The Official MMA Thread

[Stickman]

**The UFC has released Jake Shields following his loss to Hector Lombard at UFC 171. That’s a hard one to justify based on pure record when he’s won 3 of his last 4 (you have to throw out the Ed Herman fight as he won the fight but was ruled a no contest). Shields falls into the same category as Jon Fitch and Yushin Okami that are good enough to beat a lot of future contenders but not guys the UFC sees as headliners or getting back to the top of the division. I am surprised he was cut after one loss though.

[Peeps]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GixDXD44_yA

[Stickman]

**UFC president Dana White met with Gina Carano last night, and has said that if she returns to fighting, she would get an immediate title shot.

**The biggest news of the week came on Monday when it was reported by Ariel Helwani at MMAFighting.com that the UFC has cut Jake Shields following his loss to Hector Lombard last month at UFC 171 in Dallas. Shields had won 3 of his last 4 fights (technically 4 of his last 5 but the Ed Herman win at UFC 150 was changed to a no contest when Shields tested positive for an unknown substance).

**The UFC has announced that Demetrious Johnson will defend the flyweight title against Ali Bagautinov on June 14th in the main event of UFC 174 in Vancouver.

**Tyron Woodley confirmed to MMAFighting.com that he has signed a new eight-fight deal with the UFC and that new deal will begin on June 14th where he is scheduled to fight Rory MacDonald in Vancouver, British Columbia.

**This Friday the UFC Fight Night “Nogueira vs. Nelson” event begins at 11:50am ET on Fight Pass and the main card at 2pm ET headlined by Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira vs. Roy Nelson in a five-round bout and also features Tatsuya Kawajiri vs. Clay Guida in a featherweight bout, John Howard against Ryan LaFlare and Beneil Dariush taking on Ramsey Nijem on the main card.

**Sarah Kaufman has now received her third opponent for next Wednesday’s TUF Nations Finale card in Quebec City. Her latest opponent to drop out is Amanda Nunes with a hand injury and in to take her spot on a week’s notice is Leslie Smith, who last fought in December at 125-pounds with a unanimous loss to Barb Honchak. Kaufman and Smith fought in April 2013 at Invicta FC 5 with Kaufman winning by split decision and the two getting the fight of the night award.

**A welterweight bout between Kelvin Gastelum and Nico Musoke has been announced for the UFC Fight Night card on June 28th in San Antonio, Texas, which is headlined by a five-round bout between featherweights Cub Swanson and Jeremy Stephens.

**World Series of Fighting has announced that they have signed lightweight Melvin Guillard, who was recently cut by the UFC after being with the organization since 2005.

**Chael Sonnen does a back flip:


**Nate Diaz shooting his mouth off about about his payday;Dana White responds

[Stickman]

FTFY

[warehouse]

rousey is fighting alexis davis next.

[Stickman]

indeed she is;

**The UFC has announced that Ronda Rousey will fight Alexis Davis for the bantamweight title at UFC 175 on July 5th in Las Vegas, which is a pretty stacked card at this time along with Chris Weidman vs. Lyoto Machida for the middleweight title and Wanderlei Silva vs. Chael Sonnen on that same show. This would indicate that the meeting between Dana White and Gina Carano either didn’t go well or Carano needs more time to prepare as I never thought she would be ready to fight by July.


**Bellator confirmed Sat night that middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko will go up to light heavyweight and fight Tito Ortiz on May 17th at the Bellator pay-per-view on May 17th with both appearing on Sat night’s broadcast in Temecula, California. Ortiz told Jimmy Smith he was cleared and resumed training in February after a fractured neck took him off last November’s proposed fight with Quinton Jackson. For Shlemenko it’s a fight that will get him on people’s radar but this is a terrible fight for Ortiz and won’t be a fun one if you’re an Ortiz fan. They are really heavily pushing the Rocky IV theme with Ortiz flat out stating “this is Rocky IV but real” and Shelmenko saying “Tito I respect you, but I must beat you”.

**Sat night’s Bellator card did a really great job of telling the near death experience of Blagoi Ivanov, who was stabbed in a nightclub in February 2012 and resulted in his heart being punctured. Ivanov would be put into a medically inducted coma for six-weeks and lost 98-pounds from fluid loss during that period and was feared he wouldn’t come through. He returned to fight in September 2013 and has won all four fights since his return including Sat night’s heavyweight semi-final with Lavar Johnson with a key lock to advance to the finals.

