UFC 88 Headed Back To Georgia

UFC 88 is expected to take place in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be the first time in more than ten years that the UFC has put on an event in"The Peach State".

The event is tentatively scheduled for September 5th,although no venue has been officially confirmed. The most likely place, however, would be the Philips Arena in Atlanta, home of the NHL's Atlanta Thrashers.

The UFC has put on two events in Georgia before now, UFC 11 and UFC 13. These events took place more than ten years ago, in Augusta, Georgia, so it is about time the UFC went back.

With the event being so far away, no bouts have been announced, but we will bring you the news as soon as we get it. Stay tuned for the updates.

Affliction Confirm Emelianenko - Buentello Bout

The long rumored fight between Aleksander Emelianenko and Paul Buentello has been confirmed by Affliction, and will take place on their first card Affliction: Banned.

This fight was put in jeopardy due to visa restrictions for Aleksander, but it appears these have been resolved. This fight was the big announcement that Affliction made at their fan atuograph signing event earlier today. This fight is added to an already stacked card.

The card also features a fight between Emelianenko's older brother Fedor Emelianenko, and former UFC Heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia.

This new bout is a great addition to an already stellar card. Fans should expect this to be a heavy hitting fight with both fighters looking for the knockout.

James Irvin Out, Luiz Cane In At UFC 85

An arranged bout between James "The Sandman" Irvin and "Sugar" Rashad Evans has been scratched from UFC 85 due to injury.

Irvin has reportedly suffered a broken foot in training and has been forced off the card. This could come as a serious blow to Evans,who was originally slated to face Chuck Liddell, followed by James Irvin. Now, with less than three weeks to go, Evan's opponent has changed again.

Luiz Cane is now slated to fight Rashad Evans, although he was originally booked to fight Jason Lambert on the same card. Lambert has since been removed from the card altogether.

The UFC has been advertising this card as an event with 13 fights, the largest event in UFC history, but now has lost this by only listing 11 fights on their website. With less than three weeks to go, can the UFC find an extra two fights? This card, entitled Bedlam, has been plagued with issues, losing Chuck Liddell, Mauricio Rua, Jonathan Goulet, Paul Kelly and James Irvin to injury, and Chris Leben due to being arrested.

New Bout Added To UFC 87

A new bout has been added to the card for UFC 87, scheduled for August 9th at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The bout will feature Jason MacDonald taking on Demian Maia. This is expected to be a great fight, as both fighters bring a lot to the table, both on the ground an don their feet.

MacDonald currently holds a record of 20-9, winning his last fight against Joe Doerksen at UFC 83. Of his 20 wins, 16 come via submission, so he shoudl be able to put up a good defence to Maia's notable jiu-jitsu game.

Maia currently holds a record of 7-0, with his last win coming to Ed Herman via technical submission at UFC 83. Five out of seven wins come via submission, so look for this fight to end up on the ground. It is possible, of course, that MacDonald may want to keep the fight standing due to Maia's ground expertese, but only time will tell.

This fight joins confirmed fights between Mark Coleman and Brock Lesnar, and Kenny Florian and Roger Huerta.

Affliction Sign Antonio Rogerio Nogueira

New promotion Affliction have annoucned that they have signed Brazilian fighter Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.

Nogueira, brother of UFC Interim Heavyweight Champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, has a professional record of 13-3. He last fought for the now disbanded organisation HCF, where he defeated Todd Gowenberg via TKO. Before this, he fought for Pride Fighting Championship, where he won against notable names such as Alistair Overeem and Dan Henderson.

Affliction have not revealed any further details on the signing, although we do not expect him to compete on their July 19th card in California.

Additional Anouncer Added To Elite XC/CBS Card

Yesterday we announced the broadcasting team for the Elite XC/CBS show on May 31st. (See here for original story http://mmatrivia.blogspot.com/2008/05/elite-xc-announces-cbs-broadcasting.html)

Today, CBS have announced a fourth person, in the form of Showtime Boxing announcer Karyn Bryant. Bryant has been added as a third color commentator, leaving Gus Johnson as the only true play by play announcer on the team. Frank Shamrock is expected to assist as an analyst as well as a color commentator.

Four people in a booth seems a little odd, with most promotions settling for only two. This is a new direction for Elite XC and hopefully it will pay off.

