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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Cung Le has stepped down and relinquished his belt, according to Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker in a report from MMAWeekly.com.
The Champ, who hasn't defended his belt since winning it in March of 2008 by defeating Frank Shamrock, has been busy making movies since that date, and has another one on the docket.
Said Coker, "I had a conversation with Cung and he has a lot of respect for Jake [Shields] and Jason [Miller], and he's got another movie coming up, so he's asked me if he could step down, which we're going to honor his request. By no means does that mean he's going to be retired, but he’s going to be unavailable for the next two months."
Shields and Miller will now square off for the Undisputed Strikeforce Middleweight Title on the newly announced November 7th card on CBS. Miller confirmed the fight was on in a post on his Twitter account on Thursday as well.
The November 7th Strikeforce on CBS event will be headlined by the heavyweight showcase bout between Fedor Emelianenko and Brett Rogers. There are indications the card could be coming to the Sears Center Arena in Chicago, IL, though no location has been confirmed as of yet.
Penick's Analysis: Strikeforce is going to put as many of their eggs in this basket as they can fit for the November 7th date. This is a good fight that will give both fighters a chance to show themselves off to what Strikeforce and CBS hopes will be a massive audience. Miller's got more of a name due to his "Bully Beatdown" show on MTV, but this will be a heated fight between the two because of the delay in the bout caused by no firm date being set for an event, which has led to some words being exchanged. If Strikeforce can promote this correctly and pull this event off without a hitch, it will be a gigantic step for them in the right direction.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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