Last week Erin Toughill posted on her Facebook that she was quitting Strikeforce. Erin is scheduled to challenge Cris Cyborg for the Strikeforce 145lb Women's Championship. Back in November Erin was supposed to fight Marloes Coenen but was forced to pull out due to a serious health issue. She's OK now but she has been telling Strikeforce that she wanted a tuneup match since the beginning of the year. Strikeforce had the opportunity to address this issue at the FCF show in Oklahoma in January. But my understanding is that instead of helping Erin, they chose to discourage Erin by not assisting FCF financially by bringing over an opponent from Europe. Meanwhile, Strikeforce PR guy Mike Afromowicz has been telling the media that Cyborg vs Toughill is scheduled for June regardless of whether Erin gets her tuneup match. You must understand that Afromowicz just does what he's told but he officially represents Strikeforce. After Erin posted her resignation on Facebook, Strikeforce fighter laiason Shannon Knapp posted a reply that they were ready to set up her tuneup match for the Apr. 17 undercard. This was the first Erin had heard about this. Apparently she's getting different answers from different people at Strikeforce and I guess someone told her that she won't be getting the tuneup fight. So Erin had to draw a line in the sand. Erin is still in talks with Strikeforce but there's no question that Strikeforce's notoriously poor communications with fighters continues to cause problems. They need to smarten up. BTW, I know who the scheduled opponent is but I'm not revealing that and any replies revealing that won't be approved.
I don't blame Erin. I like strikeforce but they need to get their heads on straight when it comes to booking matches. They could benefit from someone like Erin Toughill. They need to have a meeting with her, apoligize for their recent screwups, and hopefull come to an understanding with one another. With luck we could still see Erin fight on strikeforce.
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