**Here are the main card results from Bellator 116 Sat night in Temecula, California and airing on Spike TV:
*Alexander Volkov over Mighty Mo by KO at 2:44 of Round 1 in the semi-finals of the heavyweight tournament
*Adam McDonough over Nathan Coy by TKO at 0:30 of Round 2 in the semi-finals of the welterweight tournament
*Joey Beltran over Vladimir Matyushenko by submission at 3:06 of Round 3
*Blagoi Ivanov over Lavar Johnson by submission at 4:08 of Round 1 in the semi-finals of the heavyweight tournament

**Going into the show Vladimir Matyushenko had announced this would be his final fight and retires at the age of 43 with a record of 27-8. Matyushenko began fighting in September of 1997 and would debut for the UFC in June of 2001. He was part of the main event of one of the worst UFC shows of all time in September 2001 where he was a late replacement for Vitor Belfort to challenge Tito Ortiz for the UFC light heavyweight title at UFC 33 “Victory in Vegas”, where they had been cleared on all the major pay-per-view providers and it was a terrible show that went long and had to refund a bunch of customers, who missed the end of their main event fight. Matyushenko would later go on to become the first and only IFL light heavyweight champion and had one fight with the Affliction promotion and eventually return to the UFC in 2009. He would go 4-3 during his second run with the UFC and was cut shortly after his January 2013 loss to Ryan Bader and signed with Bellator last year.

**Jorge Guimaraes, the manager of Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira spoke to Ariel Helwani shortly after Nogueira’s knockout loss to Roy Nelson on Friday and said Nogueira still wants one more fight with Frank Mir and then may call it a career. It was very difficult watching the fight on Friday as Nogueira was slow and rocked early in the fight and continued on and then put out cold by an overhand right by Nelson and was laying on the mat for a notable amount of time until finally getting to his feet.

**The bonuses that were handed out after the UFC Fight Night card in Abu Dhabi on Friday went to Clay Guida and Tatsuya Kawajiri for fight of the night while Roy Nelson and Ramsey Nijem received the two performance of the night bonuses, all worth $50,000.

**The UFC will host two events over the next week with the TUF Nations Finale on Wednesday from Quebec City headlined by Michael Bisping vs. Tim Kennedy and TUF Nations coaches Patrick Cote and Kyle Noke fighting as well as the two finals from the season for a middleweight and welterweight contract. The next Saturday the UFC returns to FOX with a card in Orlando headlined by a heavyweight bout between Fabricio Werdum and Travis Browne.

[Stickman]

**Below is the full “Road to the Octagon” special previewing the top three fights on this weekend’s UFC on FOX 11 event in Orlando on Saturday night:

[Stickman]

**There was lots of news during the Dana White post fight media scrum including his thoughts on Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s loss last Friday to Roy Nelson, his meeting with Gina Carano, the Diaz brothers, reaction to the WWE Network subscriber number and DirecTV dropping WWE pay-per-view events and lots more:


**Here are the results from wed night’s TUF Nations Finale at the Colisee Pepsi in Quebec City, Quebec:
*Mitch Gagnon over Tim Gorman by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Richard Walsh over Chris Indich by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Nordine Taleb over Vik Grujic by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Mark Bocek over Mike De La Torre by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*George Roop over Dustin Kimura by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-26)
*Ryan Jimmo over Sean O’Connell by KO at 4:27 of Round 1
*Sarah Kaufman over Leslie Smith by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*K.J. Noons over Sam Stout by KO at 0:30 of Round 1
*Dustin Poirier over Akira Corassani by TKO at 0:42 of Round 2
*Chad Laprise over Olivier Aubin-Mercier by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
*Elias Theodorou over Sheldon Westcott by TKO at 4:41 of Round 2
*Patrick Cote over Kyle Noke by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Tim Kennedy over Michael Bisping by unanimous decision (50-45, 49-46, 49-46)

The following $50,000 bonuses were handed out after the card:
*Fight of the Night – Dustin Poirier vs. Akira Corassani
*Performance of the Night – K.J. Noons and Ryan Jimmo

**Bleacher Report broke the news that former UFC fighter Jake Shields has signed with the World Series of Fighting according to his manager Lex McMahon. Shields was released by the UFC following his loss to Hector Lombard at UFC 171 in March.

**Hector Lombard posted he was in a minor car accident yesterday when he was hit from behind and said online his back was hurting.

[Stickman]

**Below are the Countdown to UFC 172 segments focusing on the top three fights for this Saturday’s pay-per-view:




**Yancy Medeiros is now official for the fight with Jim Miller this Saturday at UFC 172 on the pay-per-view card with Bobby Green having to pull out of the fight due to injury. Vagner Rocha will replace Medeiros on the undercard against Joe Ellenberger.

