PRIDE GP Winner Misaki Signs with Strikeforce

Highly ranked middleweight and 2006 PRIDE Welterweight Grand Prix winner Kazuo Misaki (19-8-2) has signed with Strikeforce.

News of the signing was broken by Ron Kruk on Friday's edition of "Inside MMA," a new partner site of MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com).

According to the report, Misaki has signed a two-fight deal with the Strikeforce, a quickly growing MMA organization headquartered in California. As we first announced last week, Strikeforce is close to announcing a new deal that will give the organization a weekly presence on NBC.

Misaki's signing strengthens Strikeforce's middleweight division, which includes the organizations's world middleweight champ Frank Shamrock, U.S. champ Eugene Jackson, undefeated Cung Le, Phil Baroni and Joe Riggs.

Shamrock and Le meet later this month in what could be the organization's biggest show to date. "Strikeforce/EliteXC: Shamrock vs. Cung Le" airs March 29 on Showtime. Misaki could be a future opponent for the winner.

The deal is exclusive in North America but non-exclusive elsewhere.

The 31-year-old fought almost exclusively in Pancrase and PRIDE before recent fights at "Yarennoka!" in December and the World Victory Road debut show earlier this month.

Misaki owns victories over some of the biggest names in MMA, including Denis Kang and Dan Henderson, while his losses have come against top-10 fighters such as Nate Marquardt, Paulo Filho and Frank Trigg. He most recently submitted Siyar Bahadurzada at the March 5 WVR show.

source: http://mmajunkie.com/