Red Mosquito

**TUF 20 premieres tonight on FS 1 and Sportsnet 360 featuring the sixteen strawweights vying to become the first 115-pound women’s champion in UFC history. The season will feature lightweight champion Anthony Pettis and Gilbert Melendez as coaches with the following fighters competing on the show:
*Carla Esparza – who was the outgoing Invicta FC strawweight champion
*Tecia Torres
*Joanne Calderwood
*Angela Magana
*Alex Chambers
*Randa Markos
*Lisa Ellis
*Jessica Penna – former Invicta atomweight champion
*Felice Herrig
*Heather Clark
*Angela Hill
*Aisling Daly
*Justine Kish
*Rose Namajunas
*Bec Rawlings
*Emily Kagan

**Mike Tyson presents his one-man show, “The Undisputed Truth” at the theatre at the Air Canada Centre tonight in Toronto and got a ton of publicity today for this appearance on CP24 in the city:


**FOX Sports is reporting that Brendan Schaub and Travis Browne will meet at the UFC 181 card on December 6th in Las Vegas. Both are coming off losses with Browne losing to Fabricio Werdum by decision this past April and Schaub losing a controversial decision to Andrei Arlovski back at UFC 174 in June.

**Dave Meltzer is reporting at the Wrestling Observer site that the UFC Fight Night 50 card on Friday night did a 0.54 rating on FS 1 while Bellator 123 did a 0.43 rating on Spike TV. Both would have to be considered disappointing numbers and rather than the competition building each other’s audience up, it cut an existing audience down with both shows underperforming.

**The UFC has announced that TUF season 19 winner, Corey Anderson, will be fighting Gian Villante at the UFC 181 card on December 6th in Las Vegas. Anderson won the UFC contract back in July on the TUF 19 Finale show by defeating Matt Van Buren while Villante is coming off a split decision nod over Sean O’Connell in his last fight. Villante is also teammates with middleweight champion Chris Weidman, who will be defending his title against Vitor Belfort on the same card.

**A correction from earlier this week and that is the UFC Fight Night 52 prelims will be begin at 12:30am ET late Friday night from Saitama, Japan and will be airing on Fight Pass.

**The Battlegrounds MMA promotion has announced that former TUF contestant, Jesse Taylor and Joe Ray have been added to the one-night welterweight tournament, which is coming up on October 3rd for their eight-man tournament. Dennis Hallman and Chris Honeycutt have withdrawn from the tournament, which will air on pay-per-view that night featuring Jim Ross and Chael Sonnen calling the show.

**The latest season of Dancing with the Stars began on Monday night featuring former UFC heavyweight and light heavyweight champion, Randy Couture. The former fighter is paired with Karina Smirnoff and finished in fifth place on their first night.

**Here are the results from the UFC Fight Night 51 card from Sat night in Brasilia with an announced crowd of 8,822 (7,649 paid attendance):
*Rani Yahya over Johnny Bedford by kimura at 2:04 of Round 2
*Sean Spencer over Paulo Thiago by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Francisco Trinaldo over Leandro Silva by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*George Sullivan over Igor Araujo by KO at 2:31 of Round 2
*Godofredo Castro over Dashon Johnson by mounted triangle at 4:29 of Round 1
*Jessica Andrade over Larissa Pacheco by guillotine choke at 4:33 of Round 1
*Yuri Alcantara over Russell Doane by unanimous decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Santiago Ponzinibbio over Wendell Oliveira by TKO at 1:20 of Round 1
*Leonardo Santos over Efrain Escudero by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Gleison Tibau over Piotr Hallmann by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Andrei Arlovski over Antonio Silva by KO at 2:59 of Round 1

**The fight of the night bonus went to Gleison Tibau and Piotr Hallmann with Andrei Arlovski and Godofredo Castro earning the performance of the night bonuses, all for $50,000.


**Arlovski was a heavy underdog going into the fight and puts him in a good position amongst the heavyweight mix as there are no sound contenders for the winner of the Cain Velasquez vs. Fabricio Werdum fight in November. You could match Arlovski with any number of guys from Stipe Miocic (who has no fight booked right now), the winner of next weekend’s fight between Roy Nelson and Mark Hunt (Arlovski does have a 2008 win over Nelson, which was protested at the time by many) and even Ben Rothwell (who Arlovski also has a 2008 victory over).

**The UFC Fight Night 52 card airs late tonight with the prelims at 12:30am ET and the main card at 3:30am ET from the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. Below is the card for tonight:

MAIN CARD (3:30am ET, Saturday morning on Fight Pass)
*Mark Hunt vs. Roy Nelson
*Takanori Gomi vs. Myles Jury
*Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Amir Sadollah
*Miesha Tate vs. Rin Nakai
*Richard Walsh vs. Kiichi Kunimoto
*Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Jon Delos Reyes

PRELIMINARY CARD (12:30am ET on Fight Pass)
*Alex Caceres vs. Masanori Kanehara
*Katsunori Kikuno vs. Sam Sicilia
*Takenori Sato vs. Hyun Gyu Lim
*Kyung Ho Kang vs. Michihiro Tanaka
*Kazuki Tokudome vs. Johnny Case
*Maximo Blanco vs. Daniel Hooker

**Bellator 125 takes place tonight from Fresno, California at the Save Mart Center (which is a huge venue for Bellator standards) with the following main card at 9pm ET on Spike TV:
*Doug Marshall vs. Melvin Manhoef
*Rafael Carvalho vs. Brian Rogers
*Martin Stapleton vs. Goiti Yamauchi
*Javy Ayala vs. Raphael Butler

There are some upcoming talents to watch on the Spike.com undercard at 7pm including high level wrestler Chris Honeycutt (who recently pulled out of the Battlegrounds one-night tournament on October 3rd), who is fighting Aaron Wilkinson. Another prospect to watch is Jonny Bonilla-Bowman, who is a featherweight and wrestled at Hofstra and debuts for Bellator tonight against Art Becerra.

**UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier have been requested by the NAC, to appear at the September 23rd hearing to face possible punishment for their brawl last month at the MGM Grand Garden Hotel. The two are facing fines of up to $250,000 and their purses for the fight. The two were scheduled to fight on September 27th but has been moved to January 3rd after Jones suffered a knee injury in training.

