How about NBC signs on to air Affliction's shows? I don't see why you want EliteXC to go away, they home good fighters and at least continue spreading word about the sport. Sure, I'd like to never see another commercial of Kimbo, but at least it's on national TV. Plus, it makes the UFC step up their game with things like airing 84 for free etc. And you said you hope that Affliction rises as the top competition, I think they're already there. I also heard something about Barnett/Sylvia at Affliction. LOL at Sylvia losing AGAIN.

Has Karo ever been in a fight that was not exciting?



Wow, that could be an incredible fight. You know which Fedor will show up. Now if the real Arlovski will please stand up we will have a very very explosive fight.

What I want to know is how much of that $800K Sylvia received was to take the dive? Not trying to take anything away from Fedor, but what person/company that lives on planet earth pays Tim Sylvia $800K without any strings attached for just one fight?

I agree with Jay, I just don't see eliteXC putting Carano in with Cyborg just yet unless they are really desperate and are basically keeping the business alive from show to show.

The way they run there organization is a joke. Allowing Nick Diaz to show up 9lbs over and still let him fight is pathetic and a disgrace. Who do they have that you would call legitamite, Lawler, Diaz, Noons, Thompson thats about it and those guys arent top level if they are in a deep organization with maybe the exception of Diaz but not with what I have seen from him in the last year.

Sylvia had 1 fight left on the UFC contract at 250k with no bonuses so 800k for him to fight Fedor seems about right. Fedor was probally double that if they showed what he really got paid. The 100k+ ppv buys for banned is really a respectable number considering Anderson Silva was fighting on tv for free at the same time.

funny how Herb and Steve are considered the worst refs, seemingly, but are the most experienced.
I like the guy who did BoDog. And the asian who did the Penn vs Sherk fight.

Karo doesn't finish fights and I'm not sure he's makeing the fights exciting. I have no strong opinion on him tbh

overreact much?

I'm pretty sure a fledgling UFC would resort to much more astonishing manuevers.

Thats not an over reaction. 2 or 3 lbs is understandable but 9lbs is just flagrant disregard for the rules and gains a big advantage on an opponent and he knows they would let him get away with it.

Isn't it up to the opponent when a guy shows up overweight?

That's how Olympic Tae Kwon Do is but I can't remember if MMA has the same rule.

If i recall correctly, a portion of the overweight guy's purse is defaulted to the opponent and the opponent can decide whether or not to fight at what they call a 'catch weight'

So are MMA referees independent contractors, hired for an event only?

It surprised me to see the top refs working all the different company's cards. I figured they'd be employees of an individual company.

Yea I was surprised the first couple times too - I guess they don't pay enough for the refs to accept exclusive contracts.

Wasn't Diaz's problem that he had to fight Inoue a month or so earlier and wasn't able to cut the muscle he put on? I know he told EliteXC well in advance that he was going to be over, that's why his opponent came in over as well. Also, yeah, Kimbo's a joke, I've said he sets the sport back since day one, but they have a LOT of legit fighters that you didn't mention. Big Foot? Shields? Villasenor is a great guy to watch fight, Ninja, that Feijao looked awesome last night, there's a lot of good fighters there. And I agree with whoever said Diaz is WAY over rated. He needs to work his strengths in a rematch with Noons, he can obviously not out box a boxer.

I believe the refs are accreditted and employed by the various athletic commisions. The commisions charge a fee to the promoter and pay the refs out of the fee. Best way to do it imo so the ref is not awnserable to the promoter but to the athletic commision.

odd to me the refs that get the most prominant fights in the best organizations, are considered the worst by vocal fans,

Wonder if it's bias and scrutiny in high profile matches or if in fact, the fans know more about what makes a good ref than the commision and organizations.

Yves Lavigne seems pretty good imo. He didnt get squimish and stop the Kos fight at 86. He has reffed a couple ME lately with Rampage/Griffin and GSP/Serra. There will never be a ref that makes everyone happy but John McCarthy was as good as there is.

No, that's not what happened. His opponent only found out the day of the weighins that Diaz couldn't make the weight. His opponent made the contracted 160 and then re-weighed in at 163 after replenishing lost fluids. This was very unprofessional to not only not make the weight but not give advance notice of this making your opponent have to cut weight, while you don't have to. The so called excuse was that Diaz took in some sea water on one of his swims and that he got very sick, which made cutting weight too difficult. To me, stuff like this should not be allowed to happen. He was a welterweight fighting a lightweight in that fight pretty much.

