Six Questions With Thompson, Who Will Fight Kennedy at the ShoWare Center, First Non-Televised Bout Is 6 P.M. PT; Live on SHOWTIME® At 11 p.m. ET/PT

NEW YORK (June 12, 2009) - When you call Nick "The Goat" Thompson's phone number and he doesn't pick up this is what you hear: "You've reached the office of Nicholas Thompson, Attorney at Law, I'm away from my desk right now..."

Just two days after one of the biggest fights in his young MMA career-a nationally televised welterweight title bout against Jake Shields-Thompson took the Minnesota state bar exam and found out three months later (late 2008) that he had passed on his first attempt. 

In a matchup with all kinds of storylines, Thompson (38-10-1) will try to lay down the law when he makes his Strikeforce debut in his 50th MMA fight against former Green Beret and Army Ranger Tim Kennedy (9-2) in one of the featured middleweight attractions on Strikeforce Challengers, Friday, June 19, at the ShoWare Center at Kent, Wash., live on SHOWTIME® (11 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the west coast). 

Currently training with current UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar's team, Thompson will be moving up in weight. "I figure if I can do it against the heavyweights then 185 shouldn't be a problem," he said. 

The 27-year-old Thompson, from Minneapolis, Minn., graduated with not one, but two college degrees in economics and philosophy. He then went on to get his law degree from the University of Minnesota, a top 20 school. He is 2-0 with that law degree in hand and recently sat down and answered six quick questions.

QUESTION: How hard was it to focus on your fight against Shields knowing you had your bar exam just days away?

THOMPSON: "I don't think I realized how stressed out I was about it until it was all said and done. I've had so many fights with so much going on because I was always fighting through law school and had so many exams it just became something I was used to. Now that I'm fighting and I don't have all the stuff it's only now that I realize just how much I was running around and spreading myself too thin. I think I'm more relaxed in training because now I have more time to go home and relax between training sessions. You're still stressed out anytime you're going to fight and it takes a lot of effort mentally but now I'm allowed a lot more recovery time than I had in the past." 

QUESTION: How do relax in your spare time? 

THOMPSON: "I enjoy reading classic literature for pleasure. My wife (Molly) and I will just take a book and read it together. We read "A Tale of Two Cities", "Howard's End", "The Brothers Karamazov". 

QUESTION: You must get some strange looks in the gym when you pull out one of those books?

THOMPSON: "Every once in awhile, yeah, but actually the guys at the highest levels are very educated. Most people in the gym have read a lot of the books I've read. It's kind of interesting but I went on a run with my buddy the other day and that's what we talked about: "A Tale of Two Cities" because he had just read it. You would think that fighters aren't that well educated but it seems to be the opposite in Mixed Martial Arts."

QUESTION: What would you like to do with your law degree once your fighting days are over? 

THOMPSON: "For me the law was the practical application of philosophy which is something I really enjoy. It's one way you can really shape the country. If you look at the founders of our country and the people who signed the Declaration of Independence the majority of them were lawyers. As much as Congress and the Senate, I think the Supreme Court shapes the way the U.S. does policy. So I definitely see myself getting into politics. I really enjoy tax law, which most people hate. Right now I'm doing a lot of contract work for fighters, which is a natural fit for me and I am kind of managing some of the younger fighters so they won't have to pay a lawyer. It's something I really enjoy doing."

QUESTION: You and your wife also have an interest in animals and have rescued several stray dogs, including a white German Shepherd that is blind and missing its teeth.

THOMPSON: "Yeah, my wife absolutely loves animals. She's nuts about them. If an animal is hurt even in a cartoon she'll start crying. We've got two dogs from the Humane Society; one was an abused dog. Eventually we'd like to get a bigger house out in the country and have a bunch of stray dogs running around."

QUESTION: Your wife must have a tough time watching you fight? 

THOMPSON: "Actually not. Because she's almost eight months pregnant (expecting on July 20) with our first child, this will be only the third fight out of 50 that she's missed. It's very hard for her to watch me fight but not because I'm getting hurt. She knows that if I get a cut or something it doesn't hurt. It's more that she knows how hard I work to train for the fight and that the disappointment I feel after losing affects her more. That's the hardest part for her."

In the June 19 main event on SHOWTIME, , "Smokin" Joe Villasenor of Albuquerque, N.M., faces Evangelista "Cyborg" of Rondonopolis Mato Grosso, Brazil, in a clash of top-notch middleweights. 

Other bouts on SHOWTIME: Cory "The One" Devela of Bonney Lake, Wash., faces Luke Rockhold of Santa Cruz, Calif. (middleweights), Sarah Kaufman of Victoria, Canada, takes on Shayna "The Queen Of Spades" Baszler of Sioux Falls, S.D., in a 135-pound women's fight and Jorge Gurgel of Cincinnati, Ohio, will collide with Conor "Hurricane" Heun of Boulder, Colo., in a 155-pound scrap.

ShoWare Center doors will open for the Strikeforce Challengers event at 5:30 p.m. PT.

In non-televised fights: Lyle "Fancy Pants" Beerbohm of Yelm, Wash., meets Duane "Bang" Ludwig of Denver, Colo. (lightweights), Dennis "Superman" Hallman of Yelm, Wash., faces Cedric "Spider Man" Marks (welterweights), Brian Caraway of Seattle throws down with Alex Zuniga, Landon Showalter takes on Travis "The Praying Mantis" Doerge (middleweights), Len Bentley of Irvine, Wash., confronts Marques Daniels and Steve Hadsel collides with Taylor Roberts.

Tickets for the Strikeforce Challengers event, priced from $32, are on sale at the ShoWare Center Box Office (253-856-6999 or 877-840-0457), online at ShoWareCenter.com, and at www.strikeforce.com. 

Strikeforce's MMA fight card at the Tacoma Dome on Feb. 28, 2008, produced the largest live gate in the history of any boxing, MMA, or kickboxing event in Washington State.

For information on SHOWTIME Sports, including exclusive video, photos and news links on SHOWTIME CHAMPIONSHIP BOXING and Strikeforce mixed martial arts telecasts, along with access to the SHOWTIME Sports Facebook® and Twitter® pages, please go to http://Sports.Sho.com.

About Strikeforce:
Strikeforce is a world-class mixed martial arts cage fight promotion which, on Friday, March 10, 2006, made history with its "Shamrock vs. Gracie" event, the first sanctioned mixed martial arts fight card in California state history. The star-studded extravaganza, which pitted legendary champion Frank Shamrock against Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Cesar Gracie at San Jose's HP Pavilion, played host to a sold-out, record crowd of 18,265. Since 1995, Strikeforce has been the exclusive provider of martial arts programming for ESPN and, after 12 years of success as a leading, world championship kickboxing promotion, the company unveiled its mixed martial arts series with "Shamrock vs. Gracie." In May 2008, West Coast Productions, the parent company of Strikeforce, partnered with Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment (SVS&E), an entity created in 2000 to oversee all business operation aspects of the San Jose Sharks and HP Pavilion at San Jose.