Jay Hieron's Bumpy Road To The Top

This weekend's Strikeforce Miami card features a Welterweight tilt between Jay Hieron and Joe Riggs. The fight, which I assume will be for number one contendership in the WW division, is not even set to be aired on the main card on Showtime. That must really be a burn for the former IFL champion Hieron. Rewind back to Affliction "Trilogy" an event that Hieron was to be featured on against British beast Paul Daley, and probably getting gobs of cash for his trouble if Affliction followed the same pay scale they did with their other big name stars. Affliction Entertainment folds and leaves a bevy of fighters without a home until the UFC and Strikeforce scooped up the fighters contracts one by one. Heiron was ready to sign with the UFC, but held out because of the promise from Strikeforce that a title shot against Nick Diaz awaited him. The shot against Diaz never came to fruition due to the pesky CSAC's testing policies not favoring Diaz's penchant for the green stuff, so Hieron was left with his junk firmly in hand. That card which was supposed to feature him in a prominent bout instead had him facing TUF cast-off Jesse Taylor on the under card of the event.  Now that the next event has a welterweight title on the line one must assume that "The Thoroughbred" would be in that scenario, one would be mistaken. Strikeforce newcomer Marius Zaromskis takes the slot against Nick Diaz for the WW title. Marius is an impressive addition to the Strikeforce Welterweight line-up, but he has yet to fight for the organization and still leapfrogs Jay Hieron for the shot at gold. Nothing against Joe Riggs, who by the way is no easy fight, lets hope that Hieron can get past him to finally get his shot at that strap atop the 170lb division. For those of you who are interested in seeing the bout on Saturday, EA Sports is going to be streaming the fight live at http://www.easports.com/.