**Transgendered fighter Fallon Fox will be profiled on HBO’s Real Sports on Tuesday night.

**Here are the results from the UFC on FOX 11 card Sat night in Orlando, Florida at the Amway Center in front of an announced crowd of 17,000 and gate of $1,650,000:
*Derrick Lewis over Jack May by TKO at 4:23 of Round 1
*Mirsad Bektic over Chas Skelly by majority decision (29-27, 29-27, 28-28)
*Dustin Ortiz over Ray Borg by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Jordan Mein over Hernani Perpetuo by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Caio Magalhaes over Luke Zachrich by TKO at 0:44 of Round 1
*Alex White over Estevan Payan by TKO at 1:28 of Round 1
*Jorge Masvidal over Pat Healy by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Thiago Alves over Seth Baczynski by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Khabib Nurmagomedov over Rafael dos Anjos by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Yoel Romero over Brad Tavares by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Donald Cerrone over Edson Barboza by rear-naked choke at 3:15 of Round 1
*Miesha Tate over Liz Carmouche by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Fabricio Werdum over Travis Browne by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46)

**The following $50,000 bonuses were announced after the show at the post fight press conference:
*Fight of the Night – Thiago Alves vs. Seth Baczynski
*Performance of the Night – Donald Cerrone and Alex White

**Here are the main card results from Bellator 117 on Friday in Council Bluffs, Iowa and airing on Spike TV:
*Patricky Freire over Derek Campos by TKO at 0:52 of Round 2 in the semi-finals of the lightweight tournament
*Karl Amoussou over David Gomez by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Marcin Held over Derek Anderson by triangle choke at 3:09 of Round 2 in the semi-finals of the lightweight tournament
*Douglas Lima over Rick Hawn by TKO (corner stoppage) at the end of Round 2

**It’s not a story that will get loads of headlines but the biggest news of the weekend is that Bob Bennett has been named the new Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission replacing Keith Kizer, who left back in February. Andy Foster, who is the head of the California State Athletic Commission was among the 350 candidates up for the job and will be interesting to see what immediate changes are made. Many people are expecting with Kizer out and Bennett in that it should bring an end to John McCarthy being frozen out of the state as a referee.

**The timetable for when Werdum will get his heavyweight title fight with Cain Velasquez is anyone’s guess as Velasquez recovers from his shoulder injury. The company is very bullish on Mexico and would obviously want to have Velasquez headlining that first show in Mexico. Officials from Televisa were at the show last night and Dana White didn’t rule out the possibility that Velasquez and Werdum could be coaches on the Ultimate Fighter Latino Americans show, which will begin filming later this summer.

**Former UFC middleweight champion Rich Franklin posted on Facebook that he is in talking with One FC out of Asia about coming out board as a vice-president and noted that he has sat down and discussed this move with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta and has their blessing to proceed. Franklin has spoken about wanting one more fight before retiring. Franklin has not fought since November of 2012 where he was stopped by Cung Le.

[Stickman]

**Here is the full card for UFC 172 tomorrow night from the Baltimore Arena with weigh-in results in brackets:

MAIN CARD (10pm ET on pay-per-view)
*Jon Jones (205) vs. Glover Teixeira (205) for the light heavyweight title
*Phil Davis (205.5) vs. Anthony Johnson (205)
*Luke Rockhold (185.5) vs. Tim Boetsch (185.5)
*Jim Miller (155) vs. Yancy Medeiros (155.5)
*Andre Fili (145) vs. Max Holloway (145)

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm ET on FS 1, Sportsnet 360)
*Joseph Benavidez (125.5) vs. Tim Elliott (125.5)
*Takanori Gomi (155.5) vs. Isaac Vallie-Flagg (155.5)
*Bethe Correia (135) vs. Jessamyn Duke (135.5)
*Danny Castillo (156) vs. Charlie Brenneman (155.5)

FIGHT PASS CARD (7:30pm ET)
*Chris Beal (135) vs. Patrick Williams (135)


**UFC president Dana White announced Thursday night that former heavyweight champion Andrei Arlovski is returning to the organization but no fight has been announced for him yet. Arlovski’s contract expired back in 2008 and last fought for the UFC at UFC 82 in March 2008 where he defeated Jake O’Brien and went over to Affliction. Arlovski is now 35-years old and has won his last two fights.

**Vagner Rocha was taken off of this Saturday’s UFC 172 card after injuring himself earlier in the week. Rocha was a last minute replacement to fight Joe Ellenberger, who lost his original opponent in Yancy Medeiros, who was moved to the main card to fight Jim Miller. The fight has been scrapped altogether since there was so little time to find a new opponent and both will be paid their show money and likely booked on cards in the near future.

