By Damon Martin

As Jake Shields enters the last fight on his current EliteXC contract to take on Mike Pyle, it will not be for a title as the Cesar Gracie-trained student originally thought. But he still plans on bringing an exciting pace to the show and make his opponent pay for taking away the championship opportunity.

“I definitely was ready for a title fight,” said Shields. “He took the title away from me by not fighting me (for it). I’m sure he has his reasons. It still kind of pisses me off. I’m going to go out there and take it out on him.”

Pyle was not notified of the bout being a five-round title bout until about five weeks prior and determined that wasn’t enough training time. He subsequently opted for a three-round non-title fight instead.

Since his last loss in late 2004, Shields has put together eight wins in a row over many top opponents. Lately it seems his motivation has moved to finishing his opponents with punishing stoppages.

“I think I just keep getting better and better and I’m just going out there going for the kill,” he said about his dominance of late. “I want to go out there and show people that I can finish people and be exciting and destroy people and that’s what I’m going to be doing to Mike Pyle.”

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