Despite Jason “Mayhem” Miller’s recent trash talking efforts, which included throwing down some of his hard earned money on a “Don’t Be Scared Homie” t-shirt, the middleweight will not get a crack at Nick Diaz as his angry heart so desires. Instead, the promotion has announced today that Diaz will rematch KJ Noons, October 9th, in San Jose.
Now although Miller’s feud with Diaz may be more current, due to the ‘oh how barbarous’ post-fight brawl in April that involved Mayhem, Jake Shields, the Diaz brothers and crew, it wasn’t that long ago that the Diaz / Noons rivalry was the current feud of the month. Diaz never got over the stoppage loss due to cuts he incurred vs. KJ in November, 2007 (the last time Nick lost), and of course, if you need a little in the cage, post-fight brawl action to make a feud credible, there was this little ‘incident.’
Noons vs. Diaz II will be a great, great fight, and as we just noted, there’s a rather unhealthy history here to make it that much more interesting, but that said, it is somewhat surprising that Strikeforce didn’t roll with Miller on this one no? After all, Miller is a MTV star and can hype up a fight with the best of them. In a report earlier today from MMA Junkie, however, Diaz’s trainer Cesar Gracie said that a fight with Miller wouldn’t happen unless he agreed to a catch-weight. One would think this could have gotten worked out but…It’s going to be interesting to see how Noons looks at 170.