Red Mosquito

**Luke Rockhold was on Twitter today messaging Michael Bisping that the two of them should fight next and Bisping responded that Rockhold should first win a fight in the UFC and then they can talk. It was a smart move on Rockhold’s part as a win over Bisping would help him rebound after a tough loss to Vitor Belfort last weekend in Brazil.

**Nick Newell has signed on with the World Series of Fighting organization after his contract with the Florida based XFC came to an end. Newell is a 9-0 lightweight, who doesn’t have a left hand and has won all of his fights by stoppage with the exception of one.

**Tickets are now on sale for the Invicta FC 6 event set for July 13th in Kansas City, Missouri headlined by Marloes Coenen vs. Cris “Cyborg” Santos for the featherweight title. The card will also feature Carla Esparza vs. Ayaka Hamasaki for the strawweight title among the thirteen fights set for the show.

**Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports broke the news on Tuesday that Cat Zingano tore her ACL on May 16th and underwent surgery this past week and will keep her out of action for the rest of the year. As a result of the injury Zingano has also been taken out of the coaching spot on TUF (which began filming yesterday) along with her title shot at the end of the season as Miesha Tate has stepped in to replace her. The UFC kept this a secret from everyone including Ronda Rousey, who didn’t realize Tate was coaching until the first on camera scene with the coaches in the UFC Gym and Rousey freaked out and left the building to go find Dana White. The show will debut on September 4th on FS 1 and Rousey and Tate will likely fight for the bantamweight title in December with Zingano being promised the first title shot when she returns in 2014.

**The UFC has announced a featherweight bout between Chad Mendes and Clay Guida is confirmed for August 31st at UFC 164 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mendes has won his last three fights since he challenged Jose Aldo for the featherweight title while Guida is coming off a split decision win over Hatsu Hioki in January in his first fight since cutting down from lightweight.

**UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones posted the following today:

Just finished with the foot doctor, got a lot to contemplate today.. Decisions decisions

**The UFC 160 preliminary fights this past Saturday averaged 1,300,000 viewers on FX leading into the pay-per-view.

**UFC lightweight Isaac Vallie-Flagg has pulled out of his UFC 161 bout with Sam Stout after finding out he has a compressed disc in his back and a muscle has torn off his hip. The UFC is searching for a new opponent for Stout for the June 15th card at the MTS Centre in Winnipeg.

**The New York Post was the first to report that Jon Anik and Joe Rogan are scheduled to call the UFC on FS 1 debut event on August 17th from Boston, Massachusetts.

**The UFC has confirmed that Josh Barnett will fight Frank Mir on August 31st at UFC 164 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in Barnett’s first fight in the UFC since UFC 36 in March 2002 (which coincidentally Mir also fought on). Barnett has won nine of his last ten fights with the lone loss in that stretch to Daniel Cormier in May 2012 in the finals of the Strikeforce heavyweight Grand Prix while Mir is coming off losses to Junior Dos Santos and Cormier most recently in April this year.

**One FC 9 takes place early Friday morning at 6:30am EST and airing live on Fight Network from the Philippines and on pay-per-view in the U.S. Here is the full card:

MAIN CARD (8am EST)
*Honorio Bonario vs. Koji Oishi for the featherweight title
*Bibiano Fernandes vs. Koetsu Okazaki for the interim bantamweight title
*Kevin Belingon vs. Masakatsu Ueda in the bantamweight grand prix final
*Yasuhiro Urushitani vs. Rey Docyogen
*Phil Baroni vs. Nobutatsu Suzuki
*Kamal Shalorus vs. Eduard Folayang
*Geje Eustaquio vs. Andrew Leone

PRELIMINARY FIGHTS (6:30am EST)
*Lowen Tynanes vs. Felipe Enomoto
*Tim Sylvia vs. Tony Johnson
*Ryan Diaz vs. Yusup Saadulaev

**The UFC has signed Resurrection Fighting Alliance fighter James Krause to step in and fight Sam Stout on June 15th at UFC 161 in Winnipeg. Krause has won his last seven fights but during that stretch lost an exhibition bout to Justin Lawrence to try and get into onto the season of TUF Live last year. Krause has also fought for the WEC and Bellator in the past with his four recorded losses coming against Donald Cerrone, Ricardo Lamas, Toby Imada (a loss he avenged in his last bout) and Clay French.

