Quote of the Day: Jake Shields Says UFC Put No Pressure on Him to Fight at Welterweight

Joe Silva has said he’ll never tell a fighter what weight to fight at or to fight hurt. This is consistent with that.

I wondered why people bought the 2nd part of the original message when the first was proven wrong. Originally it was “Shields is signed and the UFC said he’s at 170”. It came out the next day that he WASN’T signed at that point, so I just threw out the 2nd part of the rumor accordingly. I guess others didn’t.

I think the UFC doesn’t want it’s big names sitting around collecting dust either.

I think they gave him an option of 70 or 85 and showed him the possible fights and scenarios and he chose 170 as being the best path for his UFC career.

Nothing wrong with that.

What’s with the drugstore cynicism? Like a lot of guys in Cesar’s camp, he’s genuinely interested in fighting the best. Shields has been asking for the GSP fight for YEARS, even while signed with other organizations. I doubt, as the jaded fanboy narrative might go, he was influenced by Dana holding 42 virgins and the grace of God to move down to 170 instead of 185.

Much more interesting matchups at 170 anyway, although I’ve long believed Shields may not even get to GSP.

I dont know the details of his contract, but it seems like he cost himself all of his bargaining power by basically saying he wasnt going to return to SF while he was technically still under contract.

SF cut him and I assume Zuffa could offer just about whatever they wanted because Shields had no other legitimate options at that point.

And Nick Diaz… What a talent. But wins over Frank/Zaromskis/Smith/ and Mach could have been wins over 4 top 15 MW’s or WW’s in the UFC had he played his cards right.

I love watching him fight, but I can understand the UFC being hesitant to bring him back due to his past antics… There’s no doubt he has elite UFC level talent, and is a blast to watch.

I hope eventually Gilbert and Nick will be in the UFC, tons of interesting matchups there.

That being said, It is pretty cool that a few months back, their camp had 3 of the 7 SF titles. Reminded me of Pat’s crew in Iowa when Timmy/Highes/and Jens all had UFC gold.

Is to give that division a much needed injection of new blood. WW is pretty damn deep as things stand, while MW is easily the thinnest division. Shields could have at least hung with the loop of contenders (Maia, Nate, Sonnen…..Okami)

He said pretty much the same thing to MMANews a week ago:

Shields, who was the Strikeforce 185-pound champion, will make his debut in the 170-pound division in the UFC against top-ranked fighter Martin Kampmann, but says that he would have fought at either weight class. "I told them that I wanted to fight at both weights. They called and offered me this fight [with Kampmann] and I said sure."

Speaking more on the decision to fight at welterweight as opposed to middleweight, Shields continued, "I’m sure I could have fought middleweights [if I wanted to]. There wasn’t any pressure from the UFC to fight at 170 pounds. They asked if I wanted to fight Kampmann and I said yes. It’s a big fight card [UFC 121] so I thought it was a good fight to drop down. Had they offered a middleweight, I would have took that fight too. This is a big opportunity for me to go out there and showcase my skills."

GSP has already beaten Alves, Fitch, Hughes twice, Hardy, Serra, Kos soon to be twice….about the only top guys he has not faced yet are Kampman, Hathaway and now Shields. I mention Hathaway because he is unbeaten. The Kampman/Shields winner will get a shot at the title.

At 185 though we have left just Vitor and maybe Wandy after and if he beats Leben who looked good in his last two fights. Anderson is not unbeatable he has 4 losses with one BS loss to Okami. When he got heel hooked it was late into a fight that he was not winning. Even the announcers said just before it happened that Anderson would need a KO to win the fight. He was beaten in his 3 real losses by Karate fighters and Vitor trains with Lyoto’s Dad.