FanHouse Joe Riggs

Nick Diaz has signed a contract to box professionally in addition to his commitments in MMA with Strikeforce, longtime boxing promoter Don Chargin announced Thursday.

"When the subject of mixed martial arts versus boxing arises, it always comes down to the boxer winning a boxing match easily and vice versa for MMA," Chargin said in a release. "However, after having seen the replays of Diaz's fights over the course of his career, I truly believe that this kid has what it takes to really make for some very entertaining fights within boxing. While some would state that he's merely a slugger possessing a good chin and a heavy work rate, there's something about his rhythm and fighting intelligence that really caught my eye."

Another day, another report that we've lost a high-profile fighter who was scheduled for a high-profile fight: Joe Riggs, who was scheduled to fight Nick Diaz for the Strikeforce welterweight title, is reportedly out of the August 15 card. That's the second title fight Strikeforce has lost this week (heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem pulled out of his bout with Fabricio Werdum), and it comes the same week as the news that Josh Barnett can't fight Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction Trilogy.

That means neither Affliction nor Strikeforce is giving its fans nearly as good a card as they were told they were getting when they purchased tickets, ordered pay-per-view and subscribed to Showtime. So now Affliction and Strikeforce should do the right thing for themselves and for MMA fans: Combine their cards.

Saturday night's fight between Phil Baroni and Joe Riggs may not be the most interesting bout on the Strikeforce card, but it certainly stole all the headlines in the weeks leading up to it.

Seems like every day another trash-talking episode popped up between the two out-spoken fighters. Whether it was Baroni calling out Riggs for missing a pre-fight conference call or Riggs accusing Baroni of being a drug user, if nothing else, both men did a fantastic job of selling this 170-pound clash.

FanHouse spoke to "The New York Bad Ass" via e-mail about restarting his career as a welterweight and what he hopes to accomplish in the future. The full interview is below.

On Saturday night, Strikeforce put on its first MMA show of 2009, and on Sunday night Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker talked to me about how he thinks the first show went and where he sees Strikeforce going in 2009.

Among the topics we discussed were the success of Nick Diaz, the future of Frank Shamrock, the weight of Cris Cyborg (and her likely future fight with Gina Carano), as well as the possibility that big names in MMA including Kimbo Slice, Tito Ortiz, Royce Gracie and Fedor Emelianenko could fight in the Strikeforce cage. The full interview is below.

The former EliteXC welterweight champion Jake Shields is expected to fight Joe Riggs in the April 11 Strikeforce event on Showtime, in a bout continuing the trend of the extremely talented Shields being unable to work out deals to fight top-notch opponents.