Jake Shields attends UFC 115; Dana White says negotiations underway
by John Morgan on Jun 13, 2010 at 5:15 am ET
VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Strikeforce middleweight champion Jake Shields (25-4-1) made another cameo appearance at a UFC event – this time at Saturday's UFC 115 card in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Shields has attended a handful of UFC events in recent months, and UFC president Dana White this week admitted for the first time he's actively negotiating with the Strikeforce star.
"[Shields] was here," White told MMAjunkie.com (
www.mmajunkie.com). "I talked to him. We're in negotiations with him right now."
As MMAjunkie.com reported earlier this month, Shields' exclusive negotiation period with Strikeforce recently concluded. As such, the Strikeforce champion is free to seek bids for his services.
Shields' contract is believed to contain a "matching period" that allows Strikeforce the option to match offers from other companies, though the length of that clause is currently unknown.
White said he remains confident that Shields will eventually land in the UFC, but he insisted that time has not yet come.
"We haven't signed [Shields] yet," White said. "Trust me, I'll let you guys know when we sign him – the second we do."
Whether Shields signs with the UFC or returns to Strikeforce, he's expected to face a suspension stemming from a post-fight scuffle at this past April's "Strikeforce: Nashville" event.
At Saturday's UFC event, Shields nearly found himself involved in a melee of a different sort – though cooler heads prevailed this time around.
Following UFC 115's first main-card bout between welterweights Carlos Condit and Canada's Rory MacDonald – in which the Canuck was finished in the final seconds of a fight he was winning through two rounds – Shields and Cesar Gracie teammate Nate Diaz were pelted with a beer that was thrown from the crowd.
The primary target of the projectile was apparently none other than White, and the UFC exec said that along with the help of the GM Place crowd, the offending beverage-tosser was quickly addressed.
"When MacDonald lost, some dude threw a beer at me," White said. "That's never happened in 10 years. We threw his ass out quick. He hit me, Nate Diaz and Jake Shields.
"You know what I love about our fans? I jumped up and said, 'Who the [expletive] threw that?' The whole place went, 'He did!' You go to a football game, everybody would just sit there, and you don't know who threw it. The whole [expletive] place went, 'He threw it.'"
For complete coverage of UFC 115, check out the UFC Events section of MMAjunkie.com.