**Joanne Calderwood defeated Emily Kagan on Wednesday night’s edition of TUF 20 with next week’s fighting pitting #4 Jessica Penne vs. #13 Lisa Ellis in a rematch from the first Invicta FC card in April of 2012. Team Pettis has won the first two fights with Calderwood and Randa Markos advancing to the next round.

**The UFC has announced that Alistair Overeem and Stefan Struve will fight on the next FOX card on December 13th from Phoenix, Arizona. Overeem is coming off a loss to Ben Rothwell two-weeks back while Struve has not fought since March of 2013 and dealt with heart problems including a leak of his aortic valve. Struve was cleared to return to fight this past July at UFC 175 but suffered a panic attack on the night of the fight and his bout with Matt Mitrione was cancelled. The promotion is also working on putting together a bout between Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic for the same card.

**The UFC has also added a middleweight bout between Derek Brunson and Ed Herman as well as a lightweight fight between Joe Ellenberger and Bryan Barberena to the FOX 13 card on December 13th in Phoenix.

**A middleweight bout between Lyoto Machida and C.B. Dollaway is now official for the UFC Fight Night card on December 20th in Brazil.

**Sherdog is reporting that Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal will fight Tom DeBlass on November 15th in San Diego, on the same card that features Tito Ortiz vs. Stephan Bonnar and Will Brooks vs. Michael Chandler for the lightweight title. DeBlass had to pull out of his fight with Lawal on September 5th and Lawal ended up fighting Dustin Jacoby.

**Tonight’s episode of Ultimate Fighter features Jessica Penne taking on Lisa Ellis in a rematch from the first Invicta FC card in April of 2012.

**Thiago Silva has been released from the UFC again, only two-weeks after it was announced they were bringing him back are charged were dropped against Silva over domestic violence issues with his ex-wife. On Friday, a pair of videos surfaced, which were filmed by his ex-wife, Thaysa Kamiji of Silva holding a gun and the two going back forth. Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting spoke with Kamiji and she apparently has more videos (which are said to be much more as Cruz states he has seen them) and was going to be quiet but when Silva went on “The MMA Hour” and caller her a liar, she decided to break her silence. The story and videos are up at http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/9/19/65 ... om-the-ufc.

**A second case of domestic violence was also brought to light on Friday and has led to the indefinite suspension of light heavyweight Anthony Johnson. Bloody Elbow broke the news that a woman (whose name has not been released, but is the mother of Johnson’s children) filed a complaint two-weeks ago stating she was frightened by Johnson and has been receiving threatening texts from an unknown number. The woman in question stated that she was struck in the face by Johnson and lost two of her teeth during an incident two-years ago. The UFC has issued the following statement:

We are aware of the situation involving Anthony Johnson. As a result, we are suspending him indefinitely. We are using a third-party law firm to conduct a formal investigation and once we have more information, we’ll determine whether further course of action is necessary

Johnson’s lawyer has released the following statement:

Anthony categorically denies all allegations and looks forward to his court date in the civil matter, where the truth and lies will be established.

**The news continues as Wanderlei Silva has announced his retirement and is very upset with how everything has gone down stemming from his refusal to participate in a random drug test back in May, prior to his fight with Chael Sonnen, which was ultimately cancelled. Silva cites the lack of respect fighters receive and notes Renan Barao fighting three times in six-months and losing his title, coming back too fast and then being mocked by the promotion and not being paid as an example.

Silva has posted the following video with his entire speech:


**Episode 2 of UFC Embedded, which focuses on Eddie Alvarez and Donald Cerrone (who is wakeboarding the week of the fight):


**The UFC and Nate Diaz have settled their issues and Diaz will be back on December 13th to fight Rafael dos Anjos on the FOX 13 card in Phoenix. Lorenzo Feritta confirmed the news to ESPN.com following a long standoff where Diaz was not filling to fight at his current level of pay. Diaz has been inactive since last November, where he defeated Gray Maynard in the main event of TUF 18 Finale.

**Former Bellator featherweight champion Pat Curran posted a statement that after working with Team Takedown for his recent fight with Patricio Freire, that he is going back to Team Curran and apologized for leaving the team. Curran stated he knew right away it was a bad fit but felt he had burnt his bridge with his cousin, Jeff Curran and had to stick it out with Team Takedown.

**Metamoris has announced a rematch of one of the most famous fights in Pride history for their next event on November 22nd with Renzo Gracie taking on Kazushi Sakuraba. The card will also feature UFC welterweight Rory MacDonald taking on J.T Torres, Rafael Lovato Jr. vs. Yuri Simoes, Kevin Casey (who is currently under suspension by the NSAC) vs. Vinny Magalhaes, Zak Maxwell vs. Garry Tonon and the return of the secret fight.


*Invicta FC has announced two more cards for the remainder of 2014. Invicta FC 9 will take place on Friday November 1st in Davenport, Iowa headlined by flyweight champion Barb Honchak defending her title against Takayo Hashi. Their final show of the year will be Invicta FC 10 on December 5th with Cris “Cyborg” Justino making her bantamweight debut on that card but no opponent has been announced as of yet.

**Spike TV is going to counter program this Saturday’s UFC 178 pay-per-view with a special entitled “Eddie Alvarez – Free on Spike” at 10pm ET. It will be a 90-minute special of Alvarez’s fights with Bellator to go against his UFC debut that night.

**Here are the results from the UFC 178 last night in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in front of 10,544 and a gate of $2,200,000:
*Manny Gamburyan over Cody Gibson by guillotine choke at 4:56 of Round 2
*Kevin Lee over Jon Tuck by unanimous decision (30-26 all) – Tuck was deducted a point for a low blow in the second round
*Brian Ebersole over John Howard by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Stephen Thompson over Patrick Cote by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Jorge Masvidal over James Krause by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Dominick Cruz over Takeya Mizugaki by TKO at 1:01 of Round 1
*Cat Zingano over Amanda Nunes by TKO at 1:21 of Round 3
*Yoel Romero over Tim Kennedy by TKO at 0:58 of Round 3
*Conor McGregor over Dustin Poirier by TKO at 1:46 of Round 1
*Donald Cerrone over Eddie Alvarez by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Demetrious Johnson over Chris Cariaso by kimura at 2:29 of Round 2 to keep the flyweight title

**The fight of the night bonus was given to Yoel Romero and Tim Kennedy with the two performance bonuses to Conor McGregor and Dominick Cruz, all for $50,000.

