Jake Shields hasn't exactly been given the greatest chance to defeat the welterweight champion at UFC 129 on April 30 but if he does, he's already got ideas of moving up a weight class.
The Cesar Gracie jiu-jitsu player -- who left Strikeforce as the reigning middleweight champion -- has bounced around weight classes throughout his highly successful mixed martial arts career, with 170-pounds widely regarded as his natural (and most successful) weight class.
However, if all he has to do to earn himself a bigger and better challenge is to pack on a few pounds, well, suffice to say he's perfectly willing to make that sacrifice.
As Shields tells USA Today, he doesn't ever want to reach the point where he's bored within the sport.
"Moving up and down in weight is kind of a pain in the (butt), but hey, it's something I'll probably do again. Yeah, I think I would (test the 185-pound waters again). I'm always looking for challenges, so I'm going to go where the challenge is. If I'm successful at 170 and take that belt, I'll probably start thinking about (it). I'm in the sport to test myself. If I start getting bored, I really wouldn't want to be here anymore. So yeah, I would definitely move up."Shields won the vacant Strikeforce middleweight championship at the "Fedor vs. Rogers" event back in Nov. 2009 over Jason "Mayhem" Miller before schooling Dan Henderson in his first defense of said title.
He ditched the murky waters in San Jose for the greener pastures of the UFC shortly after, but instead of continuing his dominance at middleweight, he elected to drop back down to his more natural weight class.
An uninspired performance against Martin Kampmann followed, due largely to issues with his weight cut. He says he'll have no such problem when he takes on St. Pierre on April 30 but will that be the case?
That remains to be seen, but weighty issues aside, first up is the biggest fight of Shields stellar career.
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