MMA News

So that’s what happens when you run a shady organization. You go belly up, and the tenative house of cards you built comes crashing down like Kimbo’s career. The only sad thing about this, is the fighters that are effected. Where they will end up is anyones guess. For the main event stars, Kimbo Slice, and Gina Carano the future doesn’t look bright.

The only people clamoring for Kimbo, will be the leagues looking to make some noise and get their chance in the spotlight. Strikeforce fits this mold nicely. Less likely are the UFC and Afflicition. The UFC might want to pay Kimbo to stay out of the MMA spotlight, just so he won’t turn away any more legitimacy than he already has. Afflicition will be tempted, but here’s hoping they stick with marketing skilled fights, instead of circus acts.

We’ll get to see a good measure of Dana White’s tolerance and smarts, in the next few weeks with Gina Carano on the table. Dana can do what he’s done with MMA in general, by creating a Women division in the WEC. This is another area where Afflicition may want to step in, and is a better fit for them than Kimbo. Gina can draw a crowd, and a match against her and Cyborg is a big draw. If you can draw, and continue to promote legitimate competition, than it’s win freaking win baby.

In the end, it’s hard to find sympathy for EliteXC. Even the product we saw on CBS had a fair amount of sleeze on it. The only thing they accomplished was to make the sport look illegitimate, and we can only hope the UFC gets closer to making a network deal, because that is the true next step to taking the sport into the mainstream.

Here’s the broken down points of Fedor’s new deal, provided by MMA Convert.com:

• First “joint venture” will likely take place on Jan. 24 at The Honda Center in Anaheim, California. The main event will feature Fedor Emelianenko vs. Andrei Arlovski.
• Second “joint venture” will likely take place in April or May and feature Josh Barnett vs. Aleksander Emelianenko (unclear if this is planned as a main event). M-1 is confident Aleks will be issued a license to fight. His rumored medical issues have apparently been resolved. No indication if this card will include boxing.
• Fedor’s thumb is fully healed.
• M-1 confirmed Fedor will definitely NOT be fighting in Japan on NYE. We can all breathe a collective sigh of relief.
• Gegard Mousasi may fight in Japan on NYE, but remains “a very feasible” option for Affliction’s January event.
• Affliction and M-1 have signed an exclusive worldwide deal with Fedor. So definitely no Fedor vs. Randy in the UFC. (Like that was ever going to happen anyways)

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It’s looking like we may never see Fedor in the UFC, which is unfortunate, but if he beats Arlovski and Barnett, then there’s no real need to see him in the UFC. Fedor will have proved that he’s the number one heavyweight, and based on the outcome of Lesnar vs. Couture, they will have the only other claim at the rank.

Here’s the announcement we’ve been waiting for, and it comes from MMARated.com:

MMARated.com has learned that WAMMA heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko will face Andrei Arlovski at the upcoming Affliction show tentatively scheduled for January 24th in Anaheim, Calif.

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While I would have been interested in seeing a Arlovski vs. Barnett showdown for the number one contender spot, this news will work just fine. Arlovski is coming off of two knockdown defeats of IFL veterans, while Fedor is coming off of a first round destruction of Tim Sylvia. It will be interesting to see how this match plays out. Arlovski has looked prone to takedowns and Jiu-Jitsu, while also trying to shake the aura of having a weak chin. Fedor looked great against Sylvia, but didn’t look his best against Choi or Lindland.

MMAweekly.com caught up with Andrei, and he had this to say about his next opponent:

“Like I said before, if you want to be the best, you have to fight the best fighters,” he said. “Obviously, he’s the best fighter right now. Nobody (has) beat him yet, so of course I want to fight Fedor, or Josh Barnett. They’re both tough, they’re both great fighters. It’s up to Affliction. If my next fight will be against Fedor, great. Against Josh, same thing.”

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Either match would be great to see. I’m very interested in a Josh Barnett vs. Arlovski bout, because it would be a great test to see who is ready for Fedor. The long argument about who has the best chance to beat Fedor has usually ended up with one of two people: Randy Couture or Josh Barnett. Hopefully, we’ll get to see Fedor against another legitimate opponent in January.

Ken Shamrock posted an open letter on Thursday:

Over the years there have been many great times as well as disappointing times and I know Saturday the fans were as disappointed as I was. I was worked up so I decided to train with my partners in order to stay focused on the fight. I was just doing a light roll to check holds when I got caught by a head butt. It was a freak accident and I didn’t think anything of it until I saw drops of blood. It appeared to be a deep laceration so I had my physician look at it and we immediately went to the emergency room. When they said the cut would require stitches, my heart sank because I knew that the Florida Boxing Commission would not let me fight. I was disappointed because I knew this was an opportunity to give the fans, my friends, and my family something to cheer about.  It has been a hard couple of years for me, and for my fans.  I have suffered some disappointing losses.  I definitely regret my decision to train on the day of the fight.

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It’s only a regret when shit hits the fan. I’m sure a lot of fighters do this sort of training and get away with it, but sometimes shit just happens. I still think Ken should retire, because his best days are behind him, and his okay days are behind him, and his eh days are behind him. What I’m trying to say is, that he screwed up and it’s time to move on. Realistically no one is even talking about Shamrock anymore, since Kimbo got pummeled. So if he just lays low for a little while, people will probably just let him off the hook anyway.