**The WAR MMA promotion that Nick Diaz is behind has sent out a press release announcing their first card for June 22nd at the Stockton Arena in Stockton, California. Nick Diaz has not officially received his promoter’s license by the CSAC but will appear in person on June 10th in hopes of receiving a license.

**The Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission has announced that all of the fighters on the May 18th UFC on FX 8 card in Jaragua Do Sul have passed their pre and post fight drug tests.

**A press release was sent out yesterday announcing that former UFC light heavyweight champion Quinton Jackson has signed on with Bellator, TNA and Spike TV with a multi-year deal being signed. Jackson left the UFC following the final fight of his contract this past January when he lost by unanimous decision to Glover Teixeira in his third consecutive loss. The signing is in reference to what Dixie Carter has teased last week about a big free agent being signed and the details to come on this week’s edition of Impact Wrestling.

It is noteworthy that TNA is part of this deal but I cannot possibly see Jackson being put through the same training that Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal is going through. First of all I cannot imagine Jackson, the age of 34, going down to OVW to learn how to bump and spend a year working at the Davis Arena as it’s just not worth it for him nor is it the best usage of Jackson. Unlike Mo, Jackson is a big star to a lot of people and should do one big match at Bound for Glory (probably in a tag scenario) and that would be the best use of Jackson because he shouldn’t be wrestling every week and you want to keep him special and a minimal amount of training and a six-man tag would be the ideal and most realistic use for Jackson.

On the Bellator end I see this as a big get for them because one of the biggest issues is the lack of stars on the roster and in Jackson he is a star to the public even if he is past his peak as a fighter. The four-man tournaments they are doing for the Summer Series could be a precursor to permanent changes and would benefit someone like Jackson, who is much more likely to fight twice in three-months than three times with the eight-man tournament. Bellator also has the potential now to put together the Jackson vs. King Mo fight, which is the biggest fight they can promote right now and if promoted right could be the biggest fight they have ever had in their four-years of operation. Jackson and Mo had a public back and forth years ago when Jackson was with the UFC and Mo was fighting for DREAM so the fight could never happen and Mo was nowhere near the level he is right now as a personality and experience wise.

The deal also calls for a reality series on Jackson that will serve as a lead in to Bellator, presumably in the fall season.

**The rumored bout between Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Chael Sonnnen may still occur but it won’t be at UFC 161 on June 15th. The UFC announced Tuesday night that they could not secure an opponent for Rua and that he will be booked on a future fight card with UFC 161 going ahead with 11 fights and no Shogun on the card. This fight is now being discusses for the August 17th UFC on FS 1 card. As for the UFC 161 card this could end up being the least purchased pay-per-view of the year for the company with Dan Henderson vs. Rashad Evans remaining as the main event and UFC crossing their fingers that neither hurts themselves in the last week of hard training.

**Dave Meltzer has a big story on the UFC’s big deal with Televisa in Mexico and the launch of the UFC network for their Latino audience at http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/6/4/439 ... media-deal.

**Cage Warriors welterweight champion Cathal Pendred defeated former UFC fighter Che Mills by TKO at 1:47 of the third round on Saturday at the Cage Warriors 55 event. The fight was a non-title fight after Mills missed weight and after the fight Pendred spoke on the microphone and said he wants to fight on the UFC on FS 1 card in Boston this August.

**With Miesha Tate being taken off of the UFC on FOX 8 card in July the UFC has signed 21-year old Jessica Andrade to step in and fight Liz Carmouche on the main card of the FOX event on July 27th in Seattle, Washington. Andrade is 9-2 and been only been fighting professionally since September 2011 and fought seven times in 2012 and already has two wins this year.

**Bellator lightweight Dave Jansen has suffered an ACL injury and if out of his title fight against Michael Chandler, which was scheduled for June 19th in Thackerville, Oklahoma. Bellator announced today that Dave Rickels will now get the title shot but they are moving the fight with Chandler to July 31st and will air on Spike TV as part of their Summer Series.

