Affliction VP Tom Atencio Believes Station Casinos Will Go out of Business Early Next Year
(bloodyelbow.com)
Interestingly enough, Affliction co-founder Todd Beard has recently surfaced to voice his displeasure with the UFC, most notably on a recent appearance on "The Scott Ferrall Show."
"They threaten us personally, which is hilarious," Beard said. "Dana White, Lorenzo Fertita, they are tough guys. They're old school mafia guys, or wannabe old school mafia guys that their grandfather built their business and they are nothing. They’re nothing."
When asked about Beard's comments, Atencio seemingly shrugged them off.
"I will always do my fighting in the ring but my partner has just had it with them," Atencio said.
During his interview with Ferrall, Beard mentioned that Zuffa co-founders, Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, are experiencing some financial trouble with their Palace Station Casino properties.
"They put their business five billion dollars in debt," Beard said in the interview."They’re in big touble right now. They are going to go out of business in February. Guaranteed. Station Casinos will go out of business in February for sure."
Atencio did not refute this claim.
"They want to talk about us being done by January," Atencio said. "Well, I will guarantee you that their Statino Casinos will be out of business by February...I have all the proof I need."
Of course, there are two sides to every story but an effort to get a response from someone at Zuffa was unsuccessful.
mattew riddle's tuf 8 blog
(mmaweekly.com)
As for the show, I was going to start cutting down to 155 just so I could beat Junie senseless. After reading Ryan Bader’s blog I realized that Junie might be heading to 170 with Haagen-Dazs as the main sponsor. That and I promised my Mom I would never pick on children with special needs are the only reasons I have not flown out to Kentucky to smash him. I thought it would be impossible to have someone who is a bigger loser then Jeremy May on the show and they proved me wrong........
WAR CHIPPER!!!! I love the junie hate!
"The Ultimate Fighter 8" ratings improve; Junie Browning to thank?
(mmajunkie.com)This past Wednesday's episode of "The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nogueira vs. Team Mir," which featured controversial cast member Junie Browning's quarterfinal fight with Roli Delgado, scored 1.7 million viewers, an increase of nine percent from the season's first five episodes.
Additionally, the Oct. 22 episode had an audience 35 percent larger than the season low of 1.1 million that tuned in for the third episode of the reality series on Oct. 1.
Spike TV today sent the ratings information to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) via email.
With the recent ratings revival, in doubt aided by the antics of Browning, the eighth season of the show is now averaging 1.6 million weekly viewers. The seventh season of the show ("The Ultimate Fighter: Team Rampage vs. Team Forrest"), which aired earlier this year, averaged 1.3 million viewers for its 11 regular-season episodes.
The only basic cable stations that beat Spike TV and "TUF" this week were Comedy Central (with "South Park" and "Chocolate News") and FX ("Son of Anarchy").
Wednesday's episode of "TUF" peaked with 1.9 million viewers for the Browning-Delgado fight, which took place in the final quarter hour of the show. Browning, whose drunken rampages and confrontations with other cast members have resulted in ratings jumps over the past few weeks, recently told MMAjunkie.com that his actions were the result of being locked in the "TUF" house.
"You're in Vegas, and you can't go anywhere or do anything, so you let loose a little crazier than I normally would." Browning said. "I don't necessarily act like that at home. I can go out to a bar and drink, but I don't mess with people or anything. Once you're in the house, it's almost like being in high school again. You're around a bunch of young guys, we're all crazy and drinking, and I don't like being messed with at all."
Jake Shields Wants in With UFC
(mmaweekly.com)Almost immediately after the news broke that EliteXC would be shutting down, just about everyone began to speculate what would happen to its fighters. On the top of that list is Jake Shields, likely to be one of the most sought after fighters from the roster. MMAWeekly.com spoke to the first and only EliteXC welterweight champion about his future
"The UFC's the most likely option," he said. "That's where I'm certainly leaning. I haven't had any talks with them yet; I have to get my contract released. That's definitely the number one option I'm looking at. I was on good terms with them before I signed this last contract, so I don't think there should be any problem."
While he won't rule out other promotions as viable contenders, it seems clear where Shields wants to go.
"The UFC's where I've wanted to fight for years, and also the guys ranked above me in the world are there so that's certainly the most logical show to go to."
One on on with Tyson Griffin
(bloodyknux.com)Listen in as Bloodyknux.Com's Tyler Horton talks with UFC LW Standout Tyson Griffin. Tyson talks preparations for his bout against Sean Sherk at UFC 90 , career retrospective, a future art career? and much more....
Exclusive: Interview with KJ Noons
(mmanews.com)It has been a rocky road between EliteXC and former lightweight champion KJ Noons over the last few months. EliteXC had been adamant about the fact they wanted to see Noons defend his title against Nick Diaz on October 4th when the organization held its third card on CBS but negotiations fell through.
The fall out would lead to EliteXC stripping Noons of the belt that he had won from Diaz when it was vacant title, stating that they felt Noons was ducking Diaz for a rematch.
