• Jake Shields now considers himself a free agent as it’s been 30 days since the fall of EliteXC and they have breeched contract. Dana White said there was definitely an interest in Shields for the UFC.
• Dana White may try out women in MMA at the WEC with Gina Carano. Dana White said at a UFC 94 Press meeting in Toronto: "Gina Carano is a star, and I think she’s talented," White said. "I think she has all the tools, so what I’m willing to do is bring Gina into the WEC. We could do fights whenever there’s a challenge for Gina. That’s how I’ll test the waters and see how it goes."
• Paulo Filho’s sorry ass is looking for a new job. He’s been dropped from Zuffa altogether after his piss-poor performance and un-champion like conduct at WEC 36.
• Gabriel Gonzoga want a shot at the heavyweight title after his win over UFC newcomer Josh Hendricks. Maybe a contender for Brock Lesnar in the future.
• Urijah Faber wants an immediate rematch with Mike Brown, maybe as soon as January. I would rather see Mike Brown fight one more person before fighting Faber again.

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The final Lightweight fight aired last night on UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter with Team Noguiera’s John Polakowski facing Team Mir’s George Roop.

John Polakowski, while seeming like he has a bit of ADHD was the favored pick of this fight due to the fact that George Roop injured his hand pretty badly during practice when he got it caught in the fencing of the octagon. However during the fight he was throwing a lot of good left hands and feet and going for some take downs. Polakowski was trying to throw a lot of punches and landed a few good ones during the second round that made Roop a little wobbly. He wasn’t throwing any kicks though, afraid to be taken to the matt where it is painfully obvious that his skills are very limited. After two rounds it went to the judges with both fighters looking battered and beaten. The judges scored a unanimous decision for George Roop.

Back at the house some of the fighters were out in the pool and hot tub and a few of the other fighters in the house started throwing various pieces of food down at the fighters in the pool. One of the pieces of food being a porch chop, hit Junie Browning in the head and he almost went ballistic. Previews showed Junie flying off the handle again on next weeks episode with another sit down with Dana White and Junie Browning.

Dana White and the coaches got together and brought the fighters in to determine the match ups for the semifinals. Next week begins the semi-finals with the following fights set to take place:

Light Heavyweights

• Eliot Marshall vs Ryan Bader
• Vinny Magalhaes vs Krzysztof Soszynski

While I think it looks good for Ryan Bader, the match between Vinny and Krzytof should prove interesting seeing that Krzytof has some pretty good stand up and minimal Jiu Jitsu, while Vinny is just the opposite. I imaging that Krzytof will want to keep it standing.

Lightweights

• George Roop Vs. Philipe Nover
• Junie Browning Vs. Efrain Escudero

Roop Vs. Novar should be a good match but I don’t think Roop’s ground game is as good as Nover’s. The Browning vs. Escudero match is going to be more of a grudge match as we saw some drama between them in the beginning of the season. Hopefully Junie has been paying attention to his weight and that won’t be an issue again.

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Sure it will be a "Highly anticipated fight", but if Silva is going to move up in weight class, why would they start him off against Liddell. Perhaps they want to see if he is just as good a fighter in a higher weight class as he is in the middleweight class.

Chuck Liddell isn’t going to back down from a challenge, especially if he feels that he has something to prove. If he wins, he will be the first person to beat Anderson Silva in the UFC. It could prove to be an interesting fight but I just don’t know where the UFC is going sometimes with odd match ups like this and like last Saturday’s PPV.

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Starting with the main event. Brock Lesnar came out hungry and proved that he’s not just a hyped up former WWE cash draw. While I like Randy Couture I just had a feeling that Brock’s size and (real) wrestling background was going to be an issue. When you pit two wrestlers up against each other and one weights about 40 more pounds than the other size is certainly going to be a factor. Brock defended Coutrure’s take downs well and Randy’s in ring stand up experience worked well to keep Lesnar at bay. All it took was a big right from Lesnar in the second round that stunned randy very briefly and sent him to the ground. Brock capitalized on this and made quick to jump on the downed Couture and start hammering away with fast, short and powerful hammer fists and punches. Couture tried hard to cover up and defend himself but the fists were coming in too fast for him to break away and make an attempt on a good defensive maneuver. The ref stopped the fight and Lesnar became the UFC Heavyweight Champion in only his 3rd fight in the UFC. This win doesn’t come without conversation of people arguing that Lesnar should have earned his spot for the title shot like so many others before him as opposed to being tossed in because it would be a huge crowd and money draw. Either way, there is nothing you can do now besides see what happens next. He may lose in his first defense of the title and have to work his way back up that way.