**The UFC has announced the following fights for the UFC 163 card on August 3rd in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, which is headlined by Jose Aldo vs. Anthony Pettis for the featherweight title:
*Anthony Perosh vs. Vinny Magalhaes
*Neil Magny vs. Sergio Moraes
*Cezar Ferreira vs. Clint Hester

**The retirement of Mike Thomas Brown is over as he will be fighting Akira Corassani on August 17th at the UFC on FS 1 card in Boston, Massachusetts. Brown last fought at UFC 146 a year ago with a unanimous decision win over Daniel Pineda and is a former WEC featherweight champion.

**UFC fighter Lucas Martins has announced he is dropping from lightweight all the way down to bantamweight for his next fight. Martins was part of the fight of the night at the UFC on FX 8 card a few weeks back in a fight where Martins was winning the fight but got stopped in the third round by Jeremy Larsen.

**The UFC has made a bold move announcing today that for all future international shows that they govern, they will be raising the allowable amount of marijuana metabolites in one’s system from 50 ng/mL to 150 ng/mL. The change comes on the heels of WADA (World Anti-Doping Association) making the same changes with the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission also making the same requisite changes as both organizations. All commissions in the United States and Canada that oversee combat sports events would have to decide to make these changes themselves in order for them to be implemented. The idea behind the changes to be able to catch those under the influence of marijuana but not penalize those that may have smoked marijuana weeks ago but trace amounts remain in their system.

**The UFC’s second event on FS 1 (I am not even trying to continue with the numbering of these shows) on August 28th in Indianapolis, Indiana will be headlined by Martin Kampmann vs. Carlos Condit in a welterweight rematch from Condit’s very first fight in the UFC in April 2009 where Kampmann won by split decision. Condit is coming off of losses to Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks while Kampmann has not fought since last November where he was knocked out by Hendricks.

**The split between Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jameson has gotten very ugly with Jameson venting her issues with Ortiz on Twitter last night and claiming he has faked drug tests for the UFC and also posted photos of various medication and drugs that she claims belong to Ortiz. Ortiz is maintaining that Jameson has turned down opportunities to see their two four-year old twins (Jameson claims Ortiz won’t allow her to see them) and she has had problems for years, which have interfered with his training (the two met in 2006 and from 2007 onwards Ortiz went 1-7-1 in the UFC up through his retirement last year).

**Bobby Lashley returned to fighting on Friday night with a first round submission win over Kevin Asplund on the Titan Fighting Championships card that ran on AXS TV. After the fight Lashley challenges Dave Bautista to a fight, in which the window of opportunity for that fight was open in 2010 and is probably next to shut at the this point with Bautista’s acting career including the next couple of months overseas shooting a Marvel movie.

**UFC bantamweight Brian Bowles failed his post fight drug test coming out of UFC 160 where he lost to George Roop by a second round TKO. Bowles’ test revealed a high T/E ratio and will face a suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission and a fine. It was Bowles’ first fight back since November 2011.

**Loretta Hunt of SI.com was the first to report that Bellator will be moving to Friday nights for their next season. Bellator is planning to launch Season 9 on Saturday September 7th and then move to Friday nights starting September 13th on Spike TV. The company was running shows on Thursday nights but with the timeslot change for Impact Wrestling the writing was on the wall that Bellator would be moving to a new night with Wednesdays likely decided against because the UFC will be running heavily on that night of the week on FS 1. Bellator will kick off their Summer Series on June 19th in Thackerville, Oklahoma and that card will serve as a lead-in to the debut episode of Fight Master that night at 10pm EST with the finale for the reality series taking place on the September 7th card.

**Ray Sefo was a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani on Monday and confirmed he will be fighting on the WSIF 4 card on August 10th against an opponent to be named later. Sefo is the president of WSOF as they present their third event this Friday night headlined by Jon Fitch vs. Josh Burkman and airing on the NBC Sports Network.

**The UFC has added a featherweight bout between Darren Elkins and Hatsu Hioki to the August 28th UFC on FS 1 card set for Indianapolis, Indiana. The same card is headlined by a rematch between Martin Kampmann and Carlos Condit.


