UFC President Dana White has been wanting to sign Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields for quite some time now. Now that Shields’ contract with Strikeforce is complete and he is up for grabs, White has decided to step in and negotiate a fight deal with the champ in order to bring him into the UFC promotion. There seems to be lots of plans for the Cesar Gracie student including a position as a TUF coach opposite Georges St. Pierre.
Could Shields deny the 7-figure check the UFC wants to offer him?
White believes that Strikeforce has disrespected Shields in many ways, indicating that Strikeforce never thought he would be able to beat the recently signed Dan Henderson in the recent April 17 event. Shields stunned the world and critics when he defeated Henderson via a dominating unanimous decision.
“Jake Shields is definitely going to leave Strikeforce, and he’s definitely coming to the UFC. First of all, they put all of their eggs in the Dan Henderson basket. They went out and acquired him and thought he was worth a lot more money than we were willing to pay him. They went out and paid him more money than they can afford to. They never respected Jake Shields, who is their champion. They didn’t even have him in their commercials for the fight. Then the fight happens and Jake Shields wins. They were like, ‘Oh my God. He won. What do we do?’ I think they sent (Miller) in there to challenge him, so that if Jake leaves, it looks like he doesn’t want to fight Miller. That‘s not the way you do it. You let the winner speak, then you ask him at the end about whether he‘s willing to fight Miller. But that’s them. They’re a Podunk, unknown, small-time organization. There shouldn‘t have been that many guys in the cage in the first place!”
