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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Strikeforce Welterweight Champion Nick Diaz will return to the Strikeforce cage this October for the first time since being pulled off of Jason "Mayhem" Miller in the melee following Strikeforce: Nashville in April.
And a familiar face will be standing across the cage from him.
His EliteXC "lightweight" foe K.J. Noons, fresh off his controversy filled victory over Jorge Gurgel last Saturday at Strikeforce: Houston, has been tapped to face Diaz on the October 9 event on Showtime, according to a report from MMAJunkie.com.
There was some discussion about Diaz moving up to middleweight for a grudge match of sorts against Miller after their part in the April brawl, but Diaz's head trainer and manager Cesar Gracie said that wasn't going to be the case.
"There's no doubt Miller is a very good fighter; anybody who can go five rounds with Jake Shields is a good fighter," Gracie said in the MMAJunkie report. "But his record for his last five fights is not really something to boast that much about. It's not really a win-win situation for Nick to go to 185 lb. just because Miller is just making a challenge."
"If you want to call out the champion, that means you're prepared to go to his weight. If you're not prepared, don't call him out. If he just wants to fight Nick, come by the academy and Nick will oblige him on the spot, at any weight."
But it's not as if Diaz and Noons don't have their fair share of bad blood.
Noons was the last man to defeat Diaz, opening up a cut that forced the doctors to stop their November 2007 bout after the first round. Diaz tried on multiple occasions to get a rematch with Noons in EliteXC, but the fight never came to fruition before the organization fell, and Noons took a year off to box professionally.
This fight will headline the October event, which will take place from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., and will also feature a Women's 135 lb. Championship bout between Sarah Kaufman and Marloes Coenen as well as a middleweight meeting between Luke Rockhold and Matt Lindland.
Penick's Analysis: While this is a rematch that's been a longtime coming, I have a hard time seeing how two wins at 155 lb. against Conor Huen and Jorge Gurgel means someone earns a title shot at 170 lb. It's this type of nonsensical booking at the top of their divisions that drives people nuts. The fight itself is fine, but it wouldn't be an issue at all if they just threw out these titles that clearly have no meaning and book fights simply for the sake of seeing the fights happen. Because giving Noons this fight, and having Miller as the other option, clearly shows they don't have anyone at 170 lb. to put against him, rendering the title the meaningless trinket it is right now.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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