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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Jason "Mayhem" Miller's signing with the UFC came after the middleweight was essentially frozen out of the remainder of his Strikeforce contract, UFC President Dana White revealed on Wednesday.
"Mayhem Miller he had a contract with those guys, he wasn't being fought because he couldn't fight on Showtime, he couldn't fight on CBS, so he was in a bad position. So that's why that happened," White said in comments made to MMAWeekly.com.
Miller's banishment from the networks came after his incident at the Strikeforce: Nashville event that aired on CBS last April. After winning a fight earlier in the night, Miller entered the cage following the night's main event between Jake Shields and Dan Henderson, interrupting Shields' post-fight interview with a request for a rematch of their November 2009 fight on CBS.
What resulted was the infamous melee, with Shields' Cesar Gracie teammates Gilbert Melendez and Nick and Nate Diaz, along with others, jumping Miller in the cage while announcer Gus Johnson let the world know that "sometimes these things happen in MMA." The black eye moment was the last time CBS has featured an MMA event, and apparently Miller was held accountable and banned from being on either CBS-owned network, leading to Strikeforce's inability to feature him in a fight before his contract ran out.
"Joe (Silva) wanted him, so he got in here... Mayhem, he's banished from CBS for life. In my opinion, he was a guy that's put into a position," White said. "First of all, we control what happens inside that Octagon, the fighters do not. In our organization, you don't see melees break out and huge fights. You see what happens when somebody does cross the line and do stuff like that.
"I think Mayhem was put in a bad position. I don't know, I haven't talked to Mayhem about this, this is just what I believe and conversations I've had with Joe Silva. I think he was put in there to promote a fight and anyone who would throw Mayhem Miller in there when the Diaz brothers are in there, it's a (expletive) big melting pot for disaster. I don't blame Mayhem for the whole situation."
Penick's Analysis: If that's legitimately what happened, it's no wonder the fight didn't come together with Miller and Nick Diaz. It was the fight that made a lot of sense at the time because of the Nashville incident, but if Showtime and CBS weren't going to let Miller on their networks Strikeforce's hands were tied. It's ridiculous, because I'm in agreement with White that it was more on whoever allowed him to enter the cage in the first place that the incident happened. Sure he shouldn't have gone in there, but he was in all likelihood instructed by someone to enter the cage, and he was used as the scapegoat in the incident if this was the case. But, now that he's in the UFC he won't need to worry about that any longer, and he'll be able to resume things in his career.
[Dana White art by Cory Gould (c) MMATorch.com]
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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