Ishida steps in for Thomson in Strikeforce bout with Melendez
Strikeforce lightweight champion Josh Thomson has been scratched from his title defense against Gilbert Melendez due to not being able to pass his medical screening for the event.
Thomson has been rehabilitating a broken leg suffered in training months ago, and apparently the injury has not been allowed the proper time to fully recover.
It was recently being reported by numerous sources that Mitsuhiro Ishida has been tabbed as a replacement for Thomson, and FiveOuncesOfPain.com has since been able to confirm the news of the bout-change through Strikeforce.
They will face off at “Strikeforce: Carano vs. Cyborg“, which is slated for August 15 from the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. The event will air live on Showtime.
The pair are far from strangers as Ishida holds the first defeat in the career of Melendez when they first met in Japan on New Years Eve, 2007. Ishida was able to control Melendez and edge out a hard fought unanimous decision in what was considered to be a mild upset at the time.
Melendez recently bounced back from losing his Strikeforce championship to Thomson in June of 2008 by knocking Rodrigo Damm senseless at “Strikeforce: Shamrock vs. Diaz” in April of this year.
Ishida will be looking to get back in the win column following a recent TKO defeat at the hands of Mizuto Hirota in Tokyo that came on the heels of back-to-back victories for the powerful wrestler known as “The Endless Warrior”.
Cory Brady is the managing editor of FiveOuncesOfPain.com, along with being a regular feature writer with Ultimate MMA Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/corybrady
| All posts by Cory Brady
Title shot coming off a loss…. allllrrrriiiggghht.
So the melendez thomson rematch gets replaced with a melendez ishida rematch?
i watched their first fight again just recentley it was close, wasnt really a defeat for Gil, certainly not a convincing win any way. i fancy Gil to take it this time.
If any one truly deserves the nick name ‘decision dan’ its Ishida. except he aint called dan
I knew that initial report was right!!!
I’ve said it 10 times already, and I’ll say it 10 more…
Strikeforce: Patchwork Quilt
I’m a hater. Can’t stand to watch Ishida fights. Hopefully Gilbert can kick it up a notch and make this fight at least semi entertaining.
“Decision Mitsuhiro”
Doesnt have the same ring to it.
I knew they would do this. Thomson was on crutches 2 weeks ago and is expected to fight? And then for StrikeForce to come out and say that there were no problems and the fight should go on as expected just baffled me. Not a bad replacement though
is it me or are the strike force titles water down.
They should go ahead and make it a catch weight fight as long as they’re at it. Really hard to respect an organization that constantly changes their matchups and allows for catch wieght fights because their fighters are not disciplined enough to make weight. Whatever though, it’s MMA and that’s good enough for me. I’ll just continue to regard Stikeforce as a 2nd tier MMA organization until they tighten up their rules and start punishing the fighters that can’t make weight or defend their titles within a reasonable time frame.
redness: Well, to be fair… Ishida IS the only other guy to have a win over Melendez.
It is easy to respect strikeforce because they are not trying to screw this card up, and in spite of all the guys going down this card still looks good. All the catchweight fights(2 so far) have been fights people want to see, so i would say it is hard not to respect them.
I just want one person to agree with me.
Patchwork Quilt- Taking various pieces of other material and making a blanket out of it.
Strikeforce- Taking various fighters and pairing them together in combat, only to change opponents every other day with other opponents.