Middleweight submission expert Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza has signed a multi-fight deal with Strikeforce and will fulfill his first fight on the contract “in the fall”, the promotion announced on Wednesday.
According to GracieMag, “Jacare”, who was expected to fight Jason “Mayhem” Miller at DREAM 11 on October 6, will instead make his Strikeforce debut at an October 25 event in Fresno, California, which could also host the Strikeforce debut of top-ranked heavyweight Fedor Emelianenko.
Souza’s first bout could be an interim middleweight title matchup against former EliteXC champion Jake Shields, who was added to the card earlier this week.
“Jacare” (10-2), who had been rumored to be joining the UFC in late-2007 only to instead sign with DREAM, won his first three fights with the promotion over Ian Murphy, “Mayhem”, and Zelg Galesic to extend his win streak to 10-straight. Souza would next suffer a first-round knockout to Gegard Mousasi in the finals of DREAM’s middleweight grand prix last September, then fought to a no contest in a rematch with Miller after being cut open by an illegal kick in the May bout.
Strikeforce will hold a media conference call on Thursday during which it is expected to announce details on the October event as well as its recently-announced “alliance” with DREAM.
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Shields better clean up his striking because it’ll be extremely difficult to win this on the ground.
Yeah, there really isn’t much of a chance that Sheilds will win this on the ground, chrisl. You know, I was really wanting to see Jacare vs. Mayhem 3, I really hope this happens some how. D@mn, I’m sad now :(
BTW, thanks for the heads-up about this info dbiz.
Oops, it was FR not dbiz. I apologize
Sucks for Mayhem if Jacare will be fighting shields for the interim Strikeforce title instead of him for the DREAM title.
yep^^^. this is a good addition for strikeforce. i would have liked to see him in the ufc, but this is good. more than likely he will submit shields quick. im with ether, i wouldve liked to see mayhem-jacare 3, but oh well. if jacare beats shields, hopefully that will stop the shields would be number 2 in the ufc ww argument.
ONE I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that both FEDOR and Jacare will debut in Fresno, BUT if they DO you guys can count on exactly where I will be, I need to do some research before I get giddy giddy…
And I’m guess that Mayhem is “on his way” if you will
Good looking out Ether thx (getting me confused with DbiZ *rolls eyes*)
Haha, my bad man. I didn’t have my coffee when I wrote that.
oh this reply should be fun…
You should be so lucky to frequently be confused for a sexy hunk of man meat like myself.
I’LL CUT YOU MANG!
Yea they will be fighting in Fresno on the same card.
IMO there would have been many more interesting match-ups had Souza signed with UFC but seeing him in the 2nd most legit MMA “league” (if you will) is still something I find exciting.
Here’s something to ponder…With the quick addition of two top tier fighters this quickly kinda like WHAM BAM, anyone think this could start a trend for strikeforce; possibly giving Dana White a potential nightmare scenario?
I think that since StrikeForce does not play around in the PPV field Dana should be fine with whatever StrikeForce plans on doing as far as their MMA promotion is concerned. On the other, if in the future StrikeForce does decide to venture into the PPV realm (which I think might happen since they have signed a few new ‘big names’ and need to pay for them some how) then that is when Coker and White will begin to clash. Also, StrikeForce has a very shallow pool of talent, they would have to add a lot morehigh profile/ exciting fighters to garner the intrest and name recognition to threaten the UFC.
True that, also let me clarify that when I referred to TWO “top tier” fighters I wasn’t necessarily expressing my opinion on Fedor. As a fighter he’s rapidly becoming persona non grata in my book and as a business man/ individual he’s proved to me that he’s a walking cesspool of douche-tard. The general perception to date seems to be that he’s top tier and only time and his level of future competition can prove or disprove his actual standings on the MMA ladder.
TO me, Fedor’s actual qualtiy/ status is in limbo until, as you said, his status is confirmed via future competition.
Btw, I love the “douche-tard” statement. Zang.
The collapse of Affliction and the slowly forming coalition of Strikeforce/M-1 Global/DREAM/and whoever else isn’t owned by Zuffa is starting to nudge fighters into one of two camps, either Zuffa or not-Zuffa, which I think is interesting.
For a variety of reasons some fighters simply choose not to sign with Zuffa. Maybe Dana White rubs them the wrong way, maybe they are legitimately convinced they can make more money elsewhere, maybe it was the “fine print” of the UFC contrac terms, maybe it was the cage [although in Strikeforce they'll have to adapt], maybe it was the high talent level the UFC boasts at pretty much every weight class, or maybe some fighters just don’t want to live and/or work in North America.
Who can say?
I do think that Scott Coker is very intelligently strengthening his brand without looking like he’s “declaring war” or anything of that sort.
He’s signing working agreements with other smaller promotions, signing available fighters that have passed on the UFC, or the UFC has passed on or waved them off, and I’m sure he’s always searching for some homegrown talent to fill out their roster.
Ideally Jason “Mayhem” Miller will follow Souza to Strikeforce, so they can resolve their issue. I was looking forward to seeing them fight in DREAM, but this might work out better down the road for the Strikeforce Alliance.
If Jacare can grab the Strikeforce Interim title, and Mayhem can grab the DREAM title, they could promote the heck out of a champion versus champion unification bout of sorts.
The possibilities are interesting to say the least, and make me glad I carry Showtime on my cable system. Also, if the Strikeforce Alliance decides to ever go the PPV route, they can count on my $50 to see fighters like Jacare step into the cage and fight for or defend the MW Interim title…
Real quick, with FEG having issues in Japan and them announcing today that they do have an arrangement with Strikeforce this is taking the who’s #2 issue out of the window.. Is this an act of war? well we shall see how ZUFFA responds, but I will tell you that with the rosters that both DREAM and Strikeforce have, well things just got ALOT more interesting that is forsure… Aoki v Thomson would be sick, HellBoy v Melendez whynot right Mayhem v Sheilds, Melvin v Le see this is going to be gooder than a mother if you catch my drift..
i agree j, and with this coalition of the remaining companies i dont think its necessarily war on zuffa. i felt that the matchups dream were putting together were making it the second best organization behind UFC. i like the coalition of the companies, and i like the tourney idea they want to do. K-1, dream, strikeforce weight class tourneys would be awesome, and i would like to see jacare-mousasi 2. [i missed the first one]
as far as the pay per view issue, i think when fedor is on a card, that card might be pay per view, just so M-1 can make more money. i dont think it would be coker’s idea to do it, but finkle would want to imo. it will be like this “M-1 presents Strikeforce: fedor-frank/ken shamrock”
all in all jacare is a great addition for strikeforce imo. strikeforce still needs more fighters to have depth, but they are on the right track. espically if somehow they can sign the dream guys, which will be hard considering many are asians and i believe they would prefer to fight overseas rather than in cali.
Seeing as DREAM will most likely fold later this year I think alot of brazilian/north american talent from the org. will come over. Some of the asian talent will come over but most likely will end up in sengoku.
Should be interesting to see if mayhem comes to fight jacare. I personally would love to see that. Too bad i don’t get showtime in Canada.
Actually, World Victory Road is the MMA promotion company and Sengoku is the name of the events. But you’re right, Mayhem vs Jacare would be great to see. It sucks that you can’t get Showtime in Canada.
yea that does suck ether. but you know what kicks a$$… free health care. we dont get that in the states, so its a trade off.