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This is an interesting signing. Everytime Denis Kang seems to rise up the ranks, he has a setback loss that brings him back down to ground zero. I only hope his win over Marvin Eastman will be enough to propel him towards stringing together a couple more victories and then a shot at Anderson Silva.

Kang has been a highly sought after free agent twice in the last 2 years. Once after Pride was bought out by Zuffa and the Canadian fighter opted to land with new Japanese promotion, Dream, while still fighting in his native land of Korea for the Spirit MC organization.

Just 2 weeks ago, Kang announced via MMAWeekly Radio that his contract with Dream was up and he was hoping to sign with a new promotion fairly quickly.

“If it’s going to be an exclusive contract then pay me something that’s going to make it worth my while to be exclusive and not fight anywhere else and not work anywhere else,” Kang said about whatever new promotion he signed with.

Unless something drastic changed, Kang will be with the UFC exclusively as the promotion is not usually in the business of signing open ended contracts.

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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.

Of all the luck:

contender Diego Sanchez has been forced to withdraw from his UFC 90 bout against Thiago Alves due to torn rib cartilage, but the October 25th co-feature bout is not lost, as standout 170-pounder Josh Koscheck has stepped up to face Brazil’s “Pitbull” in an equally intriguing welterweight matchup.

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I was so looking forward to this fight, and it’s not that the replacement is a bad one. It’s just I was so damn psyched to see Alvez vs. Diego. Koscheck is a beast, and he did get the best of Diego in there last fight, but DAMN. Oh well, you have to expect this sort of thing in MMA. Props to Koscheck on taking the fight.

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.

An interesting fight to say the least. This bout stems from the controversial win Mark Coleman had over Shogun at Pride 31. Coleman attempted a takedown on Rua, and as he went down to the mat, Rua’s arm landed awkwardly, aka BROKE. Coleman apparently in a rage continued to try to attack Shogun after the ref tried to stop him, he got to the point where he nearly tossed the referee out of the ring like rag doll. This lead to Wanderlei Silva getting in the ring and presumably yelling at Coleman, only to have Coleman once again freak out. Phil Baroni got involved, as with the rest of Hammer House. Coleman then went on to celebrate like he just won the lottery. You can watch it all, even with crazy aftermath ending:

The fight had not gone on long, but it appeared that Shogun was wrapping Coleman in knots on the ground. I don’t expect the fight to go much differently, aside from the arm breaking.

Although it’s been widely reported around the interwebs that Rampage vs. Silva was being delayed until next year. It appears Rampage has heard differently:

If Silva agrees to the bout, it will be the third time he and Jackson have squared off in a mixed martial arts clash.

“I fight on December 27 and I’m hoping it’s against him. And if it is I’m going to be ready to steamroller him.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s beaten me twice before, it matters on the night.

“But the UFC have approached a few people to take the fight and a couple of them have turned it down.”

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Don’t count on it, but in a recent interview he alluded to giving it a shot in a year.

“I’m talking to several fight companies about doing MMA by the end of next year - 2009.”

HIs plan is to fight MMA, but cross back over to TNA Wrestling.

“I’m going to cross over to the MMA world for a while but I want to end up back in TNA and back in wrestling.”

Kurt Angle claims that he would be the only one to ever enter “the octagon” as a gold medallist.

“I’ve always wanted to do it. I’m the only Olympic gold medallist that will enter the Octagon and it feels right for me.”

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Rulon Gardner is a gold medallist in Greco-Roman Wrestling, and entered the Pride “Ring” in 2004. If Angle is referring strictly to the UFC Octagon, then he’s correct, but if he was referring to actual MMA, then he’d be wrong.

Kurt Angle has been trolling this idea for a while, and nothing concrete has come to pass, other then him talking about it. We’ll see in 2009 if Angle has what it takes to step into the “Octagon.”

Who didn’t see this coming a mile away?

“We are stripping KJ of his championship belt for refusing to defend against Diaz,’’ Lappen said. “It’s a very unfortunate situation but we cannot have belt-holders who refuse to fight the top contenders.We want champions who will fight anyone, anytime, anyplace.That’s the mentality all champions should have.

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There’s been talk of KJ going into boxing, this will sure make that transition easier. KJ was beginning to proof himself a solid Lightweight fighter, after wins over Diaz and Yves Edwards. We’ll see where Noons decides to go from here.