Are there any 170-pound MMAmania.com readers who can make it to San Jose in about an hour or so to fight Luke Stewart? There are major problems finding someone to fight this guy.
The Brazilian jiu-jitsu ace was originally set to face Shonie Carter at 170 pounds until "Mr. International' had to withdraw because of a knuckle injury.
Then Joe Riggs was supposed to fill-in at a 178-pound catchweight; however, "Diesel" pulled out of the fight hours before the weigh-ins because he ingested a prescribed percocet three days ago and was notified that the California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) would not allow him to compete.
Finally, Strikeforce officials informed Stewart that Drew Fickett would step up at the eleventh hour and take the fight at 185 pounds. Of course, there was a problem with that fight, too.
It's only fitting.
It turns out that "The Master" has a contract with the Canadian-based fight promotion Maximum Fighting Championship (MFC) that will not allow him to compete within six weeks of a scheduled fight -- his July 25 title fight against Ryan Ford is five weeks away.
So, again, Luke Stewart is opponent-less ... and it will stay that way at least for this weekend.
Unsurprisingly, Strikeforce was unable to find another replacement this late in the game. Therefore, after one of the weirdest 24 hours leading up to a fight there will indeed be no fight at all for Luke Stewart.
After all this drama within such a short time -- and only a few hours before fight time -- nobody would blame Luke Stewart for just having this fight scrapped altogether himself when things started going south. Being the true competitor that he is, Stewart would have likely signed a bout agreement to fight the Pope if Strikeforce officials proposed the match up.
Perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. This was Stewart's initial fight back since suffering the first loss of his career. And the bizarre circumstances could have been a little bit too much extra adversity for a young fighter such as himself to handle.
On the other hand, this was also Stewart's first fight on the televised portion of a major event. It has to be a huge let down.
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