UFC.com said that Lesnar’s first title defense will take place early next year against the winner of the Mir/ Nogueira fight next month. Bot of these fighters have great Jiu-Jitsu skills and Brock lost to Mir in his UFC debut. I think Lesnar was looking for and expecting a quick win in that fight but Frank Mir played it just right and caught him in a submission. I don’t think Lesnar will let that stupid mistake happen again. Nogueira is no newcomer to fighting big guys either but his speed is slower than Lesnar and I think that will play a key roll if that fight takes place.

Kenny Florian proved to be an underestimated fighter and a skillful combatant with his win over Joe Stevenson with a rear naked choke. I honestly think that Stevenson was so not intimidated by him and was a bit overconfident. Kenny actually made it look very easy.

Gabriel Gonzaga made short work of Josh Hendricks with a big right that sent Hendricks to the matt. Gonzaga jumped in and went to work throwing punches to the face of a face-down Hendricks who after the first punch thrown by Gonza was tapping.

Demian Maia made quick work of Nate Quarry with his amazing Jiu-Jistu in the first round and Matt Brown looked exhausted after his win over Ryan Thomas, which he took on very short notice.

The fights were moving fast and they showed some under-card fights to kill time, even after the main event. Dustin Hazlett beat Tamdan McCrory with a great submission by an interesting straight arm-bar. Jeremy Stephens took Rafael dos Anjos out in the second round with a monster uppercut that looked like he threw from behind his knee and caught Dos Anjos square on the jaw.

Image Source: Newscom.com

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UFC has announced the the welterweight co-main event fight between Kenny Florian and Joe Stevenson at UFC 91 will be for the No. 1 contender fight foe BJ Penn’s lightweight championship.

The winner of the fight will be guaranteed a shot at Penn’s title after the Penn Vs. St Pierre welterweight championship fight at UFC 94.

Flooian goes in to this match with a victory over Roger Huerta at UFC 87 by unanimous decision. Before this fight happened Dana White said the winner of that bout would most likely get a title shot. However after Florian’s win B.J. Penn was scheduled for a fight for the welterweight title against GSP and Florian was scheduled to fight Stevenson who lost to Penn by submission early this year.

Read more about this at MMAJunkie

Image source: Newscom.com

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In this episode the fight set to take place was Krzysztof Soszynski and Kyle Kingsbury. Krzysztof’s thumb is hurting him but he says he should be fine to fight. Mir brings in a hand specialist and he gives him some tips for wrapping it and sparring. He says he should be alright after a few days with some ice.

After his upset in the ring Dave Kaplan starts drinking heavily and begins bragging about how he’s never been knocked out and that no one can knock him out. He begs Tommy Lawler to try knocking him out. Tommy doesn’t want to do it at first but finally gives in Kaplan puts his face out for him to do it. Lawler hits him pretty square on the jaw and Kaplan goes down moaning. Lawler was kind of worried but brought Kaplin to. Now Kaplan claims that he wasn’t knocked out but I think he will feel differently after watching the tapes. His ass was knocked out.

So team Nogueira decided to play a prank on Krzysztof since it was his time to fight and packed just about everything in the house that was movable in to his room and placed a sign on the door that said "UFC Storage Room". Krzysztof took it well but later played a prank on them by putting their breakfast table down on the basketball court with all their dishes and silverware. Some said it was funny but were still kind of ill about it.

Through the training and the promo tapes we see both fighters talking about whos better, this and that. The typical stuff. Kingsbury said that Krzysztof should not be overlooking him.

The fighters weigh in and it’s fight time the next day. The first round starts and some good punches are thrown from each side, but nothing damaging. They clinch a few times and some knees make contact with cups. Herb Dean stops it at one point and warn Kingsbury. They restart and some punches are thrown again and they clinch up one more time. It looks as if Kindsbury is going to get the take-down, but Krzysztof pretty much lets him by throwing his legs up around the waste of Kingsbury and they go to the ground. Krzysztof does a good defensive job and gets his legs up around Kingsbury’s shoulders, takes and arm and flips over to his stomach while Kingsbury tries to hold his arm in defense of the arm-bar. Both of his arms are underneath Krzysztof but he verbally taps. Krzysztof Soszynski winner by arm-bar. Kingsbury is obviously upset with himself but says it’s not the end for him.

