Shields signs with UFC! Greeted by some with collective yawn

Shields signs with UFC! Greeted by some with collective yawn

A strange phenomenon occured last week with the signing of Jake Shields. After all the speculation and drama surrounding the possibility of the UFC stealing away Strikeforce's middleweight champ, the signing was greeted with skepticism and a ho-hum attitude from much of the MMA blogosphere. Yahoo! Sports' Dave Meltzer was even stronger:

Honestly, the less they show of him the better. You showcase people to their strengths and hide their weaknesses. You look at that for every person and then expose them accordingly. Either a guy with no sub defense and takedown defense, or hide him on the undercards where nobody can see him except the local ticket buyers, preferably on a Vegas show where nobody shows up until late. Having people sleep through Jon Fitch fights does less to make them want to see him against GSP again. However, if they never saw those fights, and marketed a 15 fight winning streak and had people talk him up, they wouldn't know enough to not want to see him.

Kid Nate from Bloody Elbow tried to take Meltzer to the woodshed:

I have to strongly disagree with Meltzer here. Shields has been in some not so great fights. But he's also been in plenty of good ones. Personally, I loved the (Jason) "Mayhem" (Miller) vs Shields match as a great grappling battle. It was just wildly inappropriate for prime time on CBS. On a UFC PPV, I think the fans could appreciate the skill and drama of two top grapplers battling, plus elbows are legal in the UFC and that will make Shields' game much more violent and entertaining.�

Cagewriter tracked down Meltzer so he could elaborate on his take about Shields.

I'm pro-Shields to the UFC. He's a top 15 pound-for-pounder with a 15-fight win streak. He just manhandled a former UFC top three middleweight in Dan Henderson and his grappling is top notch. Just because his style can be plodding doesn't mean he's not marketable. How is he any different than some of the elite jiu-jitsu aces out of Brazil or better yet the hundreds of elite wrestlers around MMA? These are guys who generally possess rudimentary skills with their hands and if they don't get the fight to the ground, it can be a slopfest.

Because almost all of the elite stand-up fighters don't possess the necessary takedown defense to keep the champ at bay, it's pretty clear the sport is short on strikers dangerous enough at welterweight to challenge St. Pierre. Dan Hardy and Paul Daley are primarily strikers and very marketable. Frankly their shots in big fights were borderline dreadful to watch. So why not bring in a guy who can test GSP in the grappling department and see what happens? The sport is all about matchups. We're still very much in the infant stages of MMA and there simply aren't a lot of truly well-rounded fighters out there. If he can get by Martin Kampmann and maybe one other elite welterweight, Shields (25-4) deserves his shot at solving the GSP riddle.�

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