Xtreme Couture To Open In Canada

Recently following the UFC's success in Canada, Randy Couture has annouced that he is opening a gym there.

The gym, situated in Toronto's West End, is almost ready, with the grand opening scheduled for May 31st. The following day, Couture will host a two hour siminar from 10am until 12pm.

The gym is believed to be the biggest in Canada, with a 14,000 square foot heath club and a 19,000 square foot MMA training center, complete with boxing ring and cage. Couture has already enlisted some big Canadian names to assist with the classes, including Mark Hominik, Chris Horodecki and Mark Bocek.

RUMOR: Arlovski - Rothwell Bout May Be Official

According to a report on Sirrus Radio, the bout between Andre Arlovski and Ben Rothwell at Affliction: Banned is back on.

Arlovski is expected to confirm or deny this rumor in the next few days, as his contract clause giving the UFC exclusive rights to him should have expired yesterday. Arlovski was expected to sign with Affliction yesterday.

The bout will take place on July 21st at the Honda Center in California. The Affliction autograph signing will take place today at the Cenruty City Mall in Los Angeles from 12pm. Affliction announced last week that there would be a mystery fighter appearing at the event. Could this be the unveiling of Andre Arlovski?

We will bring you more updates as the news breaks.

UPDATE: Chris Leben Released Early From Jail

Two weeks ago we posted a number of stories regarding Chris Leben being in jail for parole violations stemming from a DUI charge in 2005.

He was originally jailed for 35 days, which would have seen him released on May 27th, but the court has seen fit to release him a week early. He will now serve the rest of his sentence under home detention.

Very little else is known about Leben's situation at the moment, but we will update this story as more news is released.

Couture Wins First Battle With Zuffa

It is common knowledge that Randy "The Natural" Couture is in legal disputes with UFC promoter Zuffa. On Monday, Randy, supported by HD Net's Mark Cuban, claimed a victory over Zuffa officials.

HD Net Fights filed a case against Zuffa in Dallas, Texas, in February this year, asking the court to make what is known as a summary judgement regarding Couture's non compete clause in his contract, on the grounds that they had a business arrangement with him which is being hampered by Zuffa's lawsuit.

Zuffa then challenged this claim in Texas by claiming that such a ruling would undermine the efforts in Las Vegas courts to clarify the terms. Zuffa asked the court to stay, delay or dismiss the challenge by HD Net.

To cut a long story short, Zuffa's case was thrown out on all three counts on Monday, meaning that HD Net can go ahead with their case to potentially resolve Couture's contract issues. If all goes ahead, Couture's planned bout with Fedor Emelianenko could be given the go ahead before the end of the year.

Combat in the Cage Results

Combat in the Cage is a little known promotion staging mainly amateur MMA fights. They held their twelfth event on Saturday night in Newark. Here are the results:

Bantamweight - Joe Finneran defeats William McKenna via Submission in Round 1

Welterweight - Sam Anderson defeats Aaron Bojan via Unanimous Decision

Bantamweight - Joe Pond defeats Chris Be via KO in Round 1

Featherweight - Kyle Dolan defeats Joshua Ledbetter via KO in Round 1

Welterweight - Jeshua Altson defeats Andres Lebron via Unanimous Decision

Welterweight - Frank Lauro Jr. defeats Nail gardner via TKO in Round 1

Cruiserweight - Matt Andirkut defeats Thomas Waltemeyer via TKO in Round 1

Super Lightweight - Tim Sylvester defeats Frank Piff via Submission in Round 1

Bantamweight - Jeff Cressman defeats Kevin Papics via Submission in Round 2

Bantamweight - Pat Sabatini defeats Lance Umholtz via TKO in Round 1

Middleweight - Yohanes Hatbu defeats Jeff Morber via TKO in Round 1

Middleweight - Tim Williams defeats Kyle Braun via Submission in Round 2 to become the Amateur Middleweight Champion

Lightweight - Will Martinez defeats Juan Contrerez via Submission in Round 2to become the Interim Lightweight Champion

PRO BOUT - Light heavyweight - Joseph Stripling defeats Derek Hopkins via TKO in Round 1 to become the Light Heavyweight Pro Champion

RUMOR: Sengoku Plan Lightweight Tournament

It has been announced on a few Japanese sites that World Victory Road plan to hold a Sengoku event featuring a Lightweight tournament.