**The major controversy of the card featured the Yoel Romero vs. Tim Kennedy fight. Kennedy swarmed Romero with strikes to end the second round and Romero appeared out on his feet as the bell sounded to end the round. In between rounds, Romero had a sizeable amount of Vaseline put onto a cut above his eye and then when the round was to begin, Romero wasn’t standing up and remained on his stool and delayed the start of the round by 28-seconds. Romero eventually got up and then stopped Kennedy in the first minute of the third round. Kennedy is planning to protest the finish because of the delay and that if a fighter cannot answer the bell, the fight should be waved off, which referee John McCarthy did not do. There is another layer to the story with Kennedy appearing to grab the right glove of Romero right as he began that end of the round flurry in the second round. Kennedy confronted Yoel backstage after the fight.

**The outcomes produced at minimum two title fights coming out of the show with possibility of up to four winners from the show challenging for titles in their next outings. UFC president Dana White confirmed that Dominick Cruz will fight T.J. Dillashaw for the bantamweight title in his next bout and Cat Zingano will fight Ronda Rousey (likely for the January 3rd card along with Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier). You also have Conor McGregor, who did everything you could hope for in terms of positioning himself as the next contender to possibly jump ahead of the Frankie Edgar vs. Cub Swanson winner (they will fight November 22nd) and Donald Cerrone has now won five fights in a row and will be contingent on when Khabib Nurmagomedov is ready to return from his knee injury in terms of who will fight the winner of Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez (they fight on December 6th). Cerrone did indicate he would like another fight in November or December this year but may have the option of waiting and getting a title fight next.

**Conor McGregor will be going to Brazil for UFC 179 on October 25th to sit cage side for the Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes featherweight title fight.

**McGregor also revealed that he tore ligaments in his thumb four-weeks out from the fight and considered withdrawing from the fight with Dustin Poirier. McGregor had a small cast placed on the thumb and worked more on his kicks in camp and dealt with the injury. He said he still had a hard time clenching a fist with the injured hand but doesn’t expect any long term issues from it.

**Long time MMA promoter, former UFC announcer and even a former pro wrestler, Jeff Osborne, has announced that he has sold his Hook ‘n Shoot library to the UFC and will be coming to Fight Pass down the road. Osborne was the pioneer when it came to women’s mixed martial arts in the U.S. and promoting cards long before Gina Carano was put onto Showtime and helped develop so many of the key women’s fighters over the past two decades.

**The UFC is back with a doubleheader this Saturday and the shows will essentially be back to back with the Sweden card kicking off at 12:10pm ET and main card at 3pm and then the Halifax show begins at 7pm ET so it doesn’t look as though there will be overlap but rather one card will go right into the next. Following this weekend, the UFC will be off for three-weeks before returning on October 25th with UFC 179 in Brazil.

**Louis Gaudinot is off of this Saturday’s Fight Night card in Halifax and will be replaced from Halifax based fighter Chris Kelades. MMA Junkie was the first to report that Gaudinot was off of the card but it is unknown what the reason is for Gaudinot to withdraw. Kelades’ trainer Scott MacLean reported that Kelades signed a four fight deal with the UFC today to get the last minute spot on the card.

**TMZ posted a video of UFC bantamweight Cody Gibson getting into an altercation with a patron at a bar last week in Las Vegas. The incident happened after Gibson’s loss to Manny Gamburyan at UFC 178 and was shoved by the guy in the bar and then punched in the face, which resulted in Gibson hitting a double leg takedown and later were separated with Gibson not striking him. Gibson was on “The Beatdown” on Sherdog.com today and stated he hasn’t heard from the UFC directly but his management has and believes he will not be fired for this. Gibson is 1-2 in the UFC and also serves as a high school wrestling coach.
http://www.tmz.com/2014/10/06/cody-gibs ... video-bar/

**UFC lightweight Piotr Hallmann has been suspended for nine-months by the Brazilian Athletic Commission after testing positive for drostanolone after his split decision loss to Gleison Tibau last month in Brasilia. In addition to the suspension, he will also lose his $50,000 fight of the night bonus.

**Despite no UFC coming up this weekend there will be a number of events including the World Series of Fighting returning to Canada with a card in Edmonton headlined by Jake Shields taking on Ryan Ford as well as Smealinho Rama taking on Derrick Mehmen to create the first WSOF heavyweight champion and airing on the NBC Sports Network. Bellator 128 is Friday night in Thackerville, Oklahoma headlined by Eduardo Dantas and Joe Warren to unify the bantamweight title.

**Danny Mitchell has been let go by the UFC after back to back unanimous decision losses to Igor Araujo and Wang Sai in the UFC’s welterweight division.

**The UFC has announced that they have re-signed Josh Burkman, who was a member of the second season of the Ultimate Fighter and had been fighting with the World Series of Fighting organization. Burkman will make his return to the UFC on January 3rd at UFC 181 against welterweight Hector Lombard.

**Conor McGregor has noted on Twitter that he is preparing to take another fight before a potential title fight. McGregor will be in Brazil next weekend for the Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes fight for the featherweight title. The next title contender comes down to either McGregor or the winner of the November 22nd fight between Cub Swanson and Frankie Edgar.

*Bellator and Spike TV have announced the following programs to serve as shoulder programming for the November 15th Bellator 131 card in San Diego:
*Tito vs. Bonnar – Winner Take All – premieres November 12th at 11pm ET (right after Impact)
*Unrivaled: Tito Ortiz – premieres November 12th at 11:30pm ET
*Countdown to Ortiz vs. Bonnar – premieres November 14th at 10pm ET (the night before the card and will also focus on the Will Brooks vs. Michael Chandler fight)

**Mike Goldberg has taken a ton of heat for his NFL broadcasting debut this past Sunday while calling the Lions vs. Vikings game. Many people took to Twitter criticizing his mistakes and Goldberg decided to respond to a select few and insult his critics. There were reports on Tuesday that Goldberg was being relieved of his duties and then on Wednesday he released the following statement, which leaves it open ended as to whether Goldberg will be back or not:

I just want to apologize to everyone at FOX and elsewhere for my momentary lapse of reason Sunday night,” Goldberg wrote on Twitter. “I let some mean-spirited folks on twitter get to me and I should have had thicker skin instead of reacting so quickly and emotionally. I don’t want to be a distraction on the upcoming broadcast Sunday, so we mutually agreed that it would be best to sit this next one out. I’m not happy about it personally but, professionally, it’s the right thing to do after my mistake. Thank you to FOX and to others who have been so great to me and understanding.

