UFC News - Page 292

See that nasty looking red spot on Matt Hamill's back? Well, during the post-fight presser, he confirmed that it was a staph infection. Aside from fighting through that and getting his eye poked in the second round, Hamill also said that he gutted out a decision with a broken hand from the first.

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MAIN CARD Court McGee def. Kris McCray via submission (rear-naked choke) - Round 2, 3:41 Matt Hamill def. Keith Jardine via majority decision (29-27, 29-27, 28-28) Chris Leben def. Aaron Simpson via TKO (strikes) - Round 2, 4:17 Dennis Siver def. Spencer Fisher via unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28) Rich Attonito def. Jamie Yager via TKO (punches) - Round 2, 4:25 PRELIMINARY CARD John Gunderson def. Mark Holst via unanimous decision (no scores given) Brad Tavares def. Seth Baczynski via unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28) Kyle Noke def. Josh Bryant via TKO (strikes) - Round 2, 3:12 Chris Camozzi def. James Hammortree via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27) Travis Browne def. James McSweeney via TKO (punches) - Round 1, 4:32

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LAS VEGAS – The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale, which took place Saturday night at The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, drew a reported 1,708 attendees for a live gate of $430,250. MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) learned of the numbers while at the event's post-fight press conference, though the official figures will be verified by the Nevada State Athletic Commission early next week.

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LAS VEGAS – Chris Leben, Court McGee, Matt Hamill and Keith Jardine each earned $25,000 fight-night bonuses for their performances at The Ultimate Fighter 11 Finale on Saturday. Leben earned the "Knockout of the Night" award, McGee earned the "Submission of the Night bonus, and Hamill and Jardine both earned "Fight of the Night" honors.

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"What I'm going to end up doing is probably taking a big, huge fight that should have been on pay-per-view and put it on free TV. I'm actually working on it right now. I said I'd make up for that, and trust me, I'm gonna." The above picture says it all. UFC President Dana White was flat out embarrassed and enraged by UFC 112's main event, particularly by Anderson Silva's peculiar antics. If you remember, directly after the fight, White promised to make it up to the fans who paid their hard-earned money for that atrocious display of mixed martial arts in some way, shape or form. Via MMA Weekly, Dana details his plans for how he is going to do that. It looks likely that a legitimate, big time main event is coming to Spike TV or Versus in the near future. Any thoughts on what that fight may be? Or, better yet, take this time to let D.W. know what kind of fight will rid your memory of that woeful April night in Abu Dhabi. Thats the whole article.

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Everyone was on weight. Only Fisher had to use the towel. It was not the same w/o Rogan... Main event: 185 lbs.: Court McGee (185) vs. Kris McCray (184) Main card (Televised): 205 lbs.: Matt Hamill (205) vs. Keith Jardine (205) 185 lbs.: Chris Leben (186) vs. Aaron Simpson (186) 155 lbs.: Spencer Fisher (156) vs. Dennis Siver (156) 185 lbs.: Rich Attonito (186) vs. Jamie Yager (185) Under card (May not be broadcast): 155 lbs.: John Gunderson (155) vs. Mark Holst (154) 265 lbs.: Travis Browne (251) vs. James McSweeney (231) 185 lbs.: Seth Baczynski (185) vs. Brad Tavares (185) 185 lbs.: Josh Bryant (185) vs. Kyle Noke (185) 185 lbs.: Chris Camozzi (185) vs. James Hammortree (186)

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Despite handing Randy Couture a 2ndRound TKO loss en route to jacking his title at UFC 91, reigning heavyweight champ Brock Lesnar has remained in fairly close contact with Captain America. Couture is one of the few men in the sport the former WWE superstar actually respects.

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Ultimate Fighter (TUF) 11 finalist Court McGee is one fight away from completing an unlikely (and somewhat miraculous) turnaround in his life. The last time McGee was in Las Vegas he was wandering the streets with no pants looking for meth. Now he's back as one of TUF's biggest success stories, which he can cap off on Saturday night (June 19) against Kris McCray.

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The recently announced "UFC 118: Edgar vs. Penn II" event in Boston airs on pay-per-view, but the August event also will get a one-hour "UFC Prelims" special on Spike TV. A source close to the event today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that two preliminary-card fights will air prior to the night's PPV airing. Officials, though, have not decided which fights will air as part of the Aug. 28 special. UFC 118 takes place at TD Garden and marks the UFC's Massachusetts debut. Lightweight champ Frankie Edgar rematches B.J. Penn in the headliner, and Randy Couture meets boxing champ James Toney in the co-main event. Traditionally, "The Ultimate Fighter" cast members and UFC Fight Night regulars are featured in the "UFC Prelims" specials. Therefore, a lightweight bout between "TUF 5" cast member Joe Lauzon and British fighter Terry Etim is a leading candidate for a "UFC Prelims" spot, as is a middleweight bout between "TUF 4" competitor Jorge Rivera and veteran Alessio Sakara.

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A group of fighters including UFC mainstays Ryan Bader, Aaron Simpson, and C.B. Dollaway will open a new gym later this year in Arizona, hoping to bring in more top competitors to work with. Previously training at Arizona Combat Sports, the group of fighters saw an opportunity to pursue a dream that many mixed martial artists have and that is to open a gym of their own.

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Past-his-prime pugilist James Toney will finally get the chance to prove that boxing (with takedown defense) trumps mixed martial arts on any given Saturday when he takes on former light heavyweight and heavyweight champion Randy Couture at UFC 118 in Boston. Can he do it? Not according to famed boxing trainer Freddie Roach, who was asked to give his thoughts recently on "Lights Out" coming over to the UFC to fight "The Natural." Courtesy of East Side Boxing: "I think it's a bad decision. I don't think it will work. I think the UFC is just trying to say they're better than boxing because if James fought Couture in a boxing match James would absolutely destroy him, but if he fights him in a UFC/MMA style fight James does not have a ground game, once he goes to the ground it's over. It's completely two different sports and they're just trying to use older boxers to make their sport look better."