The event is expect to take place over one show, rather than spaced out over a few, as other promotions such as Pride and DREAM have. They plan to feature 8 fighters in this tournament, with the winner fighting Takanori Gomi for the Lightweight belt.

This is a slightly unorthodox way of running the competiton, as you would expect to see Gomi competing in the tournament himself, but this is not the case. Gomi is expected to fight at the event, scheduled for August 23rd, but an opponent has not been named. All we know is he won't compete in the tournament.

Two fighters have been named as participants in the tournament. These fighters are Eiji Mitsuoka and Satoru Kitaoka.

We will bring you more news on this as it is announced.

DEEP 35 Results

DEEP 35 took place in Japan today. The event saw the conclusion of the DEEP Middleweight Tournament as well as fights for both the Featherweight and Lightweight titles. Here are the results for the fights:

Yuichi Nakanishi defeats Riki Fukuda via Unanimous Decision (Nakanishi wins the DEEP Middleweight Tournament)

Dokonjonosuke Mishima defeats Masakazu Imanari via Majority Decison (Mishima becomes the new DEEP Featherweight Champion)

Sung Hwan Pang defeats Kazunori Yokota via TKO in Round 1 (Pang becomes the new DEEP Lightweight Champion)

Hiroki Nagaoka versus Hidehiko Hasegawa was ruled a split Draw

Mai Iichi defeats Satoko Shinashi via Majority Decision (Womens bout)

Jutaro Nakao defeats Shigetoshi Iwase via Unanimous Decision

Katsunori Kikuno defeats Seigo Inoue via Unanimous Decision

Ryuta Sakurai defeats Ryo Sai via Unanimous Decision (Middleweight Tournament Rserve Bout)

Riki Fukuda defeats Yuya Shirai via Majority Decision (This fight was the semi final for the Middleweight Tournament)

Yuichi Nakanashi defeats Daijiro Matsui via Majority Decision (This fightwas the semi final for the Middleweight Torunament)

Koichiro Matsumoto defeats Yuki Ito via Majority Decision

Hyun Gyu Lim defeats Noboru Onishi via Doctor Stoppage (Cut) in Round 1

Yasuhiro Kawasaki defeats Muneyuki Sato via TKO in Round 1

Elite XC Announces CBS Broadcasting Team

Elite XC have released information regarding the lucky announcing team who gets the privilege to announce for the card aired on CBS.

These people have been named as former Strikeforce Middleweight Champion Frank Shamrock, former Pride annohncer Mauro Ranallo and veteran sports play by play man Gus Johnson. Elite XC announced that they had signed Johnson late last week.

The fight card, entitled Elite XC: Primetime, is one of four Saturday Night Fights events scheduled to be aired on CBS on May 31st.

Despite being a fighter himself, Shamrock has been signed for color commentary, along with Mauro Ranallo. Gus Johnson will handle the play by play for the event.

From a fan's perspective, this is a very strong broadcast team, and should serve the public well in MMA's primetime debut.

The Ultimate Fighter 7 Finale Details Confirmed

Spike TV and the UFC have released full details of the finale for TUF 7 today.
The show takes place at The Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas on June 21st. The UFC has announced further fights to accompany the already confirmed Evan Tanner vs Kendall Grove and Diego Sanchez vs Luigi Fioravanti bouts.

Spike TV have announced that the event will be shown in HD, and will be a three hours fight card, as opposed to the usual two hours.

The event, as always, will feature the fight between the two finalists from the season, with the winner receiving a six figure contract and various prizes. (In the past these prizes have included new cars and watches.) The bout between coaches Forrest Griffin and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will not be featured on the finale, but will instead be the main event at UFC 86 in July.

Here is the fight card as it stands at the moment. Further bouts are expected to be announced.

Kendall Grove vs. Evan Tanner
Luigi Fioravanti vs. Diego Sanchez
Finalist #1 vs. Finalist #2
Spencer Fisher vs. Jeremy Stephens
Jeremy Horn vs. Dean Lister
Josh Burkman vs. Dustin Hazelett
Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries
Matt Arroyo vs. TBA

UFC 87 Bout Announced

Following the announcement of UFC 87: Seek and Destroy yesterday, Cheick Kongo has announced his return to the Octagon at this event.

