Renato Sobral and Gegard Mousasi, two light heavyweights forced off the Affliction’s Titanic last week, are on solid footing once more: Strikeforce has picked up the bout intact for their Aug. 15 show in San Jose, Calif.

Fortuitous, since the card has had its share of problems: Nick Diaz is now without an opponent thanks to Joe Riggs dropping out; Josh Thomson made noise during an MMAJunkie radio spot that he may postpone (again) a bout with Gilbert Melendez to later in the year; Alistair Overeem re-injured his hand, scrapping a title bout with Fabricio Werdum.

There are suddenly a lot of in-shape replacements available, but whether A). Strikeforce is capable of matching their salary requests, or B).

There wasn’t much in the way of first impressions at Affliction and M-1 Global’s press conference for Affliction III “Trilogy,” which will be held on Aug. 1 at the Honda center in Anaheim, Calif.

Fedor Emelianenko’s opponent, Josh Barnett, did not attend. Affliction VP Tom Atencio said Barnett had travel issues making his way up from Orange County –- pretty understandable if you’ve ever had to deal with the unpredictable L.A. traffic.

Without Barnett, whose on-point commentary and analysis makes him one of the sport’s better interviews, it is hard to get a detailed dialogue going, though that the fight matches the No. 1 and No. 3 world-ranked heavyweights says a lot on its own.

One interesting tidbit revealed by the stoic Emelianenko himself –- this is the last fight on his Affliction contract.