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THQ is working on a unique exercise game. The publisher confirmed at E3 this week that it is working on a UFC-inspired fitness game for Kinect, PS Move, and Wii. Unlike other games in the genre the game will be targeted primarily at men, MCV understands. (Men aspiring to be massive man-mountains with necks thicker than their heads - just like the best UFC fighters - we assume.) But like other exercise games THQ expects it to do well in the post-Christmas season when consumers think about getting in shape and shaving kilograms of mince pies from their physiques. The game is due in January and is called UFC Trainer. It's a spin-off of THQ's surprise success UFC, the Ultimate Fighting Championship game that debuted strongly last year - a sequel was released just last month. But the new game is not on show at E3 - THQ only revealed the game during an investors meeting. THQ's core games boss Danny Bilson said he wants to demo it only when the game ready for the market. "We want this thing tuned to perfection without lag," GameSpot quotes him as saying - which suggests THQ's developers are also still getting used to perfecting making content for Kinect. "And I'm not going to ship it until it's the coolest fighting thing in the world."

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A late change was just announced for UFC 116: Julio Paulino is now off due to an undisclosed injury. He was to have faced Daniel Roberts. Former UFC fighter Forrest Petz, who is on a 4-fight winning streak, has been reportedly confirmed as the replacement but bout agreements have not yet been signed.

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So apparently it wasn't ring rust and his A-Team layoff that caused his poor performance, according to Page. "I apologize for the fight not so much because I lost but because of how it went down. I always like to put on exciting fights for the fans but Rashad came out to use that ‘Greg Jackson’ plan: be boring and squeak out a victory. So that bothers me more than the loss. I remember one other thing he was doing - he was punching me in my knee! It was weird because I had suffered a real bad knee injury in camp but we kept it secret, we didn’t say anything about it and we didn’t even tell the UFC. I told my doctor and that was it, he helped me out but I was going to back out of the fight. The only reason I didn’t back out was the fight had been so hyped and I didn’t want to disappoint the fans. Why was he punching me in the knee though? That’s kind of weird - did he find out about the injury? I don’t know. Its weird."

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John Hackleman -- the long-time trainer and friend of former light heavyweight champion Chuck Liddell -- concedes that it's finally time for his UFC Hall of Fame fighter to hang up the gloves. Liddell, 40, suffered his fifth loss in six fights, getting knocked out cold courtesy of Rich Franklin at UFC 115 last weekend. It was the fourth time in those five losses that he ended up on his back, staring at the lights and wondering what the hell went wrong. Hackleman suggests that the "warrior" nature of Liddell is likely to blame -- no matter how much game planning, conditioning or drilling he did prior to the fight, he quickly resorted to his aggressive (and careless) self after just a few minutes of action. "Iceman" has yet to make an official announcement on his retirement; however, with Hackleman, as well as UFC President Dana White (again) telling him the party's over, he may listen this time around.

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And if his comments recently are any indication, his win last time out has given him an extra boost of confidence going into Saturday's fight. "There was a lot of pressure. My fight before that (against Rosholt) was a terrible performance on my part and going into the Jay Silva fight I knew that I needed to change things. I went out to Oregon for over a month, just buckled down, put my nose to the grindstone and trained hard, and it definitely showed when I went out there. When I perform at my best, I think I beat anybody. [Simpson] is a phenomenal athlete and he’s obviously accomplished a lot in his wrestling career. Obviously there are some holes in his game – wrestling is his number one attribute, he doesn’t move his head a ton and he’s a little bit heavy on his feet. It’s gonna be a great fight, and if I execute my game plan and perform the way that I know I can, I think I should take him out rather easily."

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As the "Ultimate Fighter" season 11 finale show draws near, finalists Kris McCray and Court McGee, who square off in the middleweight division for a 6-figure contract, have been bumped up to the main event for the Saturday night show. The UFC made the move on Tuesday moving McCray vs. McGee to the top of the card, while light heavyweights Keith Jardine and Matt Hamill will remain the co-main event for the televised show on Spike TV.

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The fight card for the recently relocated UFC on Versus 2 event is now complete with the addition of three preliminary-card bouts for a total of 11 fights. The final 3 fights confirmed today, all prelims, are Paul Kelly vs. Jakob Volkmann (relocated from UFC 116 due to Kelly having visa issues), Charles Oliveira vs. Darren Elkins (moved from TUF 11 Finale) and UFC newcomer & former Shooto Welterweight Champion Willamy Friere (Chequerim) vs. Thiago Tavares.

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UFC heavyweight Pat Barry broke his hand and foot in a co-main event bout with Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic this past Saturday at UFC 115 and will wear a hand cast and foot "boot" – or therapeutic brace – for five weeks.

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So much for a potential Representative Chael Sonnen in UFC. A legal issue from a few years ago has emerged and it's forced him out of the Oregon House elections. "In the best interests of my district, I am resigning from my campaign for the Oregon House of Representatives. A 2006 legal issue has arisen that needs my immediate attention. I am not at liberty to disclose the details, but my name was involved in a real estate case that requires a ruling. If the ruling is adverse, I would be disqualified from running for office until 2011. So, given that possibility, I have chosen to withdraw my name as a candidate in 2010. I will continue to contribute to my community and ensure that we have a capable candidate to run for my district in November."

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