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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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“I think it’s going to be real fun.” “Cote is going to come out and stand up with me and it will be exciting and entertaining. He’s going to hit me and I’m going to hit him a few times and we’ll see what happens.”

“I believe in every opponent there are some weak points that I can capitalize on.” “He may find some weak points in my game where he can capitalize on me, but I am very confident and I’m training very hard. I think Patrick Cote is right: I am beatable.”

“I believe the confidence that Patrick Cote has is a good thing.” “Every fighter should be confident and the same way he’s confident I’m confident. If Cote thinks he’s going to knock me out or submit me in the third round that’s a good thing to think that. But there is an opportunity that he might get knocked out or submitted. I believe everybody is beatable and that’s what makes this sport so interesting.”

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It’s hard to hate Anderson Silva. The guy is at the top of his game, and he gives a lot of props and respect to an opponent that is widely thought of as an easy victory. I hope that Patrick Cote can put on an exciting battle against Silva, but all signs point to him going out in the first round.

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.

There is one among us, who transcends the boundaries of space and time. He laughs in the face of danger, he rises into the heavens. He is FEDOR!

Widescreen / Standard

There’s a wide, wide, WIDE, bit of speculation circling the web about Kimbo and Seth Petruzelli. And the truth is, not much is going to change.

Kimbo is not an elite fighter. He’s a sideshow, for lack of a better word. He has a look, he fights the way people expect him to fight, and his name has value. What’s going to happen with Kimbo is that he’s going to fight Shamrock down the line. He’ll pummel him, and he’ll continue to pummel aging veterans, or upstart rookies until he retires, or runs into someone that can throw a decent punch. This was not an upset. This was just what happens when you put in an inexperienced fighter in there against someone who can throw a coherent jab. Kimbo is Houston Alexander, he’s Tank Abbot. He’ll go in there, throw a bunch of haymakers, until him or his opponent falls down. When Dana said he could put BJ Penn in there against Kimbo, and BJ would win, he wasn’t kidding.

I don’t want to take anything away from Seth’s victory, but he was a much more dangerous fight then Ken Shamrock. Look at Seth’s record before the Kimbo fight: 9 - 4 with 8 TKOs, 1 Decision. His losses include 3 submissions and 1 decision. Let’s face it, Kimbo wasn’t going to sub him, and as witnessed by his fight against James Thompson, he probably was going to have a hard time knocking him out. Seth will continue to be what he is, a journeyman fighter, picking up wins against lesser skilled opponents, and getting beaten by people with a greater skill set. This victory is exactly like Frank Mir’s victory over Brock Lesnar. The veteran beat the rookie, it happens. It doesn’t mean Seth is all of a sudden a great fighter.

Well, that was an interesting night. Here’s my thoughts:

Ken Shamrock R E T I R E

You completely ruined my night, i hope you are happy. Not that I really cared about this fight, but I had geared myself up for it, and was ready to see how Shamrock was going to go down. How you manage to get a big gash over your eye hours before a fight is beyond me. Ken could be the reason that Elite XC is done for, since a man named Seth just put the kaebosh on the Kimbo hype train.

Murilo Rua STICK TO BJJ

Man I don’t know why he’s getting into slug fests with huge guys that are known as powerful strikers. He should have been trying to take him down and control him from the beginning. Instead he decides to go toe to toe with a powerful striker. The inevitable happens and Ninja gets his head bounced off the canvas.

Three Minute Rounds? WTF?

Why are women fight rounds three minutes? Anybody? If you want anyone to take this division seriously, then you shouldn’t be making them look weaker by limiting the time they have in the cage.

Gina vs. Cyborg has to Happen

It’s the inevitable bout, but it probably won’t end favorably for Elite XC. Cyborg looks like a beast out there, while Gina looks good, just not as quick and powerful as Cyborg. It’ll be a shame to see Gina’s face rearranged, but the fight needs to happen.

Andrei Almost Let Girth Win

The first round of the fight was a scary thing to watch. You almost got the feeling that Andrei was going to lose. Thankfully he had a great second round to take care of the planet out of orbit known as Big Country.

Jake Shields Ain’t Bad

Jake Shields is not a bad fighter, but to say that he’d be a top welterweight in the UFC is a ridiculous statement. He doesn’t have good hands, he has weak ground and pound, and he manages to get by with good Jiu Jitsu.

Kimbo vs. Seth…

When I heard the name Seth Petruzelli I remembered him immediately. The guy from TUF that had some crazy kicks and almost knocked Brad Imes the fuck out. I knew that this fight was actually going to be tougher than Kimbo’s fight against Ken.

As Seth backed into the fence, I thought he was going to take a dive. I didn’t understand the move, it looked like he was going to be a sitting duck. Then he throws a front kick, and while on one leg he lands a right jab that puts Kimbo down to the mat. I had to watch the replay a couple of times to see what punch did it. It has to be one of the weakest punches I’ve ever seen put someone to the canvas. He then proceeds to pound on Kimbo’s head and win the fight.

You could hear the hearts break of the Elite XC owners as Seth did his run of victory around the cage. You could even hear it over the inane yelling of the announcers acting like this was a huge upset.

Unfortunately, Kimbo isn’t going anywhere. They’ll probably get Shamrock healed up and put Kimbo against him somewhere down the road. After Kimbo beats down Shamrock, we’ll see the hype train motioning forward again.

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Here is Kimbo Slice’s distinguished street fighting career, with a bit of MMA Fights sprinkled throughout. Whether you love him or you hate him, or you REALLY hate him, you can’t help but find him entertaining.

Kimbo’s First Fight

Kimbo hits this guy in the eye so hard that it swells up like a grapefruit.

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