**Bellator is off this weekend and return next Friday in Atlantic City, New Jersey for Bellator 118 headlined by Eduardo Dantas vs. Joe Warren for the bantamweight title. The promotion then runs in Rama, Ontario on May 9th and finish up this season with their first ever pay-per-view on Saturday May 17th in Southaven, Mississippi.

**The Nevada State Athletic Commission voted to overturn Denis Siver’s win over Manny Gamburyan at UFC 168 into a no contest after Siver tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin. Siver was suspended for nine-months retroactive to the December 28th 2013 fight and also fined $19,800, which represents 30% of his purse from the fight.

**A lightweight bout between Myles Jury and Abel Trujillo has been added to the Fight Night card on June 28th in San Antonio, Texas. Jury is undefeated with a 5-0 record in the UFC (he lost on the TUF Live season to Al Iaquinta but that doesn’t count on his professional record) and coming off a unanimous decision win over Diego Sanchez at UFC 171. Trujillo is coming off stoppage wins over Roger Bowling and Jamie Varner heading into this fight.

**Dana White appeared on ESPN Wednesday and announced that Daniel Cormier will be fighting Dan Henderson on May 24th on the UFC 173 card in Las Vegas. Many people are noting how Vitor Belfort had to pull out of his fight with Chris Weidman for that date in order to get his body off of TRT and yet Henderson, who fought with TRT going into the fight with Shogun last month, is able to fight on this card without it.

**The Canadian Press has confirmed that Ryan Bader will meet Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante at UFC 174 on June 14th in Vancouver, British Columbia. Bader last fought in December where he earned a unanimous decision win over Anthony Perosh while Cavalcante last fought in November where he stopped Igor Pokrajac in the opening round.

**Ben Saunders has signed with the Titan FC organization and is expected to debut later this spring with Ariel Helwani reporting the signing at MMAFighting.com. Saunders was let go by Bellator last fall after a knockout loss at the hands of Douglas Lima at the Bellator 100 card in September.

**Liverkick reported the news first that Paul Daley has signed with K-1 Global and will debut with the organization this July in Thailand. Daley was cut by the UFC back in May 2010 after sucker punching Josh Koscheck following their bout at UFC 113. He later fought for Strikeforce (where he had one of the greatest one round fights of all-time against Nick Diaz in April 2011) and later Bellator and has been fighting all over the world since. Daley has done three kickboxing bouts already this year with a fourth scheduled for this Friday in Slovenia.

[Stickman]

**Here are the results from the UFC 172 card last night at the Baltimore Arena in front of 13,485 and a gate of $2,300,000:

*Chris Beal over Patrick Williams by KO at 1:51 of Round 2 – spectacular knockout and will probably be a knockout of the year candidate, the UFC made sure to replay this on the FS1 prelims

*Danny Castillo over Charlie Brenneman by KO at 0:21 of Round 2 – Brenneman won the first round and then ate a right hook and was knocked out cold, another spectacular KO

*Bethe Correia over Jessamyn Duke by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Takanori Gomi over Isaac Vallie-Flagg by unanimous decision (29-28 all) – solid fight with Vallie-Flagg winning the first round but his eye got swollen shut and Gomi got his striking going after the first round, third round was close but I agreed with the scores
*Joseph Benavidez over Timothy Elliott by guillotine choke at 4:08 of Round 1 – The way Benavidez mounted Elliott with the guillotine applied and crossed his feet, tied up Elliott’s arms and he had to stomp with his feet to signal the tap out
*Max Holloway over Andre Fili by guillotine choke at 3:39 of Round 3
*Jim Miller over Yancy Medeiros by guillotine choke at 3:18 of Round 1
*Luke Rockhold over Tim Boestch by kimura at 2:08 of Round 1
*Anthony Johnson over Phil Davis by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Jon Jones over Glover Teixeira by unanimous decision (50-45 all) to retain the light heavyweight title

**Bellator announced on Saturday that due to a head injury suffered in training that bantamweight champion Eduardo Dantas is off of this Friday’s Bellator 118 card where he was scheduled to defend the title against Joe Warren. The promotion has now announced that Warren will fight Rafael Silva for the interim title this Friday night.

**Jon Jones wouldn’t speak about Alexander Gustafsson at all during the post fight press conference and referred to him as a “kid” at one point. The idea of holding the rematch at a stadium in Sweden is being discussed for later this year.

**Glover Teixeira was taken to the hospital after the main event where it was believed he dislocated his shoulder in the opening round and may have also broken a rib.