FOX also released a statement regarding the incident:

Obviously, Mike let his emotions get the best of him during his Twitter responses on Sunday. He was quick to apologize for this unfortunate and regrettable situation and understands he made a mistake. He offered to not broadcast this Sunday’s game to avoid any further distraction and we agreed.

**Virgil Zwicker is stepping to take the spot of an injured James Thompson on this Friday night’s Bellator 129 card against Houston Alexander from Council Bluffs, Iowa. The card is headlined by Josh Neer taking on Paul Bradley. The promotion will hold another card on October 24th featuring Bobby Lashley returning as well as the promotional debut of Marloes Coenen and then have a few weeks off before their season finale card on November 15th, which is the big show with Tito Ortiz vs. Stephan Bonnar and Will Brooks vs. Michael Chandler.

**Ariel Helwani reported that UFC featherweight Chan Sung Jung could be out of action for the next two-years. It is not injury related but rather mandatory military service that Jung must fulfill in South Korea.

**Chael Sonnen is the latest to jump into the world of podcasts and his first show will be up Wednesday with Ariel Helwani as his guest. Sonnen’s show will be hosted on Podcast One, which is where Steve Austin, Jim Ross, Chris Jericho, Bill Goldberg and Roddy Piper host their shows.

**Tonight is the Bellator 129 card, it’s a small show out of Council Bluffs, Iowa with a 9pm ET start time on Spike TV with the prelims streaming at Spike.com at 7pm ET. Below are the main card fights:
*Paul Bradley vs. Josh Neer
*Houston Alexander vs. Virgil Zwicker
*James Terry vs. Andre Santos
*Davin Clark vs. Joe Vedepo

**Jon “War Machine” Koppenhaver attempted to commit suicide this past Tuesday night from his prison cell according to a report from TMZ. Officials at the prison found Koppenhaver and were able to revive him with the Las Review Review Journal reporting that several suicide notes were also found in the cell. Koppenhaver is currently incarcerated and awaiting trial, where he is facing 32 charges that stem from attacks on ex-girlfriend Christy Mack and her friend, Corey Thomas and going on the run for a week following the attacks with authorities eventually finding him and arresting him.

**The UFC has announced that Urijah Faber will be fighting Francisco Rivera on December 6th at UFC 181. The fight appears more to get a fight in for Faber rather than a need for this fight to take place. Rivera is coming off a loss to Takeya Mizugaki earlier this year while Faber defeated Alex Caceres back at UFC 175. I would think that win or lose, after Dominick Cruz fights T.J. Dillashaw, that the fight to make is Cruz vs. Faber.

**The UFC has also announced that Renan Barao will return on December 20th to fight Mitch Gagnon in Sao Paulo, Brazil on the Fight Night card, headlined by Lyoto Machida vs. C.B. Dollaway. Gagnon has won his last four fights and most recently submitted Roman Salazar in Halifax earlier this month but this is a massive step up for Gagnon. The UFC has also added a welterweight bout between Daniel Sarafian and Dan Miller to this same card.

**Miesha Tate is lobbying for a fight with Bethe Correia and wants to have a more exciting fight than her last two bouts with Liz Carmouche and Rin Nakai. Tate spoke to AskMen.com and said her last two opponents just tried to grab hold of her and taker her down. A win by Correia over Tate would likely set her up for the winner of Ronda Rousey and Cat Zingano and Rousey has openly stated she would like to fight Correia and do it in Brazil.

**Jordan Mein and Thiago Alves, who were scheduled to fight this past summer but Alves injured himself, has been added to the UFC 183 card on January 31st in Las Vegas. Mein has won his last two and stopped Mike Pyle in his last outing while Alves returned to action this past April after a two-year layoff and defeated Seth Baczynski by decision.

**A middleweight bout between Thiago Santos and Andy Enz has been added to the UFC 183 card as well on January 31st.

**A flyweight bout between Kyoji Horiguchi and Louis Gaudinot and a heavyweight fight between Shawn Jordan and Jared Cannonier have been added to the UFC 182 card on January 3rd in Las Vegas. Gaudinot tested positive in his post fight drug test after his last bout, which was a win that got overturned against Phil Harris and then was set to fight Patrick Holohan earlier this month but pulled out the week of the fight with pneumonia. Horiguchi has won his last eight fights and gone 3-0 in the UFC since coming in.

**Featherweights Alex White and Clay Collard will meet on the undercard of the UFC 181 card on December 6th in Las Vegas. This could be a really fun fight involving two prospects.

**The UFC had cut featherweight Steven Siler after three consecutive losses inside of the organization and most recently dropping a decision to Noad Lahat in July. Siler was a part of TUF season 14 and fought nine times for the UFC since December 2011 and amassed a record of 5-4 in the organization.

**Below are the countdown videos for this Saturday’s UFC 179 card in Rio de Janiero focusing on Jose Aldo vs. Chad Mendes, Glover Teixeira vs. Phil Davis and Beneil Dariush vs. Diego Ferreira:




**There was a crazy story involving Fabricio Werdum and his team, which nearly ended in their deaths due to carbon monoxide poisoning. The team was staying at a house in Mexico as they prepare for Werdum’s fight against Cain Velasquez on November 15th and had a gas generator inside of the home that was turned on. One of the team members woke up in the middle of the night and turned the generator off but they were suffering from dizziness and headaches and eventually made their way to the hospital with vomiting and other problems. The hospital informed them they could have died if they stayed in the house for two more hours due to carbon monoxide poisoning and have since moved to a new home to stay in.

**Ultimate Fighter returns this Wednesday night at 10pm ET on FS 1 and Sportsnet 360 featuring the Felice Herrig vs. Heather Clark fight.

**Tristar head coach Firas Zahabi posted today that Georges St-Pierre was back in the gym for the first time since his second torn ACL surgery and said he looked “awesome”.

