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[jlruthven84]

A bout between lightweight champions Gilbert Melendez and Shinya Aoki is locked for Strikeforce’s April 17 event at the Sommet Center in Nashville, Tenn., confirmed a source with direct knowledge of the bout.

Josh Gross, of Sports Illustrated, was the first to report Monday of the matchup. Sherdog.com has confirmed independently that the bout has been signed.

Aoki, Sherdog.com’s No. 2 lightweight, and Melendez, ranked at No. 8, will vie for the latter’s Strikeforce 155-pound title. Aoki’s Dream title will not be up for grabs. If warranted, sources have indicated a rematch of the bout has been proposed to take place in Dream’s ring under their varied regulations at a later date.

Melendez-Aoki will be one of three championship bouts offered at the April 17 event, which will air live on CBS. Gegard Mousasi will defend his light heavyweight title against undefeated wrestler Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal, while Jake Shields will meet two-division Pride titleholder Dan Henderson in a 185-pound championship match.

Melendez, who turns 27 on April 12, unified the promotion’s lightweight titles with a five-round “fight of the year” contender against Josh Thomson last December in San Jose, Calif.

The 26-year-old Aoki grasped the Dream lightweight championship with a second-round armbar against Joachim Hansen at Dream 11 last October. The flamboyant submission artist snapped Sengoku champion Mizuto Hirota’s arm with an unconventional hammerlock in only 77 seconds at K-1 “Dynamite” on New Year’s Eve in Saitama, Japan.

Mousasi vs King Mo, Henderson vs Shields, and now this? Strikeforce is still kind of a mess, but I do appreciate a good stacked-ass card.

Source: Aoki-Melendez Signed for April 17 Strikeforce

[Xanatos]

ya i guess i spoke too soon with the card bashing. as long as the mousasi fight holds up, i'll be putting this on my calender

[Caine2878]

I love this card but with all these fights on one card events following this one will be severely lacking.

[snakebite]

agreed^^

[davidgoliath1978]

I think strikeforce is starting to shape up. They actually have multiple fights on each card i wanna see. This coming card I think is awesome, but they need to set up contenders and ranked divisions. There is no order to the fights, they just put on the best fight they can in each weight class. This makes for good fights, but its hard to see who is next in line and, really hurts the importance of the fight to that division. Hopefully they start fixing that as the divisions get deeper. Its exciting to see someone actually take the number two spot and compete with UFC. hopefully it will at least change how the UFC does business, but I doubt it.

[Fedorlei Gomipierre]

Big jump up in competition for Gilbert and I think if Aoki can avoid his solid boxing and take this into what is utterly "his world" on the ground, it's his to lose.

Aoki via GNP or RNC Rd. 2.

[Badluck33]

I wouldn't rule Gilbert Melendez out of this one. He is a solid striker and very hard to take down so i don't envision a GNP ending by AOKI. Only way Gilbert loses(IMO) is via decision.

[Masscore]

I think Melendez is a tough match-up for Aoki. His boxing is not bad and he has pretty good wrestling. If he can keep it standing it could to be a very very long night for Aoki. But in the same sense, Aoki only needs this fight to get to the ground once in order to do some damage and pull off the win. I am gonna take the upset and say Melendez wins via TKO in the 3rd.

[KevoOnTheRadio]

All the fights taht SF has announced in the last day, THIS is the one I'm looking forward to the most. I'm over the whole HW clusterfuck they have. I got Melendez by R2 TKO, proving he's the top 5 ranked fighter that I think he has the potential to be. Hopefully we see Josh Thomson vs. Tatsuya Kawajiri.

[Chute_Boxe44]

Originally Posted by Masscore

I think Melendez is a tough match-up for Aoki. His boxing is not bad and he has pretty good wrestling. If he can keep it standing it could to be a very very long night for Aoki. But in the same sense, Aoki only needs this fight to get to the ground once in order to do some damage and pull off the win. I am gonna take the upset and say Melendez wins via TKO in the 3rd.

Agreed. I think Melendez is a really bad match up for Aoki. Someone who can out wrestle him and hold his own on the ground. Like you said, if Melendez keeps this on the feet, he has this fight. Melendez by tko round 2.