**The California State Athletic Commission held a meeting on Monday where it was decided that no new therapeutic use exemptions will be given to fighters unless policies are put in place with a more stringent process of acquiring exemptions. Andy Foster of the CSAC spoke to Steven Marrocco of MMAJunkie.com and stated that no new exemptions will be handed out but those with previous exemptions will be able to continue usage.

**This past Saturday’s UFC on FUEL TV 10 card averaged 313,000 viewers on the station and was the second most watched event in FUEL history featuring Fabricio Werdum vs. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira in the main event.

**Below is the full Countdown to UFC 161 show for the show in Winnipeg this Saturday night at the MTS Centre:


**The UFC has added a featherweight bout between Cole Miller and Manny Gamburyan to the already stacked UFC on FS 1 card August 17th in Boston, Massachusetts. The show is headlined by Chael Sonnen taking on Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in a light heavyweight bout.


**The UFC and EA Sports confirmed at the E3 convention on Monday that their next game will be coming out in the spring of 2014 entitled “EA Sports UFC”. Below is the trailer for the game that was released:

I wonder if Evans is going to be entirely too fast for Hendo. Could be one to watch.

Soma. wrote:I wonder if Evans is going to be entirely too fast for Hendo. Could be one to watch.

once upon a time, I think that would be an issue but Evans isn't the fighter he used to be.

Dan Henderson for President

**Here are the results from UFC 161 Sat night with a sold out crowd of 14,754 and a gate of $3,150,000, which is a building record for the MTS Centre in Winnipeg:
*Yves Jabouin over Dustin Pague by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Mitch Clarke over John Maguire by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Roland Delorme over Edwin Figueroa by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Sean Pierson over Kenny Robertson by majority decision (29-28, 29-28, 28-28)
*James Krause over Sam Stout by guillotine choke at 4:47 of Round 3
*Jake Shields over Tyron Woodley by split decision (29-28, 27-30, 29-28)
*Shawn Jordan over Pat Barry by TKO at 0:59 of Round 1
*Alexis Davis over Rosi Sexton by unanimous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-27)
*Ryan Jimmo over Igor Pokrajac by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Stipe Miocic over Roy Nelson by unanimous decision (30-27 all)
*Rashad Evans over Dan Henderson by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)

**The following $50,000 bonuses were announced after the card at the post fight press conference:
*Fight of the Night – James Krause vs. Sam Stout
*Knockout of the Night – Shawn Jordan
*Submission of the Night – James Krause (who nets $100,000 in bonuses)

**Below is the full post-fight media scrum with UFC president Dana White discussing the card, the future of Roy Nelson and their contract talks, White’s issues with referee Steve Mazzagatti following the main event of the WSOF 3 card on Friday night, Anthony Pettis health update, why Chan Sung Jung is getting the featherweight title shot against Jose Aldo at UFC 163, major sponsor not with UFC for the time being and lots more:


and in case you missed the main event of the World Series of Fighting friday night:

**Bellator 96 took place Wed night in Thackerville, Oklahoma with the kick off of their heavyweight and light heavyweight tournaments for the Summer Series. Here are the full results from the show:
*Justin McNally over Steven Artoff by triangle choke at 2:44 of Round 1
*Derek Campos over Brandon Girtz by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Brandon Halsey over Joe Yager by split decision (30-28, 28-30, 30-28)
*Ryan Martinez over Rich Hale by KO at 2:19 of Round 1 in the opening round of the heavyweight tournament
*Raphael Butler over Jeremiah O’Neal by TKO at 2:57 of Round 1
*Damon Jackson over Keith Miner by TKO at 2:00 of Round 1
*Mike Maldonado over Chavous Smith by rear-naked choke at 2:27 of Round 1
*Keith Berry over Cortez Coleman by split decision (29-28, 28-29, 29-28)
*Chas Skelly over Jarrod Card by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*War Machine over Blas Avena by TKO at 3:55 of Round 1
*Vitaly Minakov over Ron Sparks by TKO at 0:32 of Round 1 in the opening round of the heavyweight tournament
*Jacob Noe over Renato Babalu Sobral by TKO at 3:32 of Round 3 in the opening round of the light heavyweight tournament
*Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal over Seth Petruzelli by KO at 1:35 of Round 1 in the opening round of the light heavyweight tournament