**The UFC has a rare weekend off next week and then return on Saturday May 10th in Cincinnati, Ohio for a Fox Sports 1 card headlined by Matt Brown vs. Erick Silva in a welterweight bout. The company is scheduled to hold four cards next month with the May 10th card, the UFC 173 show on May 24th and then two shows on May 31st with the TUF Brazil Finale in Sao Paulo and Fight Pass card the same day in Berlin, Germany.

[Stickman]

**TMZ reported today that Tito Ortiz has changed his plea for a DUI offence earlier this year from “not guilty” to “no contest”. A judge has ordered Ortiz to attend an alcohol education program and be placed on probation for 36-months. Ortiz crashed his Porsche back in January but no one was hurt in the accident but Ortiz was facing up to six-months in prison and a $1,000 fine when he was charged. Ortiz is scheduled to fight on May 17th on the Bellator pay-per-view against Alexander Shlemenko.

**World Series of Fighting has announced that welterweight Rousimar Palhares has pulled out of his fight with Jon Fitch for July 5th and they are looking to replace Palhares on the card. The EVP for the promotion, Ali Abdel-Aziz spoke to Ariel Helwani at MMA Fighting and said he will no longer stand for fighters accepting fights and then changing their minds or wanting out of their contracts early with the new plan for their July 5th card to feature Justin Gaethje vs. Nick Newell in the main event for the lightweight title. The card will be running in the afternoon of a packed weekend with UFC 175 taking place later that night and then the TUF 19 Finale running the next night in Las Vegas.

**There will be a fast turnaround for UFC lightweight Rafael dos Anjos as he will be returning to fight on June 7th against Jason High on the UFC Fight Night card from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Dos Anjos just fought on April 19th where he dropped a decision to Khabib Nurmagomedov in Orlando and ended his five-fight winning streak. High has won his last two fights and last fought at UFC 167 in November of last year where he earned a unanimous decision over Anthony Lapsley. This fight will be High’s debut at the lightweight class after competing at welterweight his entire career.

**This weekend there are three big live shows airing on Fight Network in Canada with the One FC 15 card on Friday morning at 7am ET headlined by Bibiano Fernandes vs. Masakatsu Ueda for the bantamweight title, then on Saturday afternoon at 4pm ET Cage Warriors 68 takes place live from Liverpool, England and then Saturday night at 9pm ET GLORY 16 will air on the network featuring a one-night, four-man heavyweight tournament with Errol Zimmerman vs. Ben Edwards and Anderson Silva vs. Sergei Kharitonov along with the GLORY debut of former UFC heavyweight Pat Barry.

[Stickman]

In his first interview since completing filming of The Ultimate Fighter Brazil 3, Wanderlei Silva talks about the infamous on-set brawl with rival coach Chael Sonnen, the crucible-like atmosphere of the series, and addresses rumors of his impending retirement.


**Bellator 118 takes place tonight from Atlantic City, New Jersey at 9pm ET on Spike TV with the following main card:
*Joe Warren vs. Rafael Silva for the interim bantamweight title – Silva missed weight and as a result it is only a title fight for Warren, if Silva wins the fight the title doesn’t exist
*Justin Baesman vs. Andrey Koreshkov in the welterweight semi-finals
*Marcos Galvao vs. Thomas Vasquez
*Liam McGeary vs. Mike Mucitelli in the opening round of the Summer Series light heavyweight tournament

**Bibiano Fernandes successfully defended the One FC bantamweight title earlier today at the One FC 15 card over Masakatsu Ueda by unanimous decision in Manila.

**Bellator has announced a bunch of programming on Spike TV leading into their May 17th pay-per-view with the following announcements:
*Monday May 5th and 12th – Countdown to Alvarez vs. Chandler III at 11pm ET
*Tuesday May 13th – Rampage vs. Mo – Winner Takes All at 11:30pm ET
*Wednesday May 14th – Unfinished Business: Alvarez vs. Chandler III at Midnight ET
*Friday May 16th – Unrivaled: Michael Chandler at 11pm ET

**The UFC has announced that Donald Cerrone vs. Jim Miller will headline the July 16th UFC Fight Night card in Atlantic City, New Jersey in a five round lightweight bout. This will be Cerrone’s third fight of 2014 as he has wins over Adriano Martins and Edson Barboza already while Miller is coming off a win over Yancy Medeiros this past weekend at UFC 172.

**A light heavyweight bout between Ryan Jimmo and Ovince St. Preux has been added to the UFC 174 card on June 14th in Vancouver, British Columbia. Jimmo just fought at the TUF Nations Finale where he stopped Sean O’Connell and told me right after the fight that he wanted to get on the Vancouver card. OSP has won his last four fights and is coming off a submission win over Nikita Krylov at UFC 171 with a Von Flue choke.

