Drinking Buddies Dan Henderson and Jake Shields to Fight for Strikeforce MW Title

It was exactly one week ago today that Dan Henderson and Jake Shields bumped into eachother at the local watering hole and decided to throw some drinks back together.  The pair will now get to know each other even better as their impending collision for the Strikeforce middleweight title has been made official.

The heavily rumored clash will take place sometime in April, and there is no confirmation as of yet on whether the 185-pound championship bout will be shown on CBS or Showtime.  Shields had the following comments on the fight and the potential venues:

It's a go now. We finally worked it out a few days ago.  It's a done deal, it's been agreed upon by both parties as far as I know, and I think it's set to go.

I have a date (and) venue, but they told me to hold that back. Hopefully CBS. I think it's CBS. There's a slight possibility of Showtime because they're still (working it out). I don't know the rest of the card or any of that yet. But me and Dan's on, and I'm hoping it's on CBS.

Shields on assuming his usual role of the underdog: 

I always prefer to be the underdog. Dan's a great fighter, he doesn’t have a lot of holes in his game, but I think he does have a few, and I'm going to go out there and try to exploit them.

 Current Strikeforce champion Shields has crossed over enemy lines to assist his friend Chuck Liddell on "The Ultimate Fighter", which is now being taped in Las Vegas.  Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker gave a somewhat reserved blessing of Shields' choice to consort with a rival promotion, as long as Shields remained focus on the task ahead of him in April. 

The Shields-Henderson brawl will serve as either the main-event or the co-main, depending on how things shake out with Fedor Emelianenko, who is rumored to be eyeing Fabricio Werdum as his next opponent.  Also expected for this Strikeforce card is a light-heavyweight title fight between Gegard Mousasi and Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal--which will make for quite an appetizing line-up.

Source:  MMAWeekly