Friday, July 27, 2007

Updates and News

Hey fight fans. It's been a minute since I've posted anything more than a copy and paste job. I hope you've have the chance to read through the long post about the primary fighters in the UFC right now that you'll find below.

The UFC is cooking up some amazing shows for the remainder of this year. Don't forget that UFC 74 is coming up on AUGUST 24th (check out that link to the official website, there's some amazing stuff, including break downs of each fighter's stand up and ground game). Although we haven't sorted out all of the details about where exactly we're going to watch this one, we ARE going to watch it. How could you not? With RANDY COUTURE, the LEGEND, defending his heavyweight title against the ever formidable Brazilian GABRIEL GONZAGA who proved his stuff when he KO'd Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic with a high kick to the dome.

The other main fight on the card is GSP (that's Georges St. Pierre), ex-Welterweight champ vs. Josh Koscheck, both of whom are amazingly talented and athletic.


The rest of the card:

Main card

Premilinary card

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More UFC news/upcoming events/gossip:

UFC Quick Quote: UFC oh so close to signing Fedor …

(from UFCmania)

Fedor Emelianenko UFC

“At the moment we are in negotiations with a number of organizations who have put offers on the table. I’ll be blunt in saying that the UFC offer is the most financially attractive one. However they are very harsh in their terms and are not very flexible in actually negotiating them. Fedor has now been the PRIDE heavyweight champion for four years and I think we have earned the right to negotiate a contract that suits both parties. Instead we are faced with a blunt “you are either in or you’re out.” This does not really suit us. If the negotiations continue in a similar manner, we’ll prefer to fight for less money but with an organization which is more flexible. The problem is that Fedor is the face of Combat Sambo in Russia. His popularity is at a level where he is acquainted with president Putin himself, in part because he is so successful and well known for Combat Sambo here. Combat Sambo is a Russian sport that’s not at a level of difficulty of MMA, but is hugely popular with our public. Fedor must represent Russia in Combat Sambo and at world championships, specifically the ones coming up in September. All we want him to do is compete something like once a year in Combat Sambo. But the UFC is not happy with that. Their proposal has all kinds of clauses, all kinds of fines etc. that do not suit us. The UFC is not really that eager to communicate and negotiate. The negotiations are still continuing, and we will try very hard to get our demands met, if not Fedor will simply not compete in the UFC, even though that will be unfortunate as they currently have one of the, if not the, strongest, heavyweight divisions in the world.“

– The manager for PRIDE FC Heavyweight Champion Fedor Emelianenko, Vadim Finkelstein, provides Sherdog.com with some perspective from the Russian camp. UFC President Dana White has indicated recently that a deal is close but never went into much detail about the sticking points, which are detailed above.

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UFC Books TWO Places in DECEMBER!

The UFC is already making plans to hold two December shows in Sin City to close out what promises to be a banner year for the promotion, according to FightNetwork.com.

Here’s the snip:

“Zuffa LLC, parent company of the UFC intends to request two December event dates – Dec. 8 at the Palms Casino and Dec. 29 at the Mandalay Bay Event Center – in Las Vegas at the next Nevada State Athletic Commission meeting July 31.”

With The Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 6 set to debut on September 19, the December 8 show would more than likely be the date for the TUF 6 Finale. TUF 6 features 16 welterweight prospects and coaches Matt Serra and Matt Hughes.

Serra and Hughes are scheduled to headline the year-end pay-per-view (PPV) event on December 29 — the two will not fight at the TUF 6 Finale on Spike.

That main event status could all change, however, if the UFC plans to showcase several main event-caliber fights on the card such as Fedor Emelianenko vs. Randy Couture/Gabriel Gonzaga and Chuck Liddell vs. Wanderlei Silva.

New Year’s Eve would certainly be the time to do it … it’s just too bad we have to wait a few more months to learn the answer.

For now I’ll keep dreamin’ …

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UPCOMING FIGHTS:

UFC 75: Main Card

Preliminary Card


UFC 75: Champion vs. Champion is an upcoming mixed martial arts event to be held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The event is currently scheduled for Saturday, September 8, 2007 at The O2 in London, England.[1] The event will be available on live pay-per-view in the United Kingdom on Setanta Sports, and offered on tape delay on Spike TV for North American audiences.[2]

The main event will be a superfight between UFC Light heavyweight Champion Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and PRIDE Fighting Championships' 83 kg (183 lb) and 93 kg (205 lb) champion, Dan Henderson.[3] British light heavyweight Michael Bisping, who won The Ultimate Fighter 3 contest in 2006, will fight Matt Hamill, who rivaled with Bisping during the taping of The Ultimate Fighter 3. Also scheduled is a heavyweight bout between Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic, who was recently defeated in a match against Gabriel Gonzaga to decide a heavyweight title contender, and Cheick Kongo.

The event will be the fourth event in Europe, following UFC 38 in London, England UFC 70 in Manchester, England, and UFC 72 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

The title bout will be a unification fight as originally speculated. UFC President Dana White had remarked on July 2, 2007, regarding the question of the Quinton Jackson-Dan Henderson fight being a unification bout, "No. What we’re doing with that thing is we’re respecting both (the UFC and PRIDE) titles. The UFC title is the UFC champion and we’re respecting Dan as the PRIDE champion. Quinton will walk out with his belt if Dan wins and vice versa."[3] He has since changed that stance, and on July 10, 2007 stated, "It will absolutely be a unification bout. We have to respect Henderson's titles. He knocked out Wanderlei Silva and had the 185-pound championship. When he fights Rampage, they both have belts. Why should Dan Henderson get the UFC title if Rampage can't get the PRIDE titles? It makes one of them the undisputed guy."
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UFC Fight Night 11 is an upcoming mixed martial arts event to be held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at the The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. It will be broadcast live in the United States and Canada on Spike TV as a lead-in to debut of The Ultimate Fighter 6.[1]


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UFC 76: Knockout is an upcoming mixed martial arts event to be held by the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The event is currently scheduled for Saturday, September 22, 2007 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California.

Me: I am more excited for the Fitch v. Sanchez fight and Rua v. Griffen than I am in the "main event" which is Liddell v. Jardine, although the winner of that fight is basically back in the contention bracket (not that Liddell is out of it, this is a fight to bolster Liddell in that they know Jardine will stand and bang and, likely, get knocked out).

My picks: Liddell, Rua (by murder, although I kind of hope not since I like Griffin), Fitch (although who knows, Diego can be a "nightmare"!) and Tavares.

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