**Fox Sports 1 has announced that Daniel Cormier has been promoted to the full-time co-host of UFC Tonight, permanently replacing Chael Sonnen, who let go over the summer after his pair of drug test failures and suspension that was handed down by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

**Here are the main card results from Bellator 129 on Friday night from Council Bluffs, Iowa:
*Joe Vedepo over Davin Clark by TKO at 2:27 of Round 3
*Andre Santos over James Terry by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Houston Alexander and Virgil Zwicker fought to a majority draw (29-28 for Alexander and 28-28 from the other two judges), Alexander was a deducted a point in the final round for his second illegal head butt of the fight
*Paul Bradley over Josh Neer by unanimous decision (30-27 all) – Neer was upset at referee John McCarthy for not standing them up throughout the fight and McCarthy sternly explaining that it is Neer’s job to get up and stating “it’s not kickboxing”

**A straw-weight bout between Claudia Gadelha and Joanna Jedrzejczyk has been added to the UFC on FOX 13 card on December 13th in Phoenix. This bout will take place the night after they crown the first strawweight champion with the winner of this fight likely getting the first title shot in early 2015.

**Cain Velasquez is out of the UFC 180 main event with an injury to his right knee, which was already in need of arthroscopic surgery for a partially torn MCL. Velasquez sprained the right knee and was at the point where he couldn’t train on the bad knee any longer and cannot fight Fabricio Werdum on November 15th. The UFC has announced that Mark Hunt will step in to fight Werdum for the interim heavyweight championship for the UFC’s debut show in Mexico City. Ariel Helwani reported today that Hunt was 302-pounds when he received the call on Tuesday to take the fight and has under four-weeks to get down to 265. Hunt fought last month and stopped Roy Nelson in Tokyo and was the only viable option to salvage the main event with Werdum with Junior dos Santos and Stipe Miocic booked for December 13th.

**The UFC has announced that they have rescinded the one-year suspension for Cung Le, stemming from the blood test conducted on Le after his loss to Michael Bisping in August in Macau. Le immediately denied usage of HGH, which he was accused of taking but the announcement was made that concentration level of human growth hormone in his system is not evidence that he took any performance enhancing substances. This was a real black mark for the UFC’s drug testing protocol as they made the call late to test both Bisping and Le for blood and used an outside agency from Hong Kong, which didn’t use the HGH testing procedures that WADA outline nor was a WADA accredited lab used for the test. Further to Le’s argument was that when the “B sample” was requested, the lab said that the “B sample” had not been saved and presented a mounting case in Le’s favor as he was ready to defend himself in front of a third party arbitrator. Le’s manager, Gary Ibarra, was brought into the UFC’s office in Las Vegas and was told they were throwing the suspension out.

**Anderson Silva spoke to Combate in Brazil and stated that the UFC and Silva decided to cancel his existing contract with the company, which had seven fights remaining on the deal and have signed a brand new deal for 15 fights.

**Here are the results from last night’s UFC 179 card in Rio de Janiero, Brazil in front of a reported crowd of 11,415:
*Tony Martin over Fabricio Camoes by kimura at 4:16 of Round 1
*Gilbert Burns over Christos Giagos by armbar at 4:57 of Round 1
*Andre Fili over Felipe Arantes by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Wilson Reis over Scott Jorgensen by arm triangle choke at 3:28 of Round 1
*Yan Cabral over Naoyuki Kotani by rear-naked choke at 3:06 of Round 2
*Neil Magny over William Macario by TKO at 2:40 of Round 3
*Beneil Dariush over Carlos Diego Ferreira by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Darren Elkins over Lucas Martins by split decision (30-27, 27-30, 30-27)
*Fabio Maldonado over Hans Stringer by TKO at 4:06 of Round 2
*Phil Davis over Glover Teixeira by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Jose Aldo over Chad Mendes by unanimous decision (49-46 all)

**Phil Davis also challenged Anderson Silva after his win over Glover Teixeira. It isn’t a fight I would be jumping to take if I was Silva but was smart on Davis’ part to push for that fight as it is a winnable fight for him and would easily be his most high profile fight. Davis shut down Teixiera for the majority of their fight and his wrestling was the difference in this fight.

**Scott Jorgensen took a nasty kick to the ribs from Reis, which set up the finish in their flyweight bout. Afterwards Jorgensen stated he was heading to get an x-ray to see if he broke his ribs. Jorgensen has now lost 6 of his last 8 and that could be it for him in the UFC.

**Vitor Belfort recently stated that he’s been given the date of February 28th for the middleweight title fight with Chris Weidman. Weidman and Belfort were scheduled to fight on December 6th but they had to postpone the fight due to Weidman’s nagging hand injury (which was bothering him prior to the Lyoto Machida and nearly took him out of that fight as well). The reason for the long delay is that they already have main events for January 3rd (Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier, Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano) and January 31st (Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz) and the next pay-per-view wouldn’t be until February 28th, although that date has not been officially announced by the UFC but it is expected for Los Angeles.

**The tryouts for the next season of TUF Brazil took place today with over 600 fighters showing up for the tryouts. They have not announced the coaches for the next season with the season featuring lightweights and bantamweights. The series is set to premiere next March on Globo in Brazil and air on Fight Pass.

**Robert Drysdale was suspended for one-year and fined $5,280 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission today after testing positive in his post fight drug test after his win over Keith Berish at the TUF 19 Finale this past July in Las Vegas. Drysdale was shown to have a T/E ratio of 12:1 (allowable limit in Nevada is 6:1, which many feel is too high) and had been on TRT in the past but said he had gotten off of it.

**Francisco Aguilar will remain chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission for another year, following a unanimous vote toward among the members of the commission.

**The UFC is planning a big announcement for November 17th in Las Vegas. It probably won’t be Mike Goldberg turning heel.

**Fresh off his bout with Jose Aldo, Chad Mendes was back in the gym today in Sacramento.

So does anyone besides Stickman post in this thread or...?

**The UFC has released highlights of Luke Rockhold providing commentary during Michael Bisping’s last fight with Cung Le back in August in Macau. Rockhold was flown into Macau to be at the show and led to an altercation the following morning at a coffee shop between the two as they get to headline this Friday night’s Fight Night card in Australia.


**The UFC has also posted the Counterpunch segment with Bisping and Rockhold, which was moderated by Jon Anik:


**Cris “Cyborg” Justino is off of the Invicta FC 10 event on December 10th, which was scheduled to be her 135-pound debut. Justino suffered a rupture of her anterior talofibular ligament in her ankle. Invicta announced on Saturday night that atomweight champion Michelle Waterson will step in to defend her title against Hercia Tiburcio in the new main event for the card.