**Following his loss Renato Babalu Sobral announced his retirement from MMA and left his gloves in the cage. Sobral has been fighting since 1997 and is one of the often overlooked pioneers of the sport and was a top fighter during the dark days of the sport. Sobral was involved in numerous one-night tournaments that certainly took their toll on him such as the February 2000 Rings King of Kings tournament but his high point was winning the IFC Global Domination tournament in September of 2003 where he defeated Trevor Prangley, Jeremy Horn and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua in the same night and fought over 43-minutes that evening. He would go on to fight Chuck Liddell twice in his career including challenging for his light heavyweight title in the main event of UFC 62 in August 2006 and later win the Strikeforce light heavyweight title. Babalu retires with a record with a 37-11 following the loss to Jacob Noe last night.

**The numbers for Bellator’s live card and debut of Fight Master are in with the shows way down from what they had averaged on Thursday nights. The Bellator 96 event averaged 480,000 while the debut of Fight Master averaged 432,000 with Spike believing that Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final had a lot to do with the performance of both shows as it was a very high number for the NHL with 6.6 million people watching the game. I don’t buy that hockey is the sole culprit for this number as you have to consider the new night and the lack of the wrestling lead-in having an effect on the audience. We will know within a few weeks if this was an aberration or not but next week could be a throwaway as well if the finals go seven games and thus Game 7 would be on Wednesday night as well. It’s a really wake up when you see that Fight Master did 432,000 and that World Series of Fighting did 201,000 the prior Friday.

**Jacob Volkmann appeared on Sherdog Radio this past week with T.J. De Santis and shared an insane story from last Thursday where he blacked out in his hotel room after making weight for his lightweight bout for last week’s World Series of Fighting card. Volkmann also stated upon blacking out he also suffered a seizure but did not alert the Nevada State Athletic Commission for fear they would pull him from the fight and as a licensed chiropractor he gave himself a self diagnosis and declared himself fine to fight. Volkmann did win the fight over Lyle Beerbohm with a unanimous decision victory. The extreme weight cutting stories are a real source of concern for me and there are precedents from amateur wrestling where athletes in rare circumstances have died from it and when you hear stories such as this it makes you really concerned.

**Seth Petruzelli has announced he is retiring from the sport following his knockout loss to Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal on Wednesday night. Petruzelli made the announcement on his Facebook page and said his heart was not into fighting for the last few years and fought for the wrong reasons. He will always be linked to one of the famous fights of this current era when he defeated Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson on October 4th 2008 on CBS. It was an insane story as Ken Shamrock was set to fight Slice that night and was arguing with CBS officials about being paid more the day of the show and went off to blow steam and while working out on the mats he suffered a major cut and was pulled from the show hours before they had a network special and Petruzelli was moved from the undercard into the main event. The win by Petruzelli led to a radio interview later that week where Petruzelli said he was offered a knockout bonus but not a submission bonus indicating that Elite XC officials wanted the fight to stay standing where Slice had a better chance to win the fight. The bad taste that Shamrock left in their mouth, the bonus scandal and Elite XC losing so much money led to the company going out of business with that October 2008 show being their last one.

**There are some issues regarding the UFC on FS 1 show on August 17th in Boston, Massachusetts. There is a bylaw with the state that requires all foreign fighters to have a social security number and the state is pressing forward to make the UFC comply with the bylaw (which was skirted past for the UFC 118 show in Boston in August 2010). Dave Meltzer spoke with the UFC’s Vice-President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner, who is confident the show will take place at http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/6/18/44 ... n-jeopardy.

**Anthony Pettis was scheduled to fly to Las Vegas today and have his knee checked out by a UFC doctor and then determine when he can fight. Pettis is petitioning to get onto the UFC 164 card in his hometown of Milwaukee to fight Benson Henderson for the lightweight title but the UFC seems adamant that T.J. Grant will be keeping his spot against Henderson on that show. It’s a tough spot because the bigger business fight is Henderson vs. Pettis and the hometown angle makes it perfect with the first fight producing one of the all-time great highlight reel clips with the Showtime kick.