14 Questions for Marcus Davis
(sherdog.com)Coming off a loss to Mike Swick in June, Marcus Davis will try to bounce back Saturday against Paul Kelly at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England. “The Irish Hand Grenade” shared some old boxing stories with Sherdog.com, as well as his thoughts on various topics from music to alcoholism to his meeting with Kelly.
Sherdog.com: Have you ever been rocked or knocked down during training or ever reconsidered fighting?
Davis: Nope. I've never been knocked out ever in my life. A lot of people look at my boxing record and it says TKO on there -- they think it was from a knockout. It wasn't. It was from a cut. I've never been knocked out in sparring or anything. I've never ever once reconsidered fighting. I've always wanted to be a fighter.
Sherdog.com: You spent a lot of time in boxing. What are some of those old-time memories?
Davis: One that just popped into my head: We were all in the gym one time, and there was this guy that was supposed to come in and spar with Dana Rosenblatt, who was an undefeated Jewish boxer at the time -- and there weren't a whole lot of Jewish boxers period, you know? So bringing this kid in, he was 5-0, and so they come walking in and he's got like this entourage and they’re screaming out, "Mikey D! 5-0 Mikey D!" All cheery as hell. The kid comes in and gets his stuff on. They start sparring. Dana hit him so hard with a body shot that the guy s--t himself.
There's just s--t pouring out of this guy's trunks. He ends up crawling out of the ring, and they rush him to the bathroom and he was so embarrassed, he didn't come back into the gym to get his stuff. He left right out of the side door, and they came in and gathered his stuff and they left. Never saw the kid again. I don't even know what ever happened with his career. I never followed him. I probably should have; it'd be funny to hear if he did any well at all.
You know, we had lots of different stories like that. A guy came in and was kicking a bag, and back then … you don't kick bags at a boxing school. My coach said, "Don't kick the bag!" The guy kind of looked at him -- he was a bodybuilder, the guy was all beefed up -- and he starts hitting the bag again, kicked it again and my trainer walked over to him and just smashed him right in the face. The guy actually broke down and started crying. Big muscle-bound guy broke down and started crying, looked at my coach and made an apology. We just have so many crazy stories about back then when I was boxing. It was just a different time. It was 15 years ago. You know the stories of scumbag promoters and stuff like that. There's good memories and bad memories.
Interview with Paul "Semtex" Daley
(mmascribe.com)Paul was nice of enough to take some time to answer a few questions regarding his recent fight with Jake Shields at EliteXC:Heat, what his plans for the future are, his contract status with ProElite and what he thinks about the recent FSAC investigation into EliteXC.
Barnett talks AA, Fedor, Slice, Halo & More!
(punchdrunkgamer.com)Josh Barnett 'The Watchman'
Josh Barnett talks about Andrei Arlovski, Fedor Emelianenko, his fighting future, more video games, movieland, the fall of Kimbo Slice and Randy Couture versus Brock Lesnar.
PDG: Since you brought up Kimbo; you have been in the sport for a long time. What are your thoughts on him losing to the first experienced fighter that was not a tailor-made opponent for him?
Barnett: I was sitting in the bar and a bunch of people started cheering. The bar had a bunch of other fighters there and everyone was cheering except for me, I was actually upset. I wanted Kimbo to win and I was cheering for him. I wasn't real sure about him fighting Ken Shamrock because I have always been a big fan of Ken. It is really hard for me to watch Ken go out there and under perform like he has as of late compared to when I first started watching him compete. Kimbo is still a relative newcomer to this sport and I don't have any problem with how he has been brought up into the spotlight so fast. I like watching him fight and I wanted to see his ongoing progression fight to fight. I was disappointed because I wanted to see Kimbo do well.
Noons: 'I’m a Free Agent'
(sherdog.com)Karl James Noons is looking towards greener pastures, which may or may not include his return to the EliteXC cage, he says.
“I’m a free agent,” Noons told Sherdog.com Monday, the result of EliteXC taking back his championship belt.
Noons, 25, was stripped of his EliteXC 160-pound title on Sept. 19 after the promotion said he refused to defend his title against Nick Diaz.
Noons bested the mouthy Stockton, Calif. native with a first-round TKO on cuts in November 2007. Words between the fighters and their families ensued in the cage, and a rematch loomed.
EliteXC attempted to promote said rematch on three separate cards since July. But Noons took umbrage with Diaz’s pay scale, which was nearly three times more than his.
Private discussions spilled into the public forum when an EliteXC rep announced Noons had been given a 24-hour deadline to accept the bout.
Though Noons was subsequently removed from EliteXC’s champions mantle, he said a piece is missing from the timeline.
“We weren’t coming to agreements on the fight, so I gave them written notice that I’d give them the belt back five days prior before they stripped me,” he said, in the hopes of “working something out.” “I didn’t make it public, and I guess to prove a point, or maybe out of ego or whatever they want, they stripped me.”
Noons said his contract, of which two fights remain, only pertains to his reign as a titleholder.
"Since I’ve been stripped, I’m no longer the champion and I don’t owe them the fights," he said. "I owed them fights for being a champion.”
Jeremy Lappen, EliteXC’s Head of Fight Operations, doesn’t agree.
