A funny thing happened on the way to Japan...

"What, me worry?"

Oh hey, you'll never guess what happened to the second bracket of Strikeforce's heavyweight grand prix.  In a development that should surprise no one, Sherdog reports that Strikeforce has been forced to push the rest of the tourney quarterfinals (Ubereem/Werdum and Barnett/Rogers) off of their pseudo-planned April 9th card.  That show will now go down in California, and while it's not specifically stated, I guess we can assume that the idea of holding it in conveniently commission-less Japan fell through, so Scott Coker was forced to return to his old stomping grounds.  Which of course means Josh Barnett and his steroid-ridden moobs have to stay home, which of course means they might as well postpone the whole bracket until they can come up with a Plan B.

This is still a rumor at this point, so there's no word on how long the tourney will be delayed.  And at least one journalist is already questioning if this tale is true to begin with, but since Coker won't return his calls and the rest of the SF staff are apparently left shrugging their shoulders, it doesn't look good.

The word is that the rumored Melendez/Kawajiri lightweight title fight will step up to fill the void, along with welterweight champ Nick Diaz versus Question Mark.  Remember when I mused aloud whether SF would promote Tyron Woodley up from the Challengers shows if Paul Daley lost his outsourced title eliminator against Yuya Shirai this weekend?  Probably not, but just roll with me here.  Well I must be a low-level psychic, because Cesar Gracie told Sherdog that Woodley is indeed being considered to challenge Diaz in case Daley either loses the Shirai fight, or wins but then turns down Diaz due to short notice.  April 9th would be exactly 6 weeks from this weekend, and if Jon Jones can handle that, then I submit that Daley would be a wanker to not suck it up too.

As for the man directly responsible for this whole shit-show, Barnett basically pulled the "no comment" defense, and said that he would simply adjust his schedule to make sure he'll be at peak doughy physical condition to throw down with Brett Rogers, if and when that actually happens.  I hereby pray to Xenu that possibly-roided Ubereem will one day utterly fucking crush Barnett's definitely-roided head flat in the semi-finals as karmic revenge for this bullshit.  A man can dream, can't he?

Source: http://www.fightlinker.com/a-funny-thing-happened-on-the-way-to-japan

New York Giants Philadelphia Eagles Washington Redskins New York Jets New England Patriots Denver Broncos