I think Elitexc has a few things going for them. They have some good fighters that are contracted to them in some shape or form. Sooner or later, Kimbo is going to probably lose and he'll stop headlining main events. Their commentary team is also pretty good too. Gus Johnson is surprisingly pretty good and knowledgable, much better than Mike Goldberg and he's only done a few shows.

This was all I had read and was going off. Sure, he missed weight and he shouldn't have, but if he let them know ahead to where they could have said 'fine, we'll scratch the fight' then he deserves a little credit.
And I agree with Gus Johnson, although Frank Shamrock's new grill had me lol'ing.

According to MMA sources Fedor got 1.5 million for his fight with Sylvia. That was the amount that he had been offered by Dana White to come into UFC...Dana offered him $2 million signing bonus and 1.5 per fight but Fedor wouldnt agree to the exclusivity that Dana required.

Affliction way over paid everyone to try and get as many big names on there card as possible. They are gonna lose between 3 and 4 million on the show from last weekend. And for them to stay in buisness that can not happen again. So expect the next card to be alot different and although it has been speculated that Arlovski vs Fedor is up next don't bet the house on it. Until there is an actual contract you can never be to sure with Fedor and his people.

And there is little to no chance that Banned did 100,000 buys on PPV. That is the number that Affliction people threw out there but its not accurate. Estimates from PPV companies are that it was as little as 30,000 and as many as 80,000 buys. They needed to do 300K just to be able to break even. Not to mention all the tickets that they purchased and then gave away to show a much higher "paid" attendance that was reality. So this thing was a huge money loser but gets the foot in the door, they are gonna need a TV deal of some kind to push there product as that is the only way to stay viable.

One last thing, it was released to the Chicago Sun Times that Anderson Silva vs Patrick Cote for the middleweight belt will be at the UFC 90 in Chicago on 10/25

It's pretty amazing that you have a guy like Fedor making a million a fight, and then other MMA guys are making 5k, sometimes less. It just seems like it's way too top heavy. For Fedor's part, he is pretty smart to be able to get that kind of money. He was pretty foolish imo not to take a deal with the UFC. Other organizations come and go, but the UFC will be around forever. In the grand scheme of things I think he might have been afraid. Other organizations would pay him well and cherry pick his opponents. The UFC would eventually present a fighter that could or would beat him. At least I think so.

I can see how and why Randy Couture was upset that he was making such a small amount of money compared to what they were offering Fedor. Having said that, I don't agree that he has nothing left to prove. A win over Sylvia and Gonzaga is not the end all and be all. His record is not "spectacular". And the heavy weight division is pretty light on talent right now. If he moved down to Light Heavyweight, I can see him losing plenty of matches...........

Can't wait for the next UFC. Tons of great fights on the card.

Ah, that makes sense.



I've always thought Dean was a good ref. I also think it's WAY tougher than we can ever imagine to make an instantaneous decision about whether or not a fight should continue.

I don't think UFC has a heavyweight that poses a huge threat to him. It's by far their worst division.

uh, how is only having one loss(and that was due to a cut from a freak accident in a tournament) and then beating all of the top heavyweights that you have faced not spectacular. Steve, I think you are way off in your assesment here and no, I wouldn't see him losing plenty of matches if he cut down to LHW. Honestly, who in the division is going to beat him?

Sources?

I honestly don't think it is a very big deal for Donald to lose $3-$4M for this show. The long term profits are huge and to make those you have to take a gamble and inflict losses to start. I think if they did anywhere near 100K buys they will consider it a successful event.

Also, Tom Atencio of Affliction has already said they definitely "overpaid" the fighters on the first card and the fighters need to realize that isn't always going to be the case going forward. I don't blame the fighters one bit for chasing the money. Even if Affliction folds and they have have to sign back with the UFC for peanuts they have already made so much more money than they would have had they stayed in the UFC. I especially can't blame Fedor. I don't think he is ducking anyone and simply doesn't believe in the exclusivity of the UFC contracts. The UFC is always going to be there so why not try something else first before you get pwned by the UFC. FFS, look at the crap Couture is having to go through.



If you compare what lower tier MMA guys make to upper tier MMA guys it doesn't even fall in the same solar system as the difference in lower and upper tier boxers. Besides friend and family, very very few people went to see Ray Lizama vs Justin Levins at Affliction. Why should they get anywhere near the money Fedor/Sylvia made?

