"I don’t want the media to make any excuses if I go out there and he beats me fair and square. I don’t want people thinking that he beat me because I had all this time off or ring rust or whatever. I’m telling you right now I’m 100 percent. I’m ready to fight and if he beats me it’s because he was the better fighter that night. There is nothing else to it. I want to make that clear to the media now and to everyone who talks to me and to all my friends even and even to the guy who comes up to me in an alleyway and says something to me. I’m 100 percent, I’m ready to fight and I’m ready to bring my title home. If he beats me it’s because he was the better fighter."
-- Strikeforce Lightweight Champion Josh Thomson wants everyone to know that he is completely healed from a string of injuries that have kept him out of competition since Sept. 2008. "The Punk" is set to rematch interim 155-pound kingpin Gilbert Melendez at Strikeforce: "Evolution" on Dec. 19 to unify the titles. And win, lose or draw he wants to make it perfectly clear that he's ready to rock and roll once and for all against his former training partner. Thomson dominated Melendez in their first encounter in June 2008, earning a hard-fought, five-round unanimous decision. He's under no illusions that he will have similar success the second go around ... especially since "El Nino" has kept quite active waiting for Thomson to recover. So can Thomson knock the rust off and topple Melendez once again or is this exciting pairing rubber match material?
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