Jake Shields will be looking to defend his Strikeforce middleweight title for the first time when he faces former Pride light-heavyweight champion Dan Henderson at Strikeforce: Nashville on April 17.

Shields (24-4-1) won the vacant middleweight title by defeating Jason Miller last November at Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Rogers, although he has fought much of his professional career as a welterweight. The "American" jiu-jitsu practitioner is currently riding a 13-fight win streak, and had finished eight straight opponents before beating Miller by unanimous decision.

Despite the success Shields has enjoyed with Strikeforce, his fight with Henderson is the last on his contract with the organization, and he will become a free agent after their match whether or not he is victorious. 

According to Shields, it's a situation he's happy with.

"I took the risk," Shields told MMAWeekly radio. "I had the option of course to renegotiate my contract before the fight, and I just felt like it wasn't really that I wanted to leave Strikeforce, I felt like I wanted to be a free agent and take things from there."

Shields has been encouraged in his decision by the very public interest displayed in him by UFC president Dana White, who has said that the UFC would "love" to sign Shields. Regardless of where he lands next, the talented Caesar Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt is sure to generate a lot of interest in the MMA world as a free agent.

"It makes me feel great to have them behind me, especially someone as powerful as Dana White," said Shields. "He's obviously very important in this sport. I still like Strikeforce. I don't have any bad feelings towards them. They've always been good."

Henderson (25-7) is coming off a spectacular knockout of Michael Bisping at UFC 100 last year and will be making his Strikeforce debut when he faces Shields for the belt, and he has proven to be a well-known and popular figure for the organization to build the event around.  For Shields, the decision to focus so much attention on Henderson hasn't sat very well.

"By them doing that it's kind of pushing me out, but who knows, nothing's 100 percent at this point still," Shields stated. "I'm just worried about training really hard, and if I go out there and beat Henderson it's really going to shake things up and put me in a really good situation. There's a lot of factors to take in place, but I'm just worried about getting through this fight and take it from there. I know Henderson's a tough fight for the last fight on my contract, but I feel like going for it and taking it from there and see what happens."