Jake Shields considering move back to welterweight

Jake Shields‘ MMA career has been up in the air ever since he came over to the UFC after a six-year, 14 fight unbeaten streak. The former Strikeforce middleweight champion has gone 2-2 with one no contest since making the transition and has had a difficult time finding a comfortable fighting weight. 

He debuted in the UFC against Martin Kampmann in the 170 division and squeezed out a controversial victory (seriously, how many people get by Kampmann without controversy). He was then rewarded with a title fight against Georges St-Pierre but lost on points. After the loss, Shields, perhaps unwisely, pushed on with a fight against Jake Ellenberger despite his father passing away prior to the clash. The result was an ugly one as Ellenberger flattened Shields in the first round. A move to middleweight followed where he earned yet another relatively ugly decision victory over Yoshihiro Akiyama at UFC 144. After that came the fight with Ed Herman that he initially won but was changed to a no contest after Shields failed a drug test.

Today, Shields is considering going back to welterweight.  

“I’m bouncing around quite a bit [between weight classes],” Shields told MMA Fight Corner. “But probably back to welterweight, but nothing is 100 percent yet, just staying up is so much work I have to eat so much and just my weight naturally tends to go down closer to ’70. So we’ll see, nothing’s 100 percent at the moment though.”

Citing a return back to the cage in February, it will be interesting to see which route Shields chooses.