Jake Shields Says Cung Le Won't Fight Him

Posted by Ashish on 11.08.2009

Says Cung dodged him...

New Strikeforce middleweight champ Jake Shields said after last night's Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers event that former champ Cung Le vacated the belt because he didn't want to fight him. Le claims that his decision to return (he is set to return December 19th at Strikeforce: Evolution) just one month after vacating his belt was the result of a delay in one of his Hollywood gigs.

"Cung won't fight me," Sheilds said. "That's why he vacated the belt, obviously, and then fights a month later."

Asked why Le would vacate the belt only to return a month later, Shields said he had no answer.

"You'd have to ask Cung," Shields said. "He's the one who vacated his belt and then decided to fight a month later."

Le said the following about why he decided to come back in December.

"Everything came together so fast," Le said. "I wasn't expecting to come back so soon. I had a (movie) project I was working on right now, but it got pushed back till next year, so I figured I'd have a couple months to get in shape. ... I sat down with Scott and told him to give me two weeks. I called (American Kickboxing Academy trainer) Javier Mendez, and I started training. And after the first week, [Scott] goes, 'How do you feel?' I said, 'Oh, I'm very sore.' But the second week was a lot better, and now I have six more weeks to go. Ready or not, here I come."

When told that Shields said that he didn't want to fight, Le said the following.

"I'm actually honored that top fighters want to fight me," Le said. "It means I've done something right and made a big impact in MMA. But right now, I take one fight at a time, and if I do well, I'll look forward to what's going to be next and who's next. But right now, I need to make sure to get rid of this ring rust."

"I think Jake's always looking looking to promote the next fight and things like that, so I don't know," said Le.

Le and Shields did end up shaking hands and hugging.