Following the biggest win of his career, Jake Shields soon had another challenger in his face during his post-fight interview, and just seconds later mayhem literally erupted.

Jason "Mayhem" Miller came into the cage immediately following Shields' win and challenged the middleweight champion to a rematch for a fight they had in November 2009 in which Shields defeated him by unanimous decision.

"He came so fast out of nowhere, and just kind of bumped into me, the way he came up and said rematch, I just thought it was really rude. He got in my face, he bumped me, and interrupted in the middle of the interview," Shields told MMAWeekly Radio on Monday night.

"Emotions run high. I didn't have much time to think. My natural reaction was just to push him. It might not have been the best reaction, but I didn’t have time to think about it so that's what I did.

"I just kind of pushed him and that's when everything kind of broke loose."

The champion says regardless of Mayhem's intent, the contact he made when he charged into the cage forced a reaction, and maybe even an overreaction.

"He shoulder bumped me pretty hard out of nowhere. If he hadn't done that, I might not would've gone after him, but I think the shoulder bump was too much," said Shields.

After Shields shoved Miller several of his teammates jumped in, Nick and Nate Diaz being the most prominent. Miller was wrestled to the ground, where Nick could be seen punching him in the back and Nate was standing, kicking Miller in the side.

Following the brawl, just about everyone has placed blame on those involved, and a lot of the criticism has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Shields' teammates who were in the cage to celebrate with him following the win. Shields believes that some of what has been said is stepping over the line regarding his team, but he knows the finger is going to point somewhere.

"I know my team's taken some criticism, like Nick and Nate and Gil for backing me up, but I think we're a really tight team, really close knit, and this guy came in, bumped into me, trying to get in where he's been talking crap on me in the past, trying to get in and ruin my moment, I think my team just got upset and went after him," Shields stated.

The Tennessee Athletic Commission has stated they are looking into the matter, and Strikeforce officials have also said some kind of punishment for their fighters could come down the pipe at some point. The middleweight champion hopes that it all just fades away, and even though the bad feelings exist between he and Mayhem, he doesn't want anyone to face a suspension following the fracas.

"I think it's going to kind of fade away. I think there might have been a few people that did a few things wrong, but I don't think nothing was severe enough. Mayhem definitely shouldn't have came in and bumped me, and maybe I shouldn't have pushed him, but it's one of those things where I think a lot of people are at fault," said Shields.

"Like I said, you can blame Strikeforce for letting him in, you can blame Mayhem for pushing me, there's so many places to pass the blame I don't really think it's fair to discipline anyone would be my thing. I don't agree with what Mayhem did, but I don't think he should be suspended or anything."

Shields believes the element of emotions running high led to what happened in the cage on Saturday night, and while he's not brushing off the incident, he also thinks that some people are taking it too far.

"People get so surprised that a fight breaks out at a fight. It's what we do for a living, we're professional fighters, our emotions run high, someone gets in your face, to me it's not necessarily that big of a deal," Shields said.

"Everyone for years has been saying 'oh it's bad for the sport, it's bad for the sport,' but the sport's here to stay at this point. I certainly don't think it was good, and don't think brawls are good, but like you said, it happens in basketball, it happens in hockey, people talk about it, it gives people something to talk about. I don't really think it's that bad."

There has been no timeline from either the commission or Strikeforce on when or if they will hand down any form of punishment to the fighters involved with the brawl.

Nate Diaz is a fighter under contract with rival promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC president Dana White told Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole that he doesn’t intend to take any action against Nate.