17th, 2010]

[185lbs.] Jake Shields vs Dan Henderson (Strikeforce Middleweight Title Fight)

[205lbs.] Gegard Mousasi vs ‘King’ Mo Lawal (Strikeforce Light Heavyweight Title Fight)

[155lbs.] Gilbert Melendez vs. Shinya Aoki (Strikeforce Lightweight Title Fight)

[265lbs] Herschel Walker vs. TBA