Strikeforce Announces October Event

Strikeforce announced this week that it will hold an event 3 October at the Broomfield Event Center in Denver, CO, titled Payback, to follow up its September show at the Playboy Mansion.

The event will feature a rematch between welterweights “Bang” Duane Ludwig and “Squeeze” Sam Morgan (19-10).

Morgan knocked out Ludwig in 52 seconds at Ring of Fire 16 in 2005.

Denver-native Ludwig lost his last fight to Fighters.com’s third-ranked lightweight “Fireball Kid” Takanori Gomi (28-3).

Morgan is coming off back-to-back TKO losses, first to current Strikeforce Middleweight Champion and April’s Fighter of the Month Cung Le (6-0) in November, then to “Semtex” Paul Daley (18-6-2) in January.

The promotion also announced Thursday that Fighters.com’s seventh-ranked middleweight “Twinkle Toes” Frank Trigg (16-6) would face “Niko” Falaniko Vitale (26-8), although Trigg refused to confirm the match-up, according to MMA Junkie.

“I plan to fight for Strikeforce on Oct. 3, but I don’t want to commit and then not be able to fight,” he said.

“I definitely want to fight, but I just don’t want to make that promise and then not be able to compete because of an injury or something from [next week's] fight in Japan…. I don’t even want to talk about the October fight.”

Trigg last fought in December, tapping “Babyface” Edwin Dewees (35-13) with a first-round kimura.

“Niko” most recently won a unanimous decision over “Coyote” Joey Guel (13-6) in January.