5 Reasons Keith Jardine Does Not Deserve a Shot at the Strikeforce Title

Yesterday, it was announced that Keith Jardine will receive the first shot at the newly-crowned Strikeforce middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.

As soon as this matchup was announced, many people were surprised by it and could not figure out how this fight came to be.

Jardine does not deserve this shot at the middleweight title, and here's why.

He's Coming off a Draw

In his last fight, he fought to a draw!

It wasn't a win, it was a draw.

Things like this have happened in the past, and heck, guys have gotten title shots coming off losses, but when Zuffa purchased Strikeforce, you thought they'd step it up in matchmaking.

Not looking like that happened.

He's Never Fought at Middleweight

In this fight, he'll be making his debut in the middleweight division.

Yeah, his debut. He's never fought at 185 before.

For the most part, you want to give a guy a test fight in a new division before giving him a title fight.

His Recent Record

Jardine has considerably tailed off as of late.

He started off his career 11-1-1, but in his past 12 fights, he has only gone 4-7-1, with losses to Houston Alexander, Wanderlei Silva, Rampage Jackson, Thiago Silva, Ryan Bader, Matt Hamill and Trevor Prangley.

His wins in that time are a split-decision over Chuck Liddell—who was in his own downslide—a split-decision over Brandon Vera  and wins over Francisco France and Aron Lofton.

Have you heard of those two? I haven't...

Has Been out for Eight Months

He's coming off a draw, and he hasn't fought in eight months.

Jardine is no spring chicken at 36 years old, so time off is necessary, but a guy coming off an eight-month layoff off a draw doesn't deserve a title shot.

He Didn't Earn It

The most simple reason is that Jardine has simply not earned a shot at the title.

Tim Kennedy was supposed to fight for it, but an injury forced him out, so they instead decided to give the shot to Jardine.

There were three other potential men who could have fought for the title: Derek Brunson, 9-0, including three wins in the Challengers series; Yancy Medeiros, 9-0 overall, 2-0 in the challengers series; and the third potential fight would be a rematch with Jacare.

Simply put, Jardine did not earn this shot.