From the official Strikeforce press release:
NEW YORK (December 10, 2009)-Former World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) heavyweight champion and undefeated mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter has signed a multi-year agreement with STRIKEFORCE and will make his debut for the world championship MMA promotion at BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, Florida on Saturday, January 30.
The 6 foot 3 inch, 250 pound Lashley, also a former collegiate wrestling star for Missouri Valley College and member of The United States Army, will face an opponent that has not yet been determined during the live, SHOWTIME® telecast of STRIKEFORCE: Miami, the historic, first-ever STRIKEFORCE event in the state of Florida.
In his last MMA start on June 27, 2009, the 33-year-old pulverized and scored a first round (3:17) TKO on 6 foot 5 inch, 350 plus pound goliath Bob “The Beast” Sapp with a barrage of punches in Biloxi, Mississippi. The win brought Lashley’s overall MMA record to 4-0.
To cut through the obvious parallels to a certain UFC star this is taken from my article on the signing over at SBNation.com:
This signing has been rumored since Strikeforce’s Scott Coker promised two new heavyweight signings following their November 7 CBS event. The other rumored heavyweight name was Andrei Arlovski. This move has some parallels to the UFC’s move to get Brock Lesnar except that Lashley never managed to hit the levels of stardom that Lesnar did in the WWE despite being a champion and headlining a Wrestlemania event.
Also, by the time Brock Lesnar had four fights under his belt he had knocked out Randy Couture while Bobby is coming off a dominating victory over Bob Sapp. But Lesnar’s fast track is something that is so incredibly rare in this sport that to hold Lashley to the same standard simply because they were both pro wrestlers with an amateur wrestling background is quite unfair.
What there is to learn from this is that Strikeforce is far from slinking away after doing a rating that some have implied was a disappointment to CBS in November. The promotion has, in recent days, signed KJ Noons, Dan Henderson, and now Bobby Lashley. All three of those are names that go at the top end of the roster in terms of either marketing (Lashley), competition (Noons) or both (Henderson).