**The UFC has announced that Conor McGregor will fight Cole Miller on the UFC’s return to Ireland on July 19th in the main event of that card in Dublin. McGregor posted wins over Marcus Brimage and Max Holloway in 2013 but injured his left knee in the Holloway fight and hasn’t fought since last August. Miller has won three of his last four and coming off wins over Andy Ogle and Sam Sicilia and had been vocal about wanting to fight McGregor.

**A lightweight bout between Kevin Lee and Jesse Ronson has been announced for the TUF 19 Finale on July 6th in Las Vegas the night after UFC 175.

[Stickman]

**Here are the main card results from Bellator 118 on Friday night in Atlantic City:
*Liam McGeary over Mike Mucitelli by KO at 0:22 of Round 1 in the opening round of the Summer Series light heavyweight tournament
*Marcos Galvao over Thomas Vasquez by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Andrey Koreshkov over Justin Baesman by KO at 1:41 of Round 1 in the semi-finals of the welterweight tournament
*Joe Warren over Rafael Silva by unanimous decision (30-27 all) to become the interim bantamweight champion

**Sam Oropeza was scheduled to fight Andrey Koreshkov but his body shut down during the weight cut and required CPR to be revived in a really scary situation. Rafael Silva also missed weight and therefore the main event was only a title fight for Warren.

**A tweet was sent out by Josh Thomson on Saturday night calling out Nick Diaz to fight in July on the FOX card in San Jose, which read:

I knocked out your brother, I'll knock ur bitch ass out in San Jose July 26th.Let's do it Bitch, San Jose vs Stockon. Yup, FUCK U NICK DIAZ!

This morning Thomson was denying that the tweet was from him and that his phone was stolen and apologized to both Diaz brothers and stated he would never be that disrespectful to any fighters.

**A welterweight bout between Rick Story and John Howard has been announced for the UFC Fight Night 45 card on July 16th as well as a flyweight bout between John Linker and Alptekin Ozkilic in Atlantic City, New Jersey on the card headlined by Jim Miller vs. Donald Cerrone.

[Stickman]

**FOX Sports broke the news this morning that Anthony Johnson will meet Antonio Rogerio Nogueira on July 26th in San Jose on the next FOX card in a light heavyweight bout. Johnson is coming off a strong win over Phil Davis last month at UFC 172 while Nogueira has not fought since February of 2013 where he defeated Rashad Evans by split decision at UFC 156 and only fought twice since December 2011.

**Bellator 119 goes down tomorrow night from Casino Rama in Rama, Ontario and airing at 9pm ET on Spike TV. Below is the main card:
*Des Green vs. Daniel Weichel in the finals of the featherweight tournament
*Vaughn Anderson vs. Marius Zaromskis
*Nick Rossborough vs. Raphael Butler
*John Alessio vs. Eric Wisely

**Stefan Struve will return to the octagon on July 5th at UFC 175 when he takes on Matt Mitrione in a heavyweight bout. Struve has not competed since March 2013 after which he discovered he had an enlarged heart and a leakage from his aortic valve, which has since been taken care of and has been cleared to resume training and fighting. Mitrione is coming off a knockout win over Shawn Jordan in January in Singapore.

**The UFC has announced that Fabio Maldonado will step in to replace Junior dos Santos on May 31st in Sao Paulo, Brazil and fight Stipe Miocic in the main event of the TUF Brazil Finale. Maldonado will be coming up to take the fight at heavyweight and will be his first fight at that weight since June of 2010.

**The UFC 176 card on August 2nd in Los Angeles is coming together quickly since the announcement of the main event between Jose Aldo and Chad Mendes for the featherweight title. The card will also see flyweights Zach Makovsky and Jussier da Silva meet with da Silva coming off a controversial win over Scott Jorgensen where Jorgensen was head butted and knocked down and led to the rear-naked choke submission win for da Silva. Makovsky is coming off back to back decision wins inside of the UFC over Jorgensen and most recently defeating Josh Sampo at UFC 170.

**One of the more interesting storylines in mixed martial arts continues as Bethe Correia continues her quest of beating all of the Four Horsewomen. After recently defeating Jessamyn Duke at UFC 172, Correia will now fight Duke’s teammate Shayna Baszler on August 2nd in Los Angeles at UFC 176 on the same card where Jose Aldo defends the featherweight title against Chad Mendes.

[Stickman]

**Bellator has been able to put together a lightweight bout for this Saturday’s Bellator 120 event featuring two lightweights, who lost their original opponents. Nate Jolly will now fight Marcin Held on the Spike TV preliminary portion of the show after Jolly was originally to fight Will Brooks on the main card but Brooks was moved up to fight Michael Chandler and Held was scheduled to fight Patricky “Pitbull” Freire in the finals of the lightweight tournament but Pitbull pulled out with an injury. The card is now finalized with fourteen bouts beginning at 6pm ET on Spike.com, the televised prelims will run at 8pm ET on Spike TV and the pay-per-view begins at 10pm ET.