Kongo recently lost to Heath Herring via split decision at UFC 82 in March, and is looking to get back onto a winning streak with a fight against UFC newcomer Dan Evensen (10-2). Evensen is a heavy striker, with seven of his ten wins coming via KO or TKO.

This bout joins confirmed fights between Mark Coleman and Brock Lesnar, and Kenny Florian and Roger Huerta. The event takes place in August at The Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

HDNet Planning Super Fights

HD TV channel HDNet have announced that they intend to air some super fights in the future.

The company has their own brand of MMA, HDNet Fights, but also airs events from other shows on their channel. They also own their own arena, the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, which they allow partner promotions to use for their events. HDNet Fights has been very quiet as of late, but we are assured that this is due to big things happening in their department.

Here is what HDNet Fights CEO Andrew Simon had to say:

"We have the ability to partner with pretty much any organization out there, and when the timing is right, you're going to see us promote again some super-fights."

"We're going to be pretty opportunistic when we want to promote ourselves. We're in a little bit of a different position than everyone else. We have our own television network. We have our own arena in Dallas with the American Airlines Center, and we're not into it to just put on fights every month ourselves just because. I think you're going to see when we come back it will be a pretty big fight."

"When HDNet is the promoter, number one, it's going to be something pretty big. Congrats to the Affliction guys. They're putting on a pretty big show of big names coming up, and I think you'll see we'll do something similar, or bigger names as well. If we can partner with various organizations to do it as well, we will. There's no ego on our side. We have the ability, like I said, with our eight or nine partners to really work and bring the best fighters from a lot of organizations together."

UFC 87 Tickets On Sale Soon

The UFC have announced the schedule for ticket sales for future event UFC 87.

The event, entitled Seek and Destroy, will take place on August 9th and features bouts betwee Mark Coleman and Brock Lesnar, and Kenny Florian and Roger Huerta. The UFC is expected to release information on further fights in the next few weeks. Fans are hoping to hear of a title fight at either Welterweight or Middleweight, but only time will tell.

Here is the schedule for the sales, including Fight Club and Newsletter Presales.

UFC Fight Club presale: Thursday, May 22 at 10 a.m. CT

UFC Newsletter presale: Saturday, May 24 at 10 a.m. CT

General ticket sale: Sunday, May 25 at 12 p.m. CT

Sengoku 2 Results

World Victory Road's Sengoku 2 took place last night, with the main event of the evening culminating in a decision win for Josh Barnett over his friend and training partner Jeff Monson.

Kevin Randleman and Roger Gracie also emerged victorious from their match ups. Here are the full results:

Satoru Kitaoka defeats Ian James Schaffa via Submission (Guillotine choke) in Round 1

Mike Pyle defeats Dan Hornbuckle via Submission (Triangle Choke) in Round 1

Eiji Mitsuoka defeats Kwang Hee Lee via Submission (Rear Naked Choke) in Round 1

Jorge Santiago defeats Yuki Sasaki via Submission (Armbar) in Round 3

Yoshihiro Nakao defeats Jim York via KO (Punches) in Round 2

Kevin Randleman defeats Ryo Kawamura via Unanimous Decision

Roger Gracie defeats Yuki Kondo via Submission (Rear Naked Choke) in Round 1

Josh Barnett defeats Jeff Monson via Unanimous Decision

X-1 Legends Results

We promised to bring you the results from the X-1 Legends events that took place last night, so here they are:

-Egan Inoue defeats Hans Marrer via TKO in Round 1.

-Brandon Wolff defeats Chad Reiner via split decision.

-Richie Whitson defeats Ray Cooper via KO in Round 1.

-Kolo Koka defeates Michael Brightmon via unanimous decision.

-Dylan Clay defeats Ron Jhun via 2nd round forfeit. (Jhun walks out of ring after round 2)

-Mike Pedro defeats Kana Hyatt via Submission (Armbar) in Round 1.

-Brandon Visher defeats Lorenzo Moreno via TKO in Round 2.

-John Visante defeats Sean Sakata via TKO in Round 1.