**Yahoo Sports is reporting that the NSAC did test Vitor Belfort on Saturday with blood and urine submitted by Belfort to the commission in Florida. The fight has been moved to the state of California for February 28th and initially it was believed that California would have to handle all of the testing up until the fight.

**Here are the results from the Invicta FC 9 event on Saturday night in Davenport, Iowa:
*Kelly McGill over Maegan Goodwin by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Jamie Moyle over Jenny Liou by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Andrea Lee over Shannon Sinn by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Amanda Bell over Maria Hougaard by TKO at 4:56 of Round 1
*Amber Brown over Liz McCarthy by split decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Jodie Esquibel over Nicdali Rivera-Calanoc by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Raquel Pa’aluhi over Kaitlin Young by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Karolina Kowalkiewicz over Mizuki Inoue by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Barb Honchak over Takayo Hashi by unanimous decision (50-45, 50-45, 49-46) to retain the flyweight title

**After Mike Ricci failed to make weight for Friday night’s Titan FC 31 event, his opponent Yoshiyuki Yoshida refused to fight Ricci and they had to cancel the fight. The show ended up being headlined by former Bellator fighter Desmond Green stopping Miguel Torres in 0:46 of the first round. Titan FC has released Yoshida from his contract as a result of the bout being pulled.

**Tom DeBlass is out of the Bellator 131 card on November 15th after suffering a terrible cut over his right eye. DeBlass was scheduled to fight Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal on that card in San Diego.

**Combate out of Brazil reported that Anderson Silva was taken to hospital on Monday following a training session at the X-Gym in Rio de Janiero. Silva was unable to get up with extreme pain in his back and not being able to feel his legs. Silva was released later that day with an official telling Combate that Silva will be fine and this will not affect his fight with Nick Diaz on January 31st in Las Vegas.

**The weigh-ins for UFC Fight Night 55 will take place Thursday night at 9pm Eastern time from Australia for the card headlined by Luke Rockhold and Michael Bisping. The Fight Night 56 weigh-ins will take place Friday morning at 10am ET for the card headlined by Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Ovince St. Preux.

**The California State Athletic Commission has issued fines and suspensions to four Bellator fighters, who tested positive after their bouts at Bellator 127 on October 3rd in Temecula with the following punishments being announced:
*Keith Berry – suspended for 300 days, fined $2,500 and win over Joe Pacheco changed to a no contest after test revealed high levels of testosterone and THC detected in his post fight drug test
*Nick Moghaddam – suspended for 300 days and fined $1,000 for elevated T/E ratio and THC detected
*Rob Emerson – suspended for 270 days, fined $2,500 for Modafinil being detected in his system
*Luis Gonzalez – suspended for 30 days and fined $315 for THC being detected in his system, win over Karo Parisyan will not be overturned

**The UFC has announced a featherweight bout between Diego Brandao and Jimy Hettes for the UFC 183 card on January 31st. Brandao last fought in July, where he was stopped by Conor McGregor in the main event of the Dublin card. Hettes has not fought since this past March, where he was stopped by Dennis Bermudez.

**GLORY returns this Friday night with a card from Oklahoma City at 9pm Eastern will be airing on Fight Network featuring Davit Karia taking on Robin Van Roosmalen for the lightweight title.

**A flyweight bout between Paddy Holohan and Shane Howell has been signed for the UFC Fight Night card on January 18th in Boston. Holohan is teammates with Conor McGregor, who headlines the Boston card, taking on Dennis Siver.

**The UFC had a great show on Friday night from Sydney, Australia in front of 9,904 and a gate of $1,050,000 at the Allphones Arena. Every fight featured a finish on the 11 bout card with the results below:
*Marcus Brimage over Jumabieke Tuerxun by KO at 2:58 of Round 1
*Daniel Kelly over Luke Zachrich by kimura at 4:27 of Round 1
*Chris Clements over Vik Grujic by TKO at 3:06 of Round 1
*Louis Smolka over Richie Vaciluk by TKO at 0:18 of Round 3
*Sam Alvey over Dylan Andrews by KO at 2:16 of Round 1 – Andrews went for a takedown and Alvey landed on his head, turned on top and finished Andrews with strikes
*Anthony Perosh over Guto Inocente by rear-naked choke at 3:46 of Round 1
*Jake Matthews over Vagner Rocha by rear-naked choke at 1:52 of Round 2 – two straight performances from Matthews that were very impressive and he has a lot of buzz in Australia as a prospect to watch
*Soa Palelei over Walt Harris by TKO at 4:49 of Round 2
*Robert Whittaker over Clint Hester by TKO at 2:43 of Round 2
*Al Iaquinta over Ross Pearson by TKO at 1:39 of Round 2
*Luke Rockhold over Michael Bisping by guillotine at 0:57 of Round 2

**The fight of the night bonus went to Robert Whittaker and Clint Hester and performance bonuses to Luke Rockhold and Louis Smolka for $50,000 each.

**UFC flyweight Ian McCall has come down with a viral infection and is off of tonight’s card in Uberlandia, Brazil, where he was to fight John Lineker. This was an important fight as the winner was likely to be next in line for a shot at the flyweight championship.

**Here are the results from Sat night’s UFC Fight Night card on Saturday in Uberlandia in front of 5,671 fans and airing on FS 1 & 2 in the U.S. and Fight Pass for the majority of the world:
*Colby Covington over Wagner Silva by rear-naked choke at 3:26 of Round 3
*Thomas Almeida over Tim Gorman by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Leandro Silva over Charlie Brenneman by rear-naked choke at 4:15 of Round 1
*Caio Magalhaes over Trevor Smith by KO at 0:31 of Round 1
*Diego Rivas over Rodolfo Rubio by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Juliana Lima over Nina Ansaroff by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Dhiego Lima over Jorge Oliveira by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Claudio Silva over Leon Edwards by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Warlley Alves over Alan Jouban by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Ovince St. Preux over Mauricio “Shogun” Rua by TKO at 0:34 of Round 1

**Ovince St. Preux and Leandro Silva received the two performance bonuses with Thomas Almeida and Tim Gorman earning fight of the night honors, for $50,000.

