Cung Le, who had been one of the main draws of Strikeforce before the signing of Fedor Emelianenko, has announced that he is vacating the Strikeforce middleweight title. He states that he wishes to go into acting full-time. The belt will be on the line on November 7th in the fight between Jake Shields and Jason "Mayhem" Miller. So let's all root for Miller!
What does this mean for Strikeforce?
If Strikeforce hadn't signed Fedor, this would have been a very big blow to Strikeforce. Their two biggest drawing cards before this were Cung Le and Frank Shamrock. But Cung Le hasn't fought in over a year, in an amazing match against Shamrock where he broke Frank's arm with a kick. Frank is clearly on the decline, and a potential fight of Frank Shamrock vs. Ken Shamrock went down in flames after Ken got knocked out by journeyman Robert "Buzz" Berry, injured himself before he was scheduled to fight Kimbo Slice in the fight that doomed the EliteXC, and got his license suspended for getting knocked out too many times.
Since that fight went up in smoke, Strikeforce has shifted the focus away from Shamrock, and have had no choice but to shift the focus away from Le. The signing of Fedor and the length of time Le has been out of action both help to soften the blow, but Le is the first MMA fighter to retire on the top of his game. He leaves fighting sports undefeated in both MMA and kickboxing.