With all the rumours of the announcement of Fedor signing to the UFC floating around, the collapse of Affliction’s promotion business might turn out to be a good thing for a lot of the fighters. Of course, this does not include fighters who have since signed with STRIKEFORCE such as Gegard Mousasi, Jay Hieron et al.

This makes UFC’s Friday conference call an even more anticipated one with all the major announcements that can come through at the call.

Hieron Signs with STRIKEFORCE

The pieces are falling ladies and gentlemen! Jay Hieron follows in the footsteps of fellow Affliction victim Gegard Mousasi and has signed with STRIKEFORCE. This strengthens Strikeforce’s welterweight division a little more since having an absolute stud like “The Thoroughbred” is a real nice addition to a weak division depth wise.

Hieron who is coming off a 45 second KO victory in his last outing at Affliction “Day of Reckoning” is one of the better welterweight fighters not fighting in the talent rich UFC division and was actually offered a UFC contract before he signed on to Affliction due to business reasons.

Hieron is now being touted as Nick Diaz’s next opponent and may in fact be fighting on the August 15th card, replacing Joe “Diesel” Riggs and further strengthening an already stacked card on Strikeforce “Carano v/s Cyborg”.

If this match is made, this could possibly be the show stealer in this card and makes Strikeforce’s next event an even more must-watch.

IFL champion may soon become the latest of the now defunct IFL champions to sign up with Affliction and although talks are still ongoing, Hieron, who trains at Extreme Couture, has verbally agreed to fight Drew Fickett. Sherdog.com was the first to cite this rumour. Hieron has literally dismantled the rest of the IFL welterweight division recently steamrolling through Mark Miller via TKO in the first round. Fickett, who has recently been in the news for his showdown with MFC’s Mark Pavelish, is a game opponent who is trying to get his career back on track. He recently lost Richard Viles, a fighter not too many people knew about at Rumble In The Cage and will be trying to get a win under his belt against the very dangerous Hieron. Many people believed that Jay Hieron might be one of the fighters that the UFC might be trying to get back in its fold and it looks like Hieron who has reportedly got a lot of offers from varied promotions is finally a hot commodity in the open MMA market. Rumour soon to turn reality? You decide.