Diaz, Melendez Fill Out Strikeforce Card

Lightweights Nick Diaz (15-7) and “El Niño” Gilbert Melendez (13-1) fatten-up 29 March’s Strikeforce feast featuring middleweight champ Frank Shamrock (23-8-1) versus Cung Le (5-0) in San Jose.

Melendez will defend his Strikeforce lightweight title from Iowan Gabe Lemley (11-6).

Lemley brings six consecutive stoppages into the cage since returning to the sport in ’07, after closing ’05 with two submission losses and sitting out ’06.

Melendez, pulled from this weekend’s DREAM.1 lightweight grand prix, returns from his first “L” versus Japanese wrestler “Endless Fighter” Mitsuhiro Ishida (15-3-1), a unanimous decision.

Diaz also wants to avenge a loss.  He dropped EliteXC’s first 160-pound title tussle to “KJ” Karl James Noons (6-2) last November on cuts.

“The Korean Icepick” Jae Suk Lim (9-3) will try to chip fresh wounds into Diaz’s increasingly tender face.

For Lim, it’ll be his second North American scrap, having debuted on the continent for EliteXC with a rear naked choke submission of Daniel Pinedo (4-2) on the undercard of Diaz’s title fight.