**Battlegrounds MMA is putting together a one-night, eight-man welterweight tournament on Friday June 27th in Tulsa, Oklahoma and have finalized competitors with Roan Carneiro, Josh Bryant, David Mitchell, Luigi Fioravanti, Chris Honeycutt, Dennis Hallman, Cody McKenzie and Brock Larson announced for the tournament with the winner taking home $50,000.

**A remake of the 1989 film “The Kickboxer” is in the early stages of development with the announcement today that the film will star both Georges St-Pierre and Dave Bautista. The press release noting they will be trying to sell the rights to the film at Cannes this year and no release date is known at this stage of the development process.

[Stickman]

**As session is quickly coming to a close next month, the New York State Senate has once again passed a bill to regulate mixed martial arts in the state and is now being sent to the floor for a final vote, which is where it has died the last four-years. The vote was 43-17 in favor of passing the bill but doesn’t mean anything unless the State Assembly first of all tables a vote and secondly votes to pass it and regulate the sport in New York. The sport was officially banned in the state in 1997 with bills to regulate and allow the sport being voted on for the past five-years.

*The Nevada State Athletic Commission has granted licenses to both Dan Henderson and Chael Sonnen ahead of their bouts in Las Vegas coming with Henderson fighting next weekend against Daniel Cormier at UFC 173 and Sonnen fighting Wanderlei Silva on July 5th. Both men are coming off of testosterone replacement therapy and will be unable to use it for these fights. Henderson did fight Rashad Evans last June without the usage of TRT heading into that fight.

**Ariel Helwani reports that Soa Palelei has agreed to fight Jared Rosholt on June 28th at the UFC Fight Night card in New Zealand, which is headlined by Nate Marquardt meeting James Te Huna in a middleweight bout. Palelei is coming off an early stoppage win over Ruan Potts this past weekend in Cincinnati and has won eleven straight fights. Rosholt made his UFC debut last November and has earned decision wins over Walt Harris and Daniel Omielanczuk in the organization.

**Bellator lightweight champion Eddie Alvarez tweeted out an apology Tuesday for his comments regarding the interim lightweight title that Michael Chandler and Will Brooks will be fighting for on Saturday night. Alvarez was a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani and referred to the title as a “meaningless shitty title” and apologized stating he was out of line and Bellator has been very supportive in the wake of his concussion that has forced him off of Saturday’s pay-per-view event. Alvarez also stated in the interview that his next fight with Bellator will be on pay-per-view.

**This Saturday afternoon at 2pm Eastern, Fight Network will be airing the KSW 27 card live from Poland headlined by Maiquel Falcao vs. Mahmed Khalidov and also features a heavyweight bout between Mariusz Pudzianowski taking on Oli Thompson.

[Stickman]

**Below are the Countdown to UFC 173 videos for this weekend in Las Vegas:






**Here are all of the results from the Bellator 120 pay-per-view last night in Southaven, Mississippi:
*Brian Hall over Cortez Phelia by TKO at 0:24 of Round 3
*Codie Shuffield over Anthony Lemon by rear-naked choke at 2:15 of Round 2
*Ben Brewer over Andy Uhrich by KO at 2:40 of Round 2
*Mike Wessel over Justin Frazier by TKO at 4:28 of Round 1
*Austin Lyons over Zach Underwood by unanimous technical decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Goiti Yamauchi over Mike Richman by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Fabricio Guerreiro over Shahbulat Shamhalaev by kimura at 3:29 of Round 1
*Marcin Held over Nate Jolly by armbar at 4:20 of Round 1
*Cheick Kongo over Eric Smith by TKO at 4:35 of Round 2
*Michael Page over Ricky Rainey by TKO at 4:29 of Round 1
*Alexander Volkov over Blagoi Ivanov by rear-naked choke at 1:08 of Round 2 to win the heavyweight tournament
*Tito Ortiz over Alexander Shlemenko by arm-triangle choke at 2:27 of Round 1
*Will Brooks over Michael Chandler by split decision (48-46, 47-48, 48-47) to become the interim lightweight champion
*Quinton Jackson over Muhammed Lawal by unanimous decision (29-28 all) to win the light heavyweight tournament

**In speaking with Luke Thomas of MMA Fighting, Bellator C.E.O. Bjorn Rebney noted that Eddie Alvarez has a clause in his contract where he can insist to fight Michael Chandler in his next fight so it’s not a lock that he has to fight Will Brooks. Alvarez has indicated in interviews that his next fight will be a pay-per-view alluding to the settlement agreement the two sides reached last year to keep Alvarez in the promotion and presumably Alvarez would be free to leave Bellator after his next fight whether he were to win or lose.