**Ian McCall was sidelined with a blood infection as the reason for his fight with John Lineker being pulled from last night’s card. It is unknown if this fight is going to be re-booked and if McCall will miss any time.

**The inaugural UFC event took place on this date in Denver, Colorado and was one of the biggest surprise hits on pay-per-view, generating over 80,000 buys for a show built on curiosity more than anything and no television to promote the event. Art Davie and Sean Wheelock's book, "Is it Legal?", is a great resource for the story behind the creation of the first UFC event and the characters involved.

**The UFC has confirmed a card for January 24th in Stockholm, Sweden at the 30,000 seat Tele2 Arena and will be headlined by light heavyweights Anthony Johnson and Alexander Gustafsson. The event will air on FOX that night and will also feature Dan Henderson returning to the middleweight to fight Gegard Mousasi.

**In addition to the UFC, Bellator and WSOF holding cards this Saturday, there will also be a Cage Warriors doubleheader beginning at 1pm Eastern on the same day and airing on Fight Network.

**ESPN announced today that they have hired Chael Sonnen as a mixed martial arts analyst and will begin immediately with this weekend’s UFC 180 card and providing analysis this Friday going into the event in Mexico City. The deal is a multi-fight arrangement and comes at a time when Sonnen is serving a two-year suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission and was fired by FOX as an analyst following the suspension. It is a surprising move, not that ESPN would reach out to Sonnen, but that Sonnen was always expected to end up back at FOX once things cooled down. Sonnen will be working alongside UFC lightweight Gilbert Melendez, who is also an analyst for ESPN.

**Bellator has posted the“Winner Take All: Tito vs. Bonnar” special on the Spike TV site. It’s one of the strangest hype shows you are going to watch, more over the top than the Rampage vs. King Mo face to face special earlier this year. It’s going to be super over the top to a lot of a people but in terms of effectiveness, this is going to click for a lot of people because of the nature of this being a free fight on television and it’s two identifiable names. This will also be airing Wednesday night following Impact Wrestling on Spike.

**One day after Bellator announced that Wanderlei Silva would be in San Diego for this weekend’s card and attending the Bellator pre-party kickoff, they announced today that due to contractual obligations, Silva is being pulled from this weekend’s events.

**The main card of this past Saturday’s UFC Fight Night card from Uberlandia, Brazil, averaged 699,000 viewers on FS 1. The show was headlined by Ovince St. Preux defeating Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in 0:34.

**Below are the results from the UFC 180 card from Mexico City at the sold out Arena Ciudad, which sold out in the first eight-hours that tickets were on sale for:
*Marco Beltran over Marlon Vera by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Henry Briones over Guido Cannetti by rear-naked choke at 1:44 of Round 2
*Gabriel Benitez over Humberto Brown by guillotine at 0:30 of Round 3
*Jessica Eye over Leslie Smith by TKO (doctor stoppage) at 1:30 of Round 2
*Alejandro Perez over Jose Quinonez by unanimous decision (29-26, 29-26, 29-28) to win the TUF Latin America bantamweight contract
*Yair Rodriguez over Leonardo Morales by unanimous decision (29-28 all) to win the TUF Latin America featherweight contract
*Hector Urbina over Edgar Garcia by guillotine at 3:38 of Round 1
*Augusto Montano over Chris Heatherly by TKO at 4:50 of Round 1
*Ricardo Lamas over Dennis Bermudez by guillotine at 3:18 of Round 1
*Kelvin Gastelum over Jake Ellenberger by rear-naked choke at 4:46 of Round 1
*Fabricio Werdum over Mark Hunt by TKO at 2:27 of Round 2

**The fight of the night bonus went to Henry Briones and Guido Cannetti with Fabrico Werdum and Kelvin Gastelum earning the performance of the night bonuses, all for $50,000.

**Leslie Smith provided one of the more graphic visuals from a fight on Sat night’s show after taking a punch to the left ear by Jessica Eye and causing the ear to tear at the top. There were close ups were the ear was actually split with a lot of blood coming out of the wound, which eventually led to the fight being called in the second round by referee Herb Dean.

**Here are the main card results from the Bellator 131 card at the Valley View Casino Center in San Diego, California and featured a lot of news coming out of the show:
*Muhammad Lawal over Joe Vedepo by TKO at 0:39 of Round 3 (Lawal didn’t say anything during the post fight interview but at the press conference afterwards he was pushing hard for a fight with Tito Ortiz)
*Mike Richman over Nam Phan by TKO at 0:46 of Round 1
*Joe Schilling over Melvin Manhoef by KO at 0:32 of Round 2
*Will Brooks over Michael Chandler by TKO at 3:48 of Round 4 for the Bellator lightweight title
*Tito Ortiz over Stephan Bonnar by split decision (30-27, 28-29, 30-27)

**Those in attendance at the Bellator card included Bill Goldberg, Konnan, Mauro Ranallo, Phil Davis, Josh Koscheck, Randy Couture, Royce Gracie and former Pride C.E.O. Nobuyuki Sakakibara.

**The verdict of whether fans would accept the style of build that Tito Ortiz and to a larger extent, Stephan Bonnar provided, was rendered today with an overwhelming success when it came to the television numbers. The entire Bellator 131 card averaged 1,241,299 on Spike TV with the Ortiz vs. Bonnar fight averaging 1,800,000 viewers with peak level of 2,000,000 viewers. This was far and away the most viewed fight in Bellator history and the second most watched MMA bout of 2014.


**Tito Ortiz was fined $2,500 by the California State Athletic Commission for his actions after the fight with Stephan Bonnar. After the decision was read, Bonnar fell to the mat with Ortiz giving him the finger and dumping his water bottle onto Bonnar.

**Fresh off his win this past Saturday, Kelvin Gastelum will return on January 31st to fight Tyron Woodley as the co-feature at UFC 183 underneath the Nick Diaz vs. Anderson Silva fight in Las Vegas. Gastelum has gone 5-0 in the UFC since including his TUF 17 finale win over Uriah Hall before cutting down to the welterweight division. Woodley has won 3 of his last 4 and is coming off a TKO win over Dong-Hyun Kim this past August in Macau.

**The Nevada State Athletic Commission has assigned Herb Dean to officiate the Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler welterweight title fight at UFC 181 on December 6th and John McCarthy has been assigned to the Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez lightweight title fight on the same show.