**Ariel Helwani reported on UFC Tonight Tuesday that former Bellator middleweight champion Hector Lombard will be cutting down to 170-pounds for his next fight after a 1-2 mark inside of the UFC middleweight division. Lombard debuted for the organization last July at UFC 149 and is coming off a decision loss to Yushin Okami this past March.

**Helwani also reports that Ricardo Lamas is officially off of the July 6th UFC 162 card after UFC could not find a new opponent for him after taking Chan Sung Jung out of the bout to fight Jose Aldo for the featherweight title on August 3rd. The UFC is moving the middleweight bout between Mark Munoz and Tim Boetsch has been moved up to the pay-per-view main card.

**The debut WAR MMA event that is being promoted by Nick Diaz Promotions in Stockton, California takes place tomorrow night headlined by Daniel Roberts vs. Justin Baesman and will be airing free at http://www.nickdiazpromotions.com.

**Invicta FC has announced that their July 13th event in Kansas City, Missouri will air on regular pay-per-view on inDemand, DISH Network and Avail-TVN in the U.S. and on Bell in Canada at a price of $14.95. The show is headlined by Marloes Coenen vs. Cris “Cyborg” Santos to crown the promotion’s featherweight champion.

**MMAJunkie.com reports that a lightweight bout between Jamie Varner and Gleison Tibau is set for UFC 164 on August 31st in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Since returning to the UFC last year Varner has gone 2-1 and has not fought since last December where he defeated Melvin Guillard by split decision. This will be Tibau’s 20th fight with the UFC and has a record of 12-7 within the organization. Tibau last fought this past May where he choked out John Cholish on the FX card in Brazil.

**GLORY 9 takes place this Saturday night from the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York featuring a one-night 209-pound tournament along with seven super fights. The card will be airing live on Fight Network Saturday at 8pm EST.


**TVA Sports out of Quebec was the first to report that Georges St. Pierre will meet Johny Hendricks on November 16th in Las Vegas in what is expected to be the UFC’s 20th anniversary card with a venue still to be announced. UFC president Dana White confirmed last week that the two would fight in November but didn’t name the specific date.

**UFC bantamweight Miesha Tate will be featured in ESPN’s annual Body Issue next month following in the steps of fighters such as Gina Carano, Randy Couture, Jon Jones and Ronda Rousey, who have posed for the issue in past years. The issue comes out July 12th.

**Guilherme Cruz is reporting that the UFC is looking to book a November 15th date in Brazil for a UFC on FS 1 card. This would be notable because it would be the third time in company history that they have run back to back nights as the company will be running a pay-per-view on November 16th headlined by Georges St-Pierre vs. Johny Hendricks for the welterweight title. Last year they ran the UFC 147 pay-per-view the night after the FX 4 card in June and then in December ran the FX 6 card from Australia the night before the TUF 16 Finals.

**Matt Serra has confirmed due to his recent surgery that he will be unable to travel to Las Vegas for UFC 162 to corner Chris Weidman. The challenger will have Ray Longo, John Danaher and Gian Villante in his corner against Anderson Silva on July 6th.

**The UFC on FS 1 card set for September 4th in Belo Horizonte, Brazil is set to feature a light heavyweight bout between Ryan Bader and Glover Teixeira along with a middleweight bout between Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza and Yushin Okami being added to the main card according to Portal do Vale Tudo out of Brazil.

**An upstart MMA organization called Global Warrior Challenge has booked the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri this Saturday for a live pay-per-view that no one has heard about. Today they have announced that Bobby Lashley has been added to the show but no opponent has been named as of yet. The show is headlined by former UFC heavyweight champion Ricco Rodriguez taking on Marcin Lazarz and Jimmy Ambriz will be taking on former UFC fighter Oli Thompson.

**All the drug tests for the World Series of Fighting 3 card came back clean from the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

**The second week of Fight Master averaged 545,000 viewers, which is up from last week’s total of 432,000 viewers. The number is a positive after last week’s number in the sense that it’s up without having hockey competition but it is way down from the 809,000 viewers that the live Bellator cards were averaging last season on Thursday nights following Impact Wrestling. The show is on hiatus next week and returns Wednesday July 10th with a new episode.