Next week we’ll see George Roop face John Polakowski. Here is what the teams look like as of last night:

Team Mir 
Krzysztof Soszynski 1-0
Vinny Magalhaes 1-0
Elliot Marshall 1-0
Tom Lawlor – Eliminated by Ryan Bader
Junie Browning 1-0
Shane Nelson – Eliminated by Efrain Escudero
Dave Kaplan – Eliminated by Phillipe Nover
George Roop

Team Nogueria
Ryan Bader 1-0
Shane Primm – Eliminated by Elliot Marshall
Kyle Kingsbury – Eliminated by Krzysztof Soszynski
Jules Bruchez – Eliminated by Vinny Magalhaes
Phillipe Nover 1-0
Efrain Escudero 1-0
John Polakowski
Roli Delgado – Eliminated by Junie Browning

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I think a lot of people were excited to see Sadollah make his PPV debut and see just how well he performs. Hopefully Sadollah can make a full recovery and we ca see him fight soon in a future UFC match up.

You can read the official news about this at UFC.com.

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BJ Penn lost by a close decision to St. Pierre in 2006 in a match for the welterweight contender. After that he dropped down to the lightweight division and is the current lightweight champion. If he wins he will be the first UFC fighter to hold two UFC championships.

Dana White said on UFC.com: “This may be the most anticipated rematch in UFC history,”. Hasn’t he said that about almost every fight that has come along between two big fighters?

Anyway, this should prove to be an interesting fight. I’ll keep an eye out for the rest of the car in the coming month or so.

You can read up more on it at UFC.com

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The unity of this effort is unprecedented and the message that is being sent is clear. Absent significant pre-established negotiated terms, do not bid on these contracts unless you are prepared to fight the challenge to their legality. It is our intention to honor our commitment to Pro Elite, but if Pro Elite is not able to perform in accordance with the contractual terms, the fighters should be granted unrestricted free agency with the unfettered ability to enter the marketplace.

Many managers submitted letters to Elite XC notifying them of breech of contract. A contract is a contract, and I’ve never seen the stipulations of the contract, but I don’t feel that these fighters should be sold like property.

Read the entire story and full letter at MMAJunkie.com

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So the big news this weeks MMA Happening was Mike Brown taking the title from the WEC Featherweight Champion Urijah Faber at WEC 36. In the short time we saw Mike Brown in the ring he showed some pretty good skill, strength and smarts. Urijah Faber has won some fights with some unorthodox moves that have at times looked sloppy but have worked because of his speed. This time one of those moves backfired on him and he got caught with an enormous right hand with a lot of velocity behind it. Mike Brown was smart enough to finish the job with a sense of urgency before Faber had a chance to recover. Was it a fluke? I don’t think so and we’ll have a chance to find out with the next challenger when Mike Brown defends his title.

Also on WEC 36, Paulo Filho weighed in 7 pounds over for his title fight against Chael Sonnen. He lost 3 pounds and didn’t make weight again so it was declared a 3 round, non-title fight. Paulo Filho wanted to take the fight to the ground but Sonnen wouldn’t let him, so he played it safe but lost the fight in points to Sonnen. Sad that Sonnen didn’t get his shot at the title before WEC dissolving that weight class at the end of the year.

Jens Pulver lost a quick 1 round fight to Leonard Garcia by TKO (strikes). This isn’t the Jens Pulver I remember, but stranger things have happened. Before the fight started, Garcia kept pinching his nipple. I guess that’s what he does to get ready for a fight. Garcia says he wants a title shot against newly crowned champion, Mike Brown.

The same night of the fight, or early the morning after Hermes Franca was arrested for DUI in Jupiter Florida. Franca attended the WEC event in Hollywood, Fla.. Hermes Franca keeps getting himself in trouble, he may find himself out of a contract.

Mike Kaplan of Team Mir lost in the first round of his fight on The Ultimate Fighter against Team Nogueira’s Philipe Novar by TKO (Ref stoppage from strikes). Some pranks were played in the house again and this time it involved bodily fluids.

ProElite announced that they would be auctioning off their entire assets in a public auction on November 17th in Los Angeles. All fighters contracts will also be auctioned with the company.

Chris Leben tested positive for steroids after losing to his fight at UFC 90 to Michael Bisping. The test was conducted on the day of the fight but the results didn’t get back until recently. Leben tested positive for the anabolic steroid Stanazalol. He was suspended for 9 months and fined 1/3 of his purse from UFC 90.

That’s it for this week. We’ll see you back here on Monday. Thanks for tuning in.

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