If you pay attention to MMA, then you’ve probably been following the fact that Seth Petruzelli claimed that he was given extra money to stay standing with Kimbo Slice. If you haven’t been following the story, here’s how it has played out so far.

Fightlinker.com posts a transcript from a radio show, where Seth claims that he was given extra money to stand and trade with Kimbo.

M: Even though you only had an hour to get ready for this fight against kimbo, what was your strategy fighting against Kimbo, uh, err, uh, were you tryin to uh, submission him out?

SP: My original plan was to throw a lot of push kicks, called teeps, and try to rush in more, and then shoot in on him, obviously.

M: So you wanted to get him on the ground? There’s no way you wanted to box him standing up?

SP: Not really, but I train with lots of undefeated pro boxers, a couple guys have a belt, and my style kinda throws them off a bit, I have kind of an awkward style. So, I knew I would do alright standing up with him. THE PROMOTERS KINDA HINTED TO ME, AND THEY GAVE ME THE MONEY TO STAND AND TRADE WITH HIM. THEY DIDN’T WANT ME TO TAKE HIM DOWN. LETS JUST PUT IT THAT WAY.

M: Ahhh.. ok.

SP: It was worth my while to try and stand up and punch with him.”

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Here’s a link to the radio show, it’s worth giving a listen to: Click here.

Later, maybe realizing it wasn’t a good idea to throw the company that just made you “six figures” under the bus, he backs off his statements.

“What was meant to be said was that I wanted to keep the fight standing for myself because I knew that was what the crowd, the promoters, and everyone wanted to see because that’s more exciting than just taking someone to the ground,” Petruzelli said. “That was my thing only. I wanted to keep it exciting so I decided to keep it standing. It had nothing to do with anybody else. That was all me.”

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Where we are now, is that Seth has now repeatedly denied that he was paid extra money to stand and trade with Kimbo, and that the State of Florida has “no immediate plans” to investigate the matter.

“The Department has not received any official complaints regarding the fight Saturday night,” Department of Business and Professional Regulation Press Secretary Alexis Antonacci revealed exclusively to FiveOuncesOfPain.com via e-mail in response to a request for comment. “At this time, we have no reason to believe that any wrongdoing occurred. If we did receive a complaint, we would conduct a thorough investigation of all allegations.”

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Is it a big leap of logic to think that Elite XC would want to pay Kimbo’s opponents to stand and trade? No. It is unfortunate that this has all come out, and is now being dragged through the mud, with the typical misquote and I mispoke verbage. We’ll see how this story ends up panning out in the near future.

Big John McCarthy apparently disillusioned with the new management at “The Fight Network” may be returning to the octagon as a referee.

t seems that he hasn’t left his new employer on the best of terms. In his final blog entry on The Fight Network website, he said, “Well this is my farewell from the Fight Network. While I will not miss what has happened or transpired at the company, I am really going to miss some very special people that I have come to know and respect in my short time with them.” Later adding, “To all of the higher ups that have taken over the Fight Network over the last year I only have this to say… Shame on you.”

Perhaps more interesting to MMA fans is McCarthy leaving the door open for a possible return to refereeing. “A few people have said that I have attacked the UFC. That is simply not true. I have never said anything bad about the UFC. I spent 14 years of my life trying to build up the UFC and make people understand how incredible the fighters of MMA were. I considered myself very lucky in the fact that I was able to be around the UFC for as long as I was and you never know maybe I will go back to refereeing and someday work another UFC.”

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It would be good to see John back in the octagon, especially with all the crazy referee missteps and bad calls we’ve had lately. We’ve had James Thompson told that he was done, when he clearly wasn’t. We’ve had someone nearly get their eye poked out and told that he lost the fight, and we’ve had general bad calls that have cost fighters dearly. I know he doesn’t ref every fight, but he could at least bring a bit of stability back to the reffing core.

In a stunning move, the WEC has cut two weight classes to focus on the smaller weight classes.

The WEC also announced that, starting in 2009, the organization will focus on four weight classes: welterweight (170 pounds), lightweight (155 pounds), featherweight (145 pounds), and bantamweight (135 pounds). The WEC will no longer actively promote light heavyweight and middleweight fights after the Dec. 3rd event. This increased attention to the sport’s lighter divisions makes the WEC the undisputed home of the most exciting lighter weight fighters in mixed martial arts.

“With every fight, the WEC has proven itself to be a powerful and growing presence in sports, both with our live events and our programming on VERSUS,” said Peter Dropick, WEC Vice President, Operations and Production. “Exciting matchups like Torres vs. Tapia on Dec. 3 and the incredible fights we have planned for 2009 under this new structure will no doubt establish WEC as the home of the best lighter weight fighters in the world.”

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You can only assume that the big time fighters of those divisions will be moved up to the UFC. The likes of Paulo Filho, Steve Cantwell, and Brian Stann. This will present an interesting situation for Paulo Filho, because Anderson Silva has basically stated they wouldn’t fight each other. If Paulo becomes a force in the middleweight division, who knows what will happen in the future.