**Spike TV has announced that they have signed a deal with Glory Sports International to start airing their Glory kickboxing cards this fall on the station. Spike was hoping to promote K-1, but the promotion is really a shell of its former self and Glory has emerged over the past two-years as the premiere kickboxing organization in the world.

**Herb Dean will be the referee for next Saturday’s main event at UFC 162 between Anderson Silva and Chris Weidman.

**Dave Herman has passed his pre-fight drug test in order to be licensed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission to fight Gabriel Gonzaga this Saturday at UFC 162. Herman has tested positive for marijuana twice in the past and that was why he needed to pass a pre-fight drug test.

**The UFC has announced that Thiago Alves has been forced to pull out of his UFC on FS 1 bout on August 17th against Matt Brown and that Mike Pyle will be stepping in to replace Alves. Alves has not fought since March of 2012 when he lost to Martin Kampmann. Brown is on a big five-fight winning streak while Pyle has won his last four bouts.

**Patrick Cote was a guest on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani on Monday and stated that the filming for TUF Nations: Canada vs. Australia will begin in November and the tryouts will feature welterweights and middleweights. There will be tryouts in Toronto on September 22nd following the UFC 165 card in Toronto. In order to register you must be between 18-34 years old, have three pro fights with a winning record and a valid Canadian or Australia passport.

**Quinn Mulhern is cutting down to lightweight following his UFC debut loss to Rick Story at UFC 158 and is set to fight Ryan Couture at UFC 164 on August 31st in Milwaukee.

**Mike Chiappetta of MMAFighting.com has a great piece on Chris Weidman as he believes he could beat Anderson Silva from day one and considers his career a failure if he doesn’t win on Saturday night. The piece is at http://www.mmafighting.com/2013/7/2/448 ... t-him-from.

**Tickets for UFC 165 on September 21st in Toronto will be going on sale next Thursday July 11th with the UFC holding a press conference next Tuesday at the Real Sports Bar with Jon Jones, Alexander Gustafsson and Tom Wright in attendance.

**UFC president Dana White stated on Monday to reporters that if Anderson Silva were to lose this Saturday he would get an automatic rematch against Chris Weidman.

**The UFC has confirmed a few dates for fights already announced with UFC 166 slated for October 19th in Houston, Texas headlined by Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos for the heavyweight title. The company has also announced that the year-end show on December 28th will be UFC 168 and feature Ronda Rousey vs. Miesha Tate for the women’s bantamweight title at the conclusion of the next season of TUF, which debuts September 4th.

**Steven Siler is stepping to replace Akira Corassani on the UFC on FS 1 card on August 17th in Boston against Mike Thomas Brown in a featherweight bout. Another change to that card is Nick Ring is off of the show and his opponent Uriah Hall will not be fighting fellow TUF 17 cast member Josh Samman on the show. Both competed on the TUF 17 Finale event back in April with Hall losing the finals of the show to Kelvin Gastelum while Samman stopped Kevin Casey in the second round.

**Referee Josh Rosenthal was sentenced today to three-years and one-month in prison along with a three-year probationary term along with a minor fine of $100 stemming from his 2012 arrest for growing and selling large scale amounts of marijuana. Rosenthal was facing up to ten-years in prison along with a $10-million fine for his role in the operation. Rosenthal most recently worked at the WAR MMA event on June 22nd where he did commentary alongside TJ De Santis and Javier Vasquez.

**The upcoming “Where Are They Now?” special issue that Sports Illustrated puts out every year will have a look back at the first UFC event from November of 1993.

**The UFC has announced that a second title fight has been added to the UFC 165 card on September 21st in Toronto with Renan Barao defending the interim bantamweight title against Eddie Wineland on that show. The two were scheduled to fight at UFC 161 last month but Barao had to pull out with a foot injury. This will be the co-feature underneath the Jon Jones vs. Alexander Gustafsson bout for the light heavyweight title.

