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Strikeforce held an open workout and press conference yesterday at Legends gym in Hollywood, California for their upcoming Strikeforce “Nashville” event. Here’s highlights, video interviews and pictures courtesy of Strikeforce, Showtime, Sherdog and FIGHT! Magazine.

It’s finally official!

Looks like we finally have our answer on Jay Hieron’s promised title shot. According to Scott Coker, before they knew Nick Diaz would be fighting on the Strikeforce “Miami” card, they offered Hieron the fight against Marius Zaromskis, but Hieron’s agent, Ken Pavia, turned it down. With their DREAM alliance, they had to put Zaromskis in a title fight since he’s the DREAM welterweight champion, so ultimately Hieron was the odd man out when he turned the Zaromskis fight down and ended up with Joe Riggs instead. If he beats Riggs he’s supposed to get the Diaz-Zaromskis winner.

Fans and media members weren’t the only ones who were disgusted with Shinya Aoki’s actions immediately following the Mizuto Hirota bout at Dynamite!! 2009. World Victory Road was too, and now they’re demanding that FEG take action and “severely reprimand” Aoki for his behavior.

Cagewriter has video of Dana White talking to the press at UFC 108 about a variety of topics including when they’ll know when Brock Lesnar may return (this week), his thoughts on Shinya Aoki’s arm-breaking, bird-flipping incident from Dynamite!! 2009 (part of the fight game), who Takanori Gomi may fight (Kenny Florian possible) and more.

“After my fight, I was excited, and so I did something rude that I should apologize for. But that showed just how excited I was over that fight…When I had his arm behind his back, I could feel it popping. I thought, ‘Well, this guy’s pride just won’t let him tap, will it?’ So without hesitation, I broke it. I heard it break, and I thought, ‘Ah, there, I just broke it.’ I was stopped afterward, but even if I hadn’t been, continuing to break it more would have been fine by me…Dream got a solid win [with my victory over Hirota], so that was good, but we finished off Sengoku. Although Sengoku was already finished from the very beginning. When Sasahara tells me to go and do something, I do it, and that’s how I live my life. If Sasahara tells me to go to Strikeforce and take them out or ‘Go and kill that guy,’ I’m going to do it. Even if he tells me to go take out Tanigawa, I’d do that too.”

—Shinya Aoki attempting to apologize for flipping off Mizuto Hirota after he broke his arm at Dynamite!! 2009.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting that warm fuzzy feeling from Aoki that’s he truly regretful for his actions which one prominent MMA journalist described as the “behavior of a crank toddler.” His message to Tatsuya Kawajiri didn’t help either.

“I received a challenge from [Kawajiri], and so without telling him to shut the f— up, I accept the challenge and look forward to our fight,” said the colorful grappler, who added that he would like to have seven to 10 fights in 2010.

Gee, how nice of him. I wonder what Scott Coker thinks about all of this.

FieLDS Dynamite!! 2009 took place earlier this morning in Saitama, Japan. Fight videos above with short recap and results below.

FieLDS Dynamite!! 2009 takes place on New Year’s Eve at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The event will be broadcast live in the US on HDNet at 3AM ET late Wednesday night.

More pre-fight interviews on DREAM’s YouTube Channel.