Strikeforce Reportedly Embraces Post-fight Brawler. Not Diaz. Daley.

Middleeasy.com, via a tip from a historically “reliable source,” is reporting that Paul Daley has signed a six-fight deal with Strikeforce.  His first opponent will reportedly be welterweight Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, husband of fellow cyborg Christiane Santos.

After an apparently frustrating loss to Josh Koscheck at UFC 113, Daley sucker-punched his rival several seconds after the fight ended.  A video clip can be seen here.

UFC President Dana White responded with his own post-fight jab:

"I don't care if he fights in every show all over the world and becomes the best and everybody thinks he's the pound-for-pound best in the world -- he will never fight in the UFC ever again.  He's done."  

Daley was apologetic in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, saying:

“There is no excuse for my actions and I know what I did was very unprofessional.  I was immensely frustrated by a collection of things that took place throughout the fight as well as leading up to it, but I’m certainly not trying to condone or excuse my actions.”

“Josh implemented his game plan perfectly taking me down and staying on top of me for the majority of the fight.  I was also frustrated about him claiming (and acting like) I knee’d him in the head on the ground when it was clear for all to see in the video replay that I didn’t connect at all with the knee I threw.”

“Then finally, the verbal abuse Josh hit me with in the final 30 seconds of the fight simply pushed me over the edge and my frustrations came out as I knew I’d lost the fight, was unhappy with my own performance and had then been ridiculed by my opponent to top things off.”

“This is certainly no excuse for my actions . . . .”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is called a “blanket apology,” not so much because of its sweeping content, but because of its intended target.

Regardless, it wasn’t likely that a competitor of Daley’s caliber could be ruined by a bit of spontaneous thuggery, and Daley is the sort of personality and talent who could easily end up controlling the angle and intensity of the Strikeforce spotlight.

But Daley’s location aside, here’s the interesting thing:  In April 2010, a notorious Strikeforce post-fight brawl ensued on national television between Jason “Mayhem” Miller and Jake Shields, Nick Diaz and a handful of other fighters.  The video can be seen here. 

If the rumors about Daley are true, does it say something about the philosophy of Strikeforce, an organization that now seems to be gobbling up the fruits of the same sort of incident that embarrassed it in April?  Maybe not.  But regardless if the signing functions as any sort of media blunder, it will be difficult for the organization to hereafter maintain that it is overly offended by post-fight behavioral violations.