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Strikeforce: Nashville Picks Up Steam

Posted by Marcos Villegas on the 19 March 2010 | View Comments

Strikeforce Ramping Up For Nashville

Strikeforce invaded Hollywood, CA as it conducted an open work out hyping its big event on April the 17th in Nashville, Tennessee. Dan Henderson will challenge Jake Shields for the Strikeforce middleweight belt. Gegard Mousasi is slated to defend his newly won light heavyweight belt against “King Mo” Lawal. The stacked card will also see Shinya Aoki the Dream lightweight champion challenge Gilbert Melendez for his lightweight title. Legends MMA was the chosen site as media, press and the odd in-betweeners were treated to a day full of stare downs, photo ops and of course smack talk! Here are a few inside things we were able to get out of the fighters:

• Dan Henderson is currently weighing around 205 at the time being. He expects to bring in Jesse Taylor and other to work his wrestling for Shields. He wants to work his big right effectively in this fight with Jake Shields and hopefully come out with the KO. Working off of that, Hendo stated that he knows Jake tends to drop his hands and it's a weakness he sees playing into his overall strategy for the fight
• Henderson also talked about if a potential match up between himself and heavyweight king Fedor Emelianenko were to ever materialize he would try to use his quickness and clinch game to work Fedor to the ground, where he would hope to cause damage via ground and pound
• Jake Shields likes being the underdog even thought he is the champion, "it gives me extra motivation for the fight," he was quoted saying
• Shields is set do some work at the world famous Wild Card Gym in Hollywood by the end of the week. When asked if he would work with Freddie Roach, Shields was mum
• It's interesting to note that the title fight with Henderson is Shields’ last fight under contract with Strikeforce. When asked what he would do after the fight Shields said he would weigh his options
• Aoki was spotted sizing up Gilbert Melendez during an obligatory photo op. The Japanese fighter was getting an idea of the size of the Northern California based fighter
• Melendez was stoked to avenge his loss to Josh Thompson and says that a win over Aoki would be the biggest win of his career. "It doesn't matter where the fight ends up. I'm a mixed martial artist. I can handle him on the ground or standing," Melendez said.
• The bad blood between “King Mo” Lawal and Gegard Mousasi seems to reaching a high. Gegard stated that he is not really impressed with Mo's prior opposition. The smack talk coming from Mo has fueled Mousasi like never before and he has never been as motivated for a fight as this one.
• King Mo approached Mousasi and asked the Armenian fighter if he likes to sleep, Gegard answered, "Only in my free time."
• Shortly after Gegard said in a interview that he respect's Mo the wrestler, but has no respect for Mo the person
• Famed announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. is a huge fan of Aoki and is looking forward to his American debut. The boxing announcer has been a staple of Strikeforce programming as of late.
• Scott Coker, the CEO of Strikeforce, had a few interesting things to say while at the open work out. An offer was made to Roger Huerta before he was snatched up by Bellator and Coker also admitted he does watch the UFC's product and orders four or five of their PPV's a year.
• Coker also stated that Nate Diaz will be fighting a Dream fighter yet to be announced in the coming months
• Finally, Strikeforce is planning to come to Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the coming year, so it will be interesting to see what the Las Vegas based UFC has in store to counter their attempt to break into the strip.