Agree about Couture. Beating Van Arsdale, Sylvia, and Gonzaga while losing to Chuck twice in your last five fights doesn't exactly cement your legacy as one of the greats. That is exactly why he only wants to fight the best now. He knows he will get paid and unlike his last couple of opponents, he knows the upside will be huge if he wins.

I am pretty sure Steve is sayin that Randy Couture isn't the "end all" and not Fedor.

Well, it was a spin job done by Elitexc pretty much. His opponent had a different story of how it went down and mentioned that he had already cut the weight when he was notified and the weight they have him listed at for the official weigh-in was after he had replenished fluids. What they do at these events is they have fighters weighin twice, once is behind the scenes to make sure weight is on point or close and another time in front of everybody, which is the one that is official. I would tend to believe his side, since he was directly involved. No fighter is going to turn down a fight of that magnitude despite the weight issues. This was his big chance against a name opponent and he wasn't going to turn that down after going through a training camp.

I gotta disagree with you here. I don't see how it was foolish on his part to sign with Affliction. He's getting paid about the same and his opponents in Affliction are better than he would be fighting in the UFC. He's also not locked into an exclusive contract either. If Fedor was in the UFC, who would even give him a legitimate fight? The only interesting fight would have been with Couture. I really don't see how he is scared of anybody in the UFC. He would smash every heavyweight they have. He's already beaten the UFC champ twice convincingly. He has more interesting fights in Affliction with guys like Barnett and Arlovski.

Whether Randy would or wouldn't lose matches at 205 is irrelevant, because he's currently a heavyweight. I'd have liked to see him fight Nog, but that's the only interesting fight for him out there aside from Fedor. He's 45 and not getting any younger, it only makes sense for him to want to fight the best fighter on the planet.

Keith you do realize that I was talking about Couture right? And Couture's record is 15-8. Not taking anything away from the guy, but I'm not terrribly impressed with the people that he has beaten. Some have been good, some have been avg. If he were to fight in LHW I don't think he would do very well. Guys like Machida, CHUCK, Rampage, Wandy, Shogun, Anderson Silva, etc can give him a lot of problems.



It's foolish to sign with Affliction because it's a new company. And a new company can fold. Sooner or later I think that Fedor will end up at UFC. Currently the HW division in the UFC is really weak, hopefully in time it gets better. I don't see anyone in HW that can beat him right now. But the UFC can bring in fighters and eventually I think someone could or would beat Fedor, it would just take time.

As far as Randy goes, I've said before that I like Randy. But fighting at HW is an easier division for him due to the lack of talent. He was a LHW and I think he has plenty of good fights there. Moving up to HW because you can't beat Chuck is understandable. But to say that you have nothing left to prove accept fighting the best guy on the planet isn't. I think he would lose to a lot of other people besides the "best guy on the planet".

Fedor would humiliate Randy. (in his nice way of totally dominating him)
Not fighting Fedor might do more for Randy's legacy actualy.

I wonder what Dana's reason was for not having the new TUF season with heavyweights? Steve and I were talking about it during the silva fight, it just seems stupid to try and fight a new badass at 205 when that division is already ridiculously stacked.

Yeah, I just don't get that at all. BJ and Pulver coached lightweights so I can't understand why Nog and Mir aren't coaching heavyweights. My only guesses are that they don't have a lot of talent to choose from and it might make a boring season.

I don't understand how you can't find 16 guys who are over 205 and athletic. It makes me wonder if the UFC is beginning to think the HW division is a lost cause.

Speaking of HW's, anyone know anything about the status of Pee Wee (AKA Blueberry Muffin)?

Irvin tested positive for morphine and methadone. Probally knew the beat down was coming and wanted to dull the pain.


Looking like Tito/Babalu and Fedor /Arlovski on Affliction 2 Oct 11 http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/mma_exper...4?urn=mma,96545

QFT.

If this fight ever happens, I don't know how much juice I'd have to lay (and I hate betting favorites), but I would step out and hammer Fedor as hard as my bankroll will allow

anyone have a guess at the line? Fedor -300 Couture +260? Am I close? Anyone else take a stab at what that line might be? Very curious as to opinions...