**Bellator will kick off their Summer Series on Friday June 6th with a card in Thackerville, Oklahoma and is headlined by Pat Curran vs. Patricio “Pitbull” Freire for the featherweight title.

[Stickman]

**Here are the results from the UFC 173 card Saturday night in front of 11,036 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas and a live gate of $1.7 million:
*Li Jingliang over David Michaud by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 29-28)
*Sam Sicilia over Aaron Phillips by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Vinc Pichel over Anthony Njokuani by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Mitch Clarke over Al Iaquinta by D’arce choke at 0:57 of Round 2
*Chris Holdsworth over Chico Camus by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Tony Ferguson over Katsunori Kikuno by KO at 4:06 of Round 1
*Michael Chiesa over Francisco Trinaldo by unanimous decision (30-26, 30-26, 30-27)
*James Krause over Jamie Varner by TKO (injury) at 5:00 of Round 1
*Takeya Mizugaki over Francisco Rivera by unanimous decision (30-27, 30-27, 29-28)
*Robbie Lawler over Jake Ellenberger by TKO at 3:06 of Round 3
*Daniel Cormier over Dan Henderson by technical submission at 3:53 of Round 3
*TJ Dillashaw over Renan Barao by TKO at 2:26 of Round 5 to win the UFC bantamweight title

**The bonuses handed out after the card were given to TJ Dillashaw vs. Renan Barao for fight of the night with Dillashaw and Mitch Clarke also receiving performance of the night bonuses for $50,000.

**The main event will certainly make this one of the most remembered cards in UFC history with the huge upset by Dillashaw, who came into this fight an 8:1 underdog and proceeded to dominate the champion for the entire fight. Afterwards the two candidates being discusses for the next title fight were the obvious rematch idea with Barao or going with Raphael Assuncao, who holds a split decision win over Dillashaw from last year. I could see them going either way and after such a one-sided fight it might be worth having Barao fight someone else first but either direction is hard to argue with.

**The UFC is planning to put together the Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson rematch on August 30th at a location to be determined but Jones has yet to sign the bout agreement. Dana White stated that Gustafsson has signed a new deal and signed the bout agreement and went ahead by announcing their plan for the fight without getting the deal finalized with Jones signing and is an interesting play on their part. White stated after the press conference that there is still a possibility the fight could take place in Sweden.

**The UFC has announced another Fight Night card for August 23rd in Macau with Michael Bisping vs. Cung Le and Hector Lombard vs. Dong Hyun Kim announced for that’s how. This will be another date where there will be two shows in one day with another Fight Night card that day from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

**Next weekend the UFC is running two shows on Saturday with the TUF Brazil 3 Finale from Sao Paulo headlined by Stipe Miocic vs. Fabio Maldonado and also running in Berlin, Germany with Mark Munoz vs. Gegard Mousas headlining that show.

**Dan Henderson noted after the loss to Daniel Cormier that he has no plans of retiring (he has four fights remaining on his new UFC deal) and is considering dropping down to middleweight after coming into this fight at 199 pounds and being overpowered by Cormier for three rounds before being finished.

**MMA Junkie reports that a deal has been finalized for the World Series of Fighting to air their July 5th card on NBC headlined by Justin Gaethje vs. Nick Newell for the lightweight title along with a rematch between Josh Burkman and Jon Fitch on the main card. The show will be running on the same day as UFC 175, which is the biggest card thus far of 2014 for the UFC with two title fights along with Chael Sonnen vs. Wanderlei Silva on the main card.

**There should be a public announcement tomorrow regarding the main event of the UFC on FOX 12 card set for July 26th in San Jose, California.

**An update on Jamie Varner is that he broke two bones and tore some ligaments in his foot following the fight with James Krause on Saturday night. There is no word on how much time he will be missing but that was one of the more gutsy performances you are going to see from a fighter.

**Following last night’s episode of TUF Brazil, the finals are set for the middleweight and heavyweight tournaments for this Saturday’s finale card in Sao Paulo. Warlley Alves will take on Marcio Alexandre Junior in the middleweight final and Antonio Carlos Junior takes on Vitor Miranda in the heavyweight final.

**UFC bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is beginning her training camp today for the Alexis Davis title defense on July 5th. She will be taking one day off on June 3rd to do some re-shoots for the upcoming Entourage movie.

[Stickman]

in case you missed it.
Poor Hendo