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Shields talks UFC, Strikeforce

damon martin/mmaweekly.com

For Jake Shields, Monday was a lifetime of work paying off, and a dream come true.

The former EliteXC welterweight champion and Strikeforce middleweight champion finally put pen to paper and inked his official deal with the UFC. He will debut in the Octagon at 170 pounds against Martin Kampmann at UFC 121 in October.

The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt has long talked about fighting the best in the world, and in his mind the list starts and stops with the UFC. In his last fight for Strikeforce, Shields took a dominant decision over Dan Henderson before becoming a free agent, and he says his mind was made up right away where he was going.

"No, I really didn’t have an intention of going back to Strikeforce," Shields told MMAWeekly Radio on Monday. "It's nothing against them. I don't think they're a bad show. I just think the UFC, it's the prime show right now; everyone knows UFC is the spot to be. It doesn't mean Strikeforce is bad; I think it's good they're out there.

"Being the Strikeforce champ's cool and all, but I really had the dream of being the UFC champ."

Becoming the UFC champion has long been a goal of Shields, and now that he's signed to compete in the Octagon the dream could possibly become a reality.

"I want to go out there and try to make it happen," he said about a title shot.

Shields’ exodus leaves the Strikeforce middleweight division with a vacant title, although they will crown a new champion in August. Beating Dan Henderson in April threw a major monkey wrench into the plans that Strikeforce had for its top free agent signing, and Shields knows it wasn't what they had envisioned.

"I don't think they were very happy about that," he said about his win over Henderson. "I was actually planning on dropping back to 170 to finish my last fight on my contract, and they knew it was my last fight, so they were really pushy about me staying up (at 185), and I knew their motives of course. They thought Henderson would beat me, but I was like 'alright if you want to do that.' So then I think after I beat him they seemed pretty upset."

The honeymoon for Strikeforce and Shields was definitely over after their middleweight champion showed up at one of their events and was told they didn’t have a place for him.

"I showed up for one of the Strikeforce fights to go watch when I was still the champ, before they released me, and they didn't have me any tickets. So that made it pretty clear," he said with a laugh.

With that, Shields walked away from Strikeforce and says he's barely spoken to anyone from there since. Who he has talked to are UFC officials who are more than happy to welcome him to the fold. UFC president Dana White personally welcomed Shields via his Twitter account on Monday.

Through several promotions, titles, and big fights, Shields has always known that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was signing with the UFC, and now that the deal is done, it's up to him to prove he belongs there.

"There's nothing quite like fighting for the UFC," Shield stated. "It's exactly what I wanted, a tough fight, a good card, go out there and try to make a mark right away."

He'll get the chance to make his mark against Martin Kampmann at UFC 121 in Anaheim, Calif.