Note to Cung Le: perhaps you should not fight anymore

November 8, 9:02 PMDallas MMA/Pro Wrestling ExaminerGreg Garcia

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Surely I am not the only one other than Jake Shields that sees it as a little odd that Cung Le vacates the Strikeforce middleweight title but all of the sudden he is set to fight a month later? Le is scheduled to fight Scott Smith on December 19.

Yes, I know that his move roll was "unexpectedly" pushed back. However we have to ask the question, does he even want to fight?

Shield does not think he wants to fight, at least against him. "Cung won't fight me. That's why he vacated the belt, obviously, and then fights a month later."

Is there any other explanation?

"Everything came together so fast," Le said. "I wasn't expecting to come back so soon. I had a (movie) project I was working on right now, but it got pushed back till next year, so I figured I'd have a couple months to get in shape. ... I sat down with Scott and told him to give me two weeks. I called (American Kick boxing Academy trainer) Javier Mendez, and I started training. And after the first week, [Scott] goes, 'How do you feel?' I said, 'Oh, I'm very sore.' But the second week was a lot better, and now I have six more weeks to go. Ready or not, here I come."

Reason number one he does not want to fight is clearly the pay check is better in Hollywood, and at age 37 he can not be blamed for protecting his rep right? 'Undefeated MMA star Cung Le' sounds better than 'MMA fighter Cung Le' doesn't it?

Le is going to face Scott Smith, who is a strong striker but that is about it. Whether you want to admit it or not Smith is a much 'safer' fight (if there is such a thing) than Shields.

I doubt he vacated the title to avoid fighting Shields, but even still we can not expect him to be the next middleweight standout even if he were to quit movies and devoted himself to MMA. He's on the wrong side of 35 and though he has outstanding kickboxing experience, we can all agree MMA is a different animal. He kind of woke up one day and became a star in MMA. He has no wins over good in their prime fighters and shouldn't. 

Why may you ask? Le only has six fights. Also Strikeforce is not exactly bursting at the seems with what we could label 'good' middleweights. Le defeated Frank Shamrock for the title, but Shamrock is another guy who may want to think about if continuing to compete is that great of an idea as well. 

So Le wins the title, does not fight for almost two years and then vacates the championship. Perhaps someone should tell that Alistair Overeem. Overeem has not defended the so-called Strikeforce heavyweight title since winning it in 2007. At the same time, Strikeforce never really had any real challengers for him until recently. 

Look, Le is a great kickboxer and will out strike most Strikeforce middleweights but at the end of the day he is better off making movies. We can not expect him to fight into his forties but we should expect to see him in action movies for a while. Hollywood is just a better place for him.

All I can say to Cung Le supporters is I hope he proves me wrong, but if he is smart he will take the Hollywood pay check and forget all this MMA stuff. Hurray for Hollywood!