Jason Miller pulls a Kanye, causes mayhem, gets a bully beatdown at Strikefarce

Everybody is nailing Jason “Mayhem” Miller to the wall for jumping into the cage to challenge middleweight champ Jake Shields to a rematch at the conclusion of Saturday night’s Strikeforce card in Nashville.

The resulting melee saw Shields shove Miller before Shields’ training partners – lightweight champ Gilbert Melendez and brothers Nick and Nate Diaz – jumped into the fray to start kicking and punching Miller. (Ed. note: When the video cuts away at the 0:15 mark, you miss two things: Shields and Melendez each shoving Miller.)

The impromptu interruption by Miller was not a surprise. This is what Miller does. He’s a self-promoter and a showman. He’d just TKO’ed Tim Stout in the first round of his unaired undercard bout and was looking for a little TV time alongside the fighter who beat him for the middleweight belt in November. He didn’t provoke anyone, he wasn’t threatening, he wasn’t angry. He stole a little of Shields’ thunder is all, by asking, “When do I get my rematch?” Nothing out of the ordinary about that. No harm, no foul.

The brawl that ensued, which ended with Miller in a heap on the canvas, was the most exciting five minutes of fighting on the entire card. It’ll get played on all the sports highlight reels and a few days from now it’ll be the only thing people will remember about the lackluster event. And the ratings show that nobody was watching the last 20 minutes of the card, anyway. So Strikeforce and CBS should be thanking Miller and writing him a big fat bonus cheque for making people pay attention to a lame duck event.

Now, I’m not condoning what happened. Miller entered the cage (apparently without permission) to do his sideshow shtick. What happened after that – the shoving, kicking, punching – is inexcusable and embarrassing and something close to criminal. The lame apologies afterward from Shields and Melendez are just that – lame. Shields even went so far as to say the whole thing was “no big deal.” And the Diaz brothers, well, they’re not exactly the kind of guys you bring home to mom. (Play the “How stoned or stupid is Nick Diaz?” game by watching this interview/apology.)

Mid-fracas, CBS announcer Gus Johnson tried to make sense of the situation as it escalated by saying, “Sometimes these things happen in MMA,” which makes no sense at all. These things don’t happen in MMA. They shouldn’t happen in MMA. Doesn’t matter that there’s lots of testosterone and adrenaline pumping. These things happen in the WWE, or when Mike Tyson bites an ear off. And reminding these “gentlemen” that they’re on national television? Yeah, that’s going to restore order.

As for the card itself, it’s hardly worth talking about. In theory, three title fights on one card is incredible. It’s the very definition of “stacked.” But when all three go the distance, that’s 75 minutes of intermittently entertaining but mostly dull non-action. At one point I even flipped the channel to catch Wanderlei Silva vs. Michael Bisping on Spike’s replay of UFC 110. Yeah, I was that bored.

In a mild upset, “King Mo” Lawal was too big and powerful and his wrestling was too strong for light heavyweight champ Gegard Mousasi, who – in retrospect – has been way over-rated. Mousasi spent the first round on his back looking relaxed, comfortable, even bored as he covered up. It was like a day at the beach while he waited for Lawal to punch himself out. Four rounds later and Mousasi was still on his back, Lawal was still punching (although weakly) and I was still bored. As FW’s Jesse Katz commented, it’s like they only fought one round and CBS just replayed it four times. Granted, Lawal’s face did look like Rocky Balboa by the time his hand was raised thanks to accumulation of tiny punches Mousasi was able to land from his back.

DREAM champ and grappling stud Shinya Aoki showed that he’s the highest-ranked one-dimensional fighter in MMA. He spent much of his five rounds scooting across the canvas on his butt as he tried to lure Strikeforce lightweight champ Melendez to the ground to no avail. Would the fight have been any different if the Japanese fighter had been able to wear his magic grappling pants? Not likely. Melendez delivered most of his punishment from standing en route to the unanimous decision. You have to wonder how long he’ll stick with Strikeforce before heading to the UFC.

Ditto middleweight champ Jake Shields, whose Strikeforce contract expired following his defeat of Dan Henderson. Shields survived a first-round assault by the Hunchback of  Temecula that included a missile of a right hand that put Shields on his ass. But Hendo couldn’t finish the job and was manhandled on the ground for the remaining stanzas. Despite being able to take mount at will, though, Shields was never able to put the former PRIDE and UFC star down and had to wait for the judges to confirm his victory . (That’s a polite way of saying Shields punches like a girl.)