UFC News - Page 299

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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The first international season of "The Ultimate Fighter" competition-reality series will either be based in Canada or the Middle East, according to Dana White. White said the promotion and its broadcast partner Spike TV are laying groundwork to film separate seasons in both countries. However, he is unsure which will go first. "They're neck and neck," White recently said. The UFC boss said in May that a potential Canadian version of the show would be targeted for 2011. This past weekend, he hinted at a February 2011 start date for an international season.

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As expected young heavyweight prospect Stefan Struve (19-4 MMA, 3-2 UFC) meets promotional newcomer Christian Morecraft (6-0 MMA, 0-0 UFC) in August at UFC 117. MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) recently passed along news of the expected bout, and its since been signed and officially added to UFC 117's un-aired preliminary card. UFC 117 takes place Aug. 7 at Oracle Arena in Oakland, Calif. The night's main card, including a headliner of middleweight champ Anderson Silva vs. Chael Sonnen, airs on pay-per-view.

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After a medical condition forced him out of UFC 111 and put his future fighting career in jeopardy, Ultimate Fighting Championship welterweight Thiago Alves has been medically cleared to resume fighting. Nick Lembo of the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board today confirmed that the athletic commission has removed Alves' indefinite suspension. There are also reports the paperwork for his UFC 117 fight with Jon Fitch has also been signed, making the fight at long last official.

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Spike TV's "UFC Prelims" broadcast for this past weekend's UFC 115 event drew an average audience of 1.3 million viewers and peaked with 1.5 million, Spike TV officials today announced. The two-fight June 15 broadcast, which featured Evan Dunham vs. Tyson Griffin and Mac Danzig vs. Matt Wiman, qualifies as the sixth-highest-rated broadcast of the eight "UFC Prelims" specials that have aired to date. Overall, the broadcast drew a 0.9 household rating with a 1.4 among men 18-34 and a 1.2 among men 18-49.

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No stranger to a little controversy, UFC president Dana White recently made waves by suggesting in a May interview with ESPN's Bill Simmons that many mixed-martial-arts rankings lists were influenced through financial contributions. This past weekend, in a one-on-one interview with MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com), White confirmed that he still believes rival promotions are improperly influencing the media's opinion. "Let me tell you what; I've been in this business for a long time," White said. "Nobody, and I mean [expletive] nobody, knows more about this business than I do. "Everything that's happened throughout the years, all the [expletive] that I've gone through, my biggest beef with a lot of these MMA websites is that these guys are for-profit websites. They're not [expletive] news sites. They're for-profit websites." I've been on this for awhile...I don't think they are 100% there yet but I think by the time Strikeforce finally collapses or at least loses its network deal then that will pretty much seal the deal.

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