At the post-fight press conference for Strikeforce: Fedor v. Rogers, Jake Shields stated the following:
Cung won’t fight me. That’s why he vacated the belt obviously…and then fights a month later.
It was an odd moment with Shields trying to display some personality while giving off facial expressions that seemed to display a level of discomfort. His point does make sense to a point and it never hurts to try and build up to a big fight but he just didn’t look comfortable doing it. The video is here and around 2:30 is the moment in question. A side note, the guy who yells “yeah Jake!” is Gilbert Melendez who seemed to spend a lot of time trying to take some of the sting away from the chorus of boos that greeted Shields following his victory. It was the most aggressive response I’ve ever seen for a title winner.
Cung had his time at the mic and responded with the fact that he just had a schedule opening because a filming got changed so he got in the gym for two weeks and felt like he could be ready so he took the fight with Smith.
I just hope Strikeforce doesn’t chase promoting this fight too hard because Shields actually lost most of his limited “star power” with a dominant but dreadfully boring decision over Miller and Le is apparently only interested in fighting when his movie schedule allows him to do so.