**UFC president Dana White noted friday that boxer Roy Jones Jr. will be at the UFC 162 card on Saturday night. Also White has at least opened the window of possibility to putting together a fight between Anderson Silva and Jones Jr. since Silva has been talking about that potential for years now. White also noted at the press conference that the gate for Saturday’s show currently sits at $4,260,000 (last year’s 4th of July weekend card did a gate of $7-million with both shows scaled much higher than typical Vegas shows for the promotion).

**Hector Lombard will be cutting down to welterweight for the first time when he fights Nate Marquardt at UFC 166 on October 19th in Houston, Texas. Lombard has gone 1-2 in the UFC’s middleweight division since coming over from Bellator and signing a very lucrative contract.

I had a good feeling about Weidman going into this fight. He didn't seem intimidated in the least by the fact that it was Silva he was fighting.

Fuckin Silva and his showboating. He had to know it was gonna cost him eventually.
I was taken aback when he said he didn't want the rematch too.

And if Boetsch isn't pissing blood today, I'd be very surprised.

pretty great card overall with the biggest upset ever. silva's done that type of stuff before putting his hands down and whatnot, but it caught up w/ him last night.

Long Island Champ!

**Invicta FC president Shannon Knapp has stated that the promotion is currently developing a reality show but have not named a broadcast outlet yet for the series or a time frame of when it will debut.

**Here are the main card results from the Cage Warriors 57 card held on Saturday afternoon from Liverpool, England and aired on Fight Network in Canada:
*Paul Daley over Lukasz Chlewicki by TKO (doctor’s stoppage) at the end of Round 1
*Danny Roberts over Henry Fadipe by rear-naked choke at 3:34 of Round 3
*Ronnie Mann over Luis Zapater by TKO at 3:19 of Round 1
*Norman Paraisy over Leeroy Barnes by unanimous decision (30-27, 29-28, 29-28)
*Ali Arish over Jack Mason by unanimous decision (29-28 all)
*Chris Fishgold over Marcin Wrzosek by TKO at 3:31 of Round 2

**This is one of the more quiet weekends and one of the last as the rest of the summer is loaded with shows including:
*Saturday July 27th – UFC on FOX 8 (Demetrious Johnson vs. John Moraga)
*Wednesday July 31st – Bellator 97 (Chandler vs. Rickels, Askren vs. Koreshkov)
*Saturday August 3rd – UFC 162 (Jose Aldo vs. Chan Sung Jung)
*Sunday August 4th – NJPW G-1 Climax iPPV
*Sunday August 11th – G-1 Climax Finals at Sumo Hall
*Saturday August 17th – UFC on FS 1 (Chael Sonnen vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua)
*Sunday August 18th – WWE SummerSlam
*Wednesday August 28th – UFC Fight Night (Martin Kampmann vs. Carlos Condit)
*Saturday August 31st – UFC 164 (Benson Henderson vs. Anthony Pettis)

**Bellator’s Fight Master reality show dropped for the first time week over week with this past Wednesday’s show averaging 505,000 viewers down from Episode #3, which did the series high of 676,000 viewers. This past week’s show was the first week inside of the compound after the teams had been set and featured the first two fights of the season.

**The UFC will begin their five country press tour on July 29th featuring the main event fighters from UFC 165, 166, 167 and 168 (with the exception of Chris Weidman and Anderson Silva). The tour begins in the Bay Area with Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos while Georges St-Pierre and Johny Hendricks will be in Las Vegas that same day at the MGM Grand main lobby. The lone Canadian stop during the five-day tour takes place on August 1st in Montreal with St-Pierre and Hendricks appearing at Club Desjardins and it is open to the public.

**The heavyweight bout between Brendan Schaub and Matt Mitrione, which was originally scheduled for the FOX card next weekend has been moved to the UFC 165 card in Toronto on September 21st. The fight was delayed when Mitrione suffered an injury in training a few weeks back.

**The new program “Joe Rogan Questions Everything” that debuts this Wednesday on SyFy (and was plugged by Michael Cole on Smackdown last night) will air in Canada Wednesday nights at 10pm EST on Space and goes head to head with Fight Master on Spike TV.