Jake Shields drops the bombshell that win, lose or draw on April 17th he’s a free agent
Strikeforce middleweight champion, Jake Shields has revealed he’s in a unique position heading into his first title defence on April 17th against Dan Henderson, explaining that win, lose or draw he could walk away from the promotion as he will be out of contract.
Speaking via MMAJunkie.com, Shields said:
“I am happy with Strikeforce. They’ve given me big fights like I asked for, so I’m happy with them. But also, I do want big fights, and of course the UFC has a lot of big fights as well. I try not to think about that too much; I’m just trying to get through Dan. This is the biggest fight of my career. I’ll just get through that and re-evaluate the situation from there.”
“I wanted to be a free agent. I haven’t been a free agent in a couple of years, and I wanted the option of leaving Strikeforce. Not that I’m leaving Strikeforce; I just wanted the option. Right now, I can’t really talk to other shows. It’s in the contract. You can’t talk any business. So I just want to be in a situation where I can look at my options and figure it out from there.”
“I like Strikeforce, so as long as it’s a good offer, and it looks like they’re going to get some good opponents – I also want to fight top competition, so it’s the combination of pay, exposure, and top competition. Those are the three things I’ll make my decision off of.”
Normally in these instances a “champions clause” will be in place, preventing a title holder from walking away from the promotion and automatically renewing their contract. It appears that no such clause is in place in Shield’s case, putting the UFC on red alert.
By Michael Pepper. (Follow me on Twitter)
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