The suspension are gonna start rolling in...Affliction just had its first victim. This was taking from f4wonline.com

Justin Levens failed for Oxymorphone. The cut-off line is 120 ng/mL. He tested at 10,141 ng/mL. That is not a typo. Ten thousand one hundred and forty one. Levens was supposed to fight on the card but saw his fight cut for time constrants

Bill Douglas from the California State Athletic Commission was on the Figure 4 Daily webcast made comments that this is just the tip of the iceberg and "this is going to be a bad week for some people." He said there is atleast one notice for anabolic agents on the Affliction show and probably another 5 notices could be coming down between Affliction/UFC/EXC.

Seriously these fighters are just dumb. Should be interesting to see what some of the other names are.

Actually down 57%. The 84 replay got higher numbers with men 18-34 .

some interesting resignations from Elite XC were announced today this also from f4wonline.com

Both Gary Shaw and Doug DeLuca resigned from the Elite XC board last week, although the company made the official announcement today. It is very interesting since DeLuca was still doing promotional work for the company after his date of resignation, while over the weekend, Jared Shaw, Gary's son, noted Gary wasn't there but was still with the company and rumors of Gary leaving were overblown. Gary had been out of the public eye in the weeks leading to the CBS show, claiming he was spending more time with his family and concentrating on his boxing business.

JC, this is why





I don't know what it has been over the past couple of years, but there seems to be a real lack in talent at teh HW level. I wonder if UFC should do more active recruiting of college HW wrestlers and try to look harder for more HW submission specialists. The same problem is happening in boxing where teh HW division is rather boring and the most interesting divisions are at teh lower weights

imo, HW athletes have more opportunities (as a percentage) in other sports than 170'ers.

They may have more opportunities, but between basketball, football, and wrestling there are plenty of super athletic guys that don't go on to play professionally in their sports. Scout Australian rules and the rugby leagues. Get some tough mofo's and let em loose.

not all bigger athletes like a fist/foot/elbow in the mouth.

not all people are cut out for fighting or want to risk the embarrassment of getting choked out or getting ktfo on tv. Takes a rare breed to fight for a living.

No doubt, but we aren't talking about getting 100 guys, not even 20 guys. Are you seriously trying to say there aren't 10 super athletic guys in the entire world that weigh between 205 and 260 and are not signed to another fighting organization? The UFC has become a big enough name in the fighting world that they should be coming out of the woodwork to push for their chance at the HW division.

I think if Brock Lesnar really works hard he can become a fantastic heaveyweight champion. With his history of quiting though I dont know if he has the mental make up to put in the work necessary. I think he might actually quit mma if he loses to Herring. With his wrestling skills and his massive size he already more than half way there. Just needs some submision defence and some boxing lessons.

HWs can be pretty boring if they have no skills. Slow, get tired, lay on top of each other. Sorta like my wife and I.

I'm with you in heart. But it almsot seems like the UFC says: "We have pleanty of fights to put on at the other 4 weights, no need to put out big money for the HWs too"

I tend to agree with you. If Lesnar gets embarrassed or isn't exciting in a three round fight I don't see him coming back. If he wins and/or makes it exciting and competitive I think he will give it another fight.

I think that Brock has a lot of talent. I felt pretty lucky to lock up the win with Mir in that fight. I honestly don't see why he is such a huge favorite against Herring though. Unless someone knows something that I don't..........

I was thinking the same way too but the more I think about it I dont see Lesnar losing this fight. He took Mir down so easy in there fight and Herring is about the same size as Mir. Herring lacks the submisions that Mir has and all of his UFC fights have gone the distance so he really isnt a KO striker. Herring beat Kongo cuz Kongo had zero ground game, Lesnar deffinatly wont be lacking a ground game.

Pretty sure Mir had no problem letting Lesnar taking him down. I don't think it was even plan D for Mir to try to stand with him.

Herring isn't as slick as Mir with subs, but he is not clueless and has 16 submission wins to his credit. If he gets it past the first round I think he wins this fight. Lesnar's cardio is completely untested and with his muscle mass he is not going to be able to go 15 minutes. Herring on other hand is no stranger to 15 minutes in the cage.

I don't think this is a fair take on Brock. He has a tremendous work ethic. Yes he quit WWE but if you follow that buisness closely the schedule and toll the work takes on your body can put even those with the greatest mental toughness to the test. What else has he quit? He tried to play in the NFL but that was never really realistic for him to make a career out of that.

I guess I was just curious why you feel this way?

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