**The UFC held their press conference Monday in Las Vegas with fourteen fighters in attendance along with UFC president Dana White. They announced their schedule for 2015 but their special announcement didn’t come together and they had no additional announcement to make. They announced 45 events for 2015 (13 pay-per-views, 4 FOX cards, 18 Fight Nights and 10 Fight Pass cards) including 3-5 shows targeted for Canada (specifically mentioning Montreal, Toronto and Calgary as likely destinations), 2 cards for Mexico, 7 in Brazil, 5-6 in Europe including next countries such as Poland, Holland and Russian receiving shows as well as 3-4 cards in Asia (Japan, China, Philippines and Korea being mentioned). Their craziest period will be in July with UFC 189 scheduled for July 12th, a Fight Night the next night (the same formula from this past year’s 4th of July weekend), a July 15th Fight Night card and another Fight Night on July 18th as well as two more Fight Nights cards in July.

**The following are the pay-per-view dates for 2015:
*UFC 182 (January 3rd) – Jon Jones vs. Daniel Cormier
*UFC 183 (January 31st) – Anderson Silva vs. Nick Diaz
*UFC 184 (February 28th) – Chris Weidman vs. Vitor Belfort; Ronda Rousey vs. Cat Zingano
*UFC 185 (March 14) – This is rumored to be the card in Montreal
*UFC 186 (April 25th)
*UFC 187 (May 23rd)
*UFC 188 (June 13th)
*UFC 189 (July 12th)
*UFC 190 (August 1st)
*UFC 191 (September 5th)
*UFC 192 (October 3rd)
*UFC 193 (November 14th)
*UFC 194 (December 5th)

**The UFC also announced that Matt Brown and Tarec Saffiedine will headline the February 14th Fight Night card in Broomfield, Colorado.

**UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey posted a video of her hitting a heavy bag from this past Saturday and stating her hand is all healed. Rousey was dealing with an issue with her knuckle going into the Alexis Davis fight back in July at UFC 175 and needed surgery on the hand after the bout. Rousey will be fighting Cat Zingano on February 28th at UFC 184 in Los Angeles in the co-main event.

**Standard & Poor’s had put out their annual report and have downgraded Zuffa LLC’s credit rating from a “BB” to a “BB-“ with their theory that Zuffa’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) will be down 40% in 2014. In the report they state that the lowered projections are “primarily due to a change to a marquee fight card in the fourth quarter of 2014, a result of another fighter injury causing anticipated pay-per-view buys and event ticket prices to decline further, as well as higher remarketing expenses for the event, and additional costs related to the company’s international expansion”.

**Randa Markos defeated Felice Herrig on Wed night’s quarterfinal fight on TUF and advances to the semi-finals to face the winner of Rose Namajunas and Joanne Calderwood. Next week’s quarterfinal will feature Jessica Penne taking on Aisling Daly with a special appearance from Conor McGregor, who is a teammate of Daly’s.

**Due to a visa issue, Vanessa Porto is off of the Invicta FC 10 card on December 5th for her fight with Roxanne Modafferi. Andrea Lee, who is a 2-0 fighter, has been announced as the replacement for Porto. The card takes place in Houston, Texas and will be airing on UFC Fight Pass.

**It was announced on UFC Tonight Wed night that middleweight Luke Rockhold has signed a new eight fight deal with the UFC. Rockhold was knocked out in his first UFC bout against Vitor Belfort in May of 2013 and has since won his last three fights.

** Once DVR numbers were figured in, Spike TV's main event between Ortiz and Bonnar peaked at 2,200,000 and is far and away the most watched fight in MMA history.

**The UFC has announced a light heavyweight bout between Phil Davis and Ryan Bader for the UFC on FOX 14 card on January 24th in Stockholm, Sweden. Davis is coming off a win over Glover Teixeira while Bader has won his last three and last competed in August, where he defeated Ovince St. Preux. This show will be headlined by Alexander Gustafsson and Anthony Johnson.

**Ben Fowlkes has an interesting story on MMA Junkie today discussing a new technology being experimented with for pay-per-view distribution. The experiment was recently done with the latest CFFC card, where the show ran as a traditional pay-per-view but bypassed the usual transmission method of delivering the show through a satellite and opted instead to use the internet as the delivery method. The new technology they have tested is believed to be a way for smaller promotions to run pay-per-view without the gigantic costs of buying satellite time and having a satellite truck on site at the venue. The issue that is raised is the reliability of the internet as opposed to satellite with the numerous technical problems iPPVs have had regardless of the size of the promotion. If this can become a reliable method it could be a huge benefit to promotions such as Ring of Honor New Japan and even TNA, where break even on a pay-per-view would be radically reduced.

**The Countdown to UFC 181 show debuts on Sunday night at 9pm on FS 1, previewing Johny Hendricks vs. Robbie Lawler and Anthony Pettis vs. Gilbert Melendez.

**GLORY has announced they are postponing their December 19th card on Spike TV until next February. There was no reason given for the change but the February card will feature heavyweight champion Rico Verhoeven defending against Errol Zimmerman.

**Ariel Helwani reports that lightweights Al Iaquinta and Joe Lauzon will be at the UFC 183 card on January 31st in Las Vegas.

**Norifumi "Kid" Yamamoto will be returning to the octagon after three-years away, when he fights Roman Salazar at UFC 184 on February 28th in Los Angeles. Yamamoto has gone 0-3 since debuting in the UFC in February of 2011 with decision losses to Demetrious Johnson and Darren Uyenoyama and was submitted by Vaughan Lee at UFC 144 at the Saitama Super Arena in February of 2012.

**Reed Kuhn has done a study on the finishing rate among UFC fights in both the larger and smaller octagons. The small octagon has a diameter of 25 feet while the larger octagon has a diameter of 30 feet. The theory was that the smaller cage leads to more finishes because of less room to work in particular for heavier weight classes and the results do bear that out with a 60% finish rate in the smaller cage as opposed to a 48% finish rate in the larger octagon.

**Ian McCall and John Lineker have been re-booked for the UFC 183 card on January 31st in Las Vegas. The two were scheduled to fight earlier this month in Brazil but McCall suffered an infection after making weight and was forced to withdraw from the fight and was hospitalized.