Also announced: Scott Smith, Matt Lindland, Gilbert Melendez, Robbie Lawler, Josh Thomson and Ronaldo Souza. The best announcement however is the inclusion of PRIDE FC rules! Head stomps galore!

For those who couldn’t make the live chat, the transcript is available at http://mma.easports.com/livechat.action

So it turns out that Cung Le rather do movies than be an MMA fighter. The San Shou fighter opted to vacate the Strikeforce Middleweight title at the opportunity to sign up for another movie role. Glad that Strikeforce CEO, Scott Coker is taking it better than Dana White did when he found out about Rampage in the “A-Team” movie.

“With Cung, every six weeks we’ll be checking back with him,” he continued. “Now that he’s not going to be our title holder, we’ll put him in some big super fights and continue his MMA career, but not have the pressure of defending his belt when he has movie opportunities.”

Not all is bad as Jake Shields will be taking on Jason “Mayhem” Miller for the undisputed middleweight title on Nov. 7th. This new bout addition will complement nicely with the FEDOR vs ROGERS main event. With the card televised nationally on CBS, Dana White must be cussing up a storm due to a lack of counter-programming on the UFC front.

Frank Shamrock talks possible fights with his brother Ken, Tito Ortiz, and rematch with Cung Le

Train with Bay Area Favorite Cung Le at the Throwdown HQ in Las Vegas.

Details after the break

Strikeforce Middleweight Champion: CUNG LE

Throwdown Headquarters, Las Vegas NV

*DATES & ITINERARY*
Saturday, May 24th
10am-1pm Cung Le Camp
1pm-2pm Photograph & autograph session with Cung Le

Sunday, May 25th
12pm-2pm Open Mat at Throwdown HQ Training Center

*PRICE*
$150/person

*LOCATION*
Throwdown Fight Camp is held in the Las Vegas, Nevada at Throwdown World Headquarters minutes from the world famous Las Vegas strip. The camp will be held in the private world class 10,000sq ft Throwdown World Headquarters Training Center, a state of the art private mixed martial arts training facility equipped with Throwdown’s signature MMA cage, five rope MMA/boxing ring, two grappling zones featuring new Throwdown MMA mats by Zebra and Throwdown’s cantilever bag rack system.

Now we have a reason to stay awake after hitting the bars on Friday nights.

From Strikeforceusa.net:

“The series, spanning 52 weeks, will air every Saturday from 2-2:30 am ET, beginning on April 12th. Each show will run 30 minutes and will be comprised of fighter profiles as well as Strikeforce mixed martial arts fights and highlights.”

The newly crowned Strikeforce Middleweight Champion, Cung Le was on a local Bay Area radio station promoting the show. His profile will be featured in the premier episode.

Supplier: Yahoo! Sports

Excerpt: “If Shamrock can book his future, which he always tries to do, it’ll be a fight with adopted brother Ken Shamrock, the ‘Blood Brothers’ pay-per-view concept that he and Elite XC promoter Gary Shaw have been talking about for months, followed by a rematch with Le.”

There has even been talk about a fight with Tito Ortiz in late 2009 as a ten year anniversary to their first fight. One thing is for sure: a broken arm, nine staples near the top of his head and a discolored left eye can’t hold Frank Shamrock down.

I like how he credits himself as “The Legend”.

Source: Strikeforceusa.net

SAN JOSE, Calif. — A crowd of 16,326 generated over $1.1 million of live gate revenue for the “Shamrock vs. Cung Le” mixed martial arts mega-event at San Jose’s HP Pavilion on Saturday, March 29th.

“It was an incredible night all around,” said Scott Coker, CEO, Strikeforce, which co-promoted the event with EliteXC. “Our main event between Frank Shamrock and Cung Le was an epic battle that lived up to, if not exceeded, everyone’s expectations. The energy in the arena was as electric and intense as that at a Superbowl. You could really sense the magnitude of the fight and what was at stake in it through the emotions each fighter’s thousands of fans were expressing.”

In the main event, Le was crowned the new Strikeforce world middleweight (185 lb. limit) champion after a broken right wrist forced Shamrock to retire between rounds three and four.

Prior to the stoppage, Le was imposing his will with repeated round kicks to the body and side of Shamrock’s head as well as quick hands that found their mark on Shamrock’s face.

In the second half of the third round, though, Shamrock made a bold stand, backing Le into one side of the cage and tagging him with several punch combinations that appeared to put Le in trouble.

Two days prior to the event, NBC and Strikeforce announced that their two entities had entered a partnership agreement to produce the first-ever 52 week mixed martial arts series for a major TV network. “Strikeforce on NBC” will air every Saturday from 2-2:30 am ET, beginning on April 12th. Each show will be comprised of fighter profiles as well as Strikeforce mixed martial arts fights and highlights.

Before the close of 2008, three Strikeforce events will be distributed live on the Mark Cuban-owned HDNet. Strikeforce programming is also available in 22.5 million homes across Europe, The Middle East, and parts of Africa courtesy of Extreme Sports Channel.