"KJ still has two more fights on his contract," Lappen said Monday. “I’m hoping we’ll work something out, but there’s really not much to work out. He’s still under contract with us.”
Eddie Bravo: "The Game Has Changed"
(tinyurl.com)"A lot of fighters wanted to sit in half guard and pound them and rain elbows, but never try and pass the guard.
When you have that kind of attitude, you're only going to get so far. Your game is going to be so limited and
you're going to win some and lose some; you're going to bat .500 and not get very far."
Ed Herman "I would like a rematch with Belcher right away"
(fighthype.com)Alan is one of the guys I wanted to fight because I thought it would be a good matchup. I thought it would be fun to stand and fight with him. I knew he would fight me…I would like a rematch with Belcher right away if I could, but we'll see what happens," stated UFC middleweight Ed Herman as he talked about his strong desire for a rematch with Alan Belcher. Check out what he had to say about their fight, his performance and much more
Joe Riggs On Misaki And Close Call With Kimbo
(mmaweekly.com)Fight fans, take notice: In a small way, Joe Riggs helped create Kimbo Slice.
The year is 2003. Riggs is at least a year away from his UFC debut. He’s fighting for $1,000 a show, good money for him at the time. Slice’s manager, Icy Mike, puts out a challenge to tough guys around the country – come to Florida if you think you can beat up Kimbo Slice. Win, and you get $10,000.
Riggs’ manager at the time, Trevor Lally, jumps at the offer. He emails Mike and says he’s got someone for him. He offers to put up $50,000 of his own money as a show of faith.
Riggs begins training in earnest and mentally preparing for a fight with Slice. But when Mike finds out about Riggs’ credentials, the door is promptly closed.
“I’d of beat the (expletive) out of him,” Riggs told MMAWeekly.com. “It would have been done. No Kimbo. I would have rubbed him out and saved everyone the headaches.”
Or Riggs could have videotaped his street brawls, something he jokingly wishes he did.
Riggs had other things in store for his future, including a two-year stint in the Ultimate Fighting Championship. There, he met mixed results. He failed to make weight for a title fight with Matt Hughes at UFC 56 then lost the fight decisively. Batting .500 in his four post-Hughes fights, he asked to be released from his UFC contract after a spat with matchmaker Joe Silva.
Other than the requisite scraps of a hotheaded MMA fighter, the closest Riggs got to Slice was a post-UFC 57 brawl with opponent Nick Diaz at the hospital where they stayed.
Ninja Talks Upcoming Fights & Shogun Return!
(punchdrunkgamer.com)Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua Update: ‘Coming to CBS’
EliteXC Middleweight Contender Murilo ‘Ninja’ Rua talked with PDG about his victory over Tony Bonello, his upcoming fight against Benji Radach on the EXC-CBS Saturday Night Fights on October 4th and his brother ‘Shogun’ Rua.
PDG: Your brother Mauricio ‘Shogun’ Rua is rumored to return later this year against Quintin ‘Rampage’ Jackson and other fighters. How is his knee and how often are the two of you training together? NINJA: A lot of rumors about ‘Shogun’ are running around on the internet. I read about ‘Rampage’ and Mark Coleman a few weeks ago and now most recently about Lyoto Machida. They are all just rumors; right now he is in the USA, training in San Diego. He was in Canada for a month conducting special training on the knee with a specialist and we kept contact by phone and radio. ‘Shogun’ is coming home next week and then I think that we will have the official news about his next fight. Right now the most important thing is to have him 100%, focus on the hard training and I’m sure that we will see him fighting again at the end of this year, for sure.
Tanner, According to Those Who Knew Him Best
(sherdog.com)MMA will never have another Evan Tanner.
To chronicle his compelling life, Sherdog.com turned to some of the people who knew him best, including those who grew up with him and watched him wrestle in high school before he began his fight career inside a rowdy rodeo coliseum in Amarillo, Texas.
A Self-Taught Texan
Deana Epperson grew up across the street from Tanner in Amarillo and kept in touch with him throughout the years: He was a good kid. He really didn’t mess with anybody. He didn’t even wrestle -- he pole-vaulted in junior high. He didn’t even start wrestling until our sophomore year in high school, and we were a big school. We were 5A. By our junior and senior year, he was a back-to-back state champion in wrestling. Texas is no joke with wrestling and for him to have never wrestled till 10th grade and then been a state champion in 11th and 12th grade -- that’s just incredible.
He was such a renaissance man on the most basic level. He didn’t really like to admit this to people, but Evan had a photographic memory, and that’s how the big legend of Evan Tanner was true. He was a big wrestler in high school and he got the Gracie jiu-jitsu videos, and whatever he would watch somebody do, he could instantly put that into his repertoire. He was genetically gifted, he was amazingly smart, and he remembered everything he read and saw. That really explains how a guy who never really went to a dojo till he was 21 was able to do what he did.
He was the first one I ever saw grab wrists to reign down elbows. And later on I saw Tito Ortiz in the corner with one of his fighters yelling, “Tanner elbows! Tanner elbows!” That’s when you know you’re the s---, is when someone is referencing you when they’re cornering someone else.
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