News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Sam Caplan tries to rank the top 10 biggest underacheivers in MMA today. People might be talking about that one.

- In Kevin Iole’s mailbag, he talks about how he disagrees with the choice of Chuck Liddell’s next opponent. I’ll have more on that below.

- ShoXC, which is the minor leagues of sorts for Elite XC, had their first show last night and here’s the report from F4Wonline.com.

- Pro Elite buys into UK’s Cage Rage according to The Fight Network.

- After having his victory in Pride over Takanori Gomi taken away after he tested positive for marijuana, Nick Diaz is back.

Talking Points

Kevin Iole from Yahoo! Sports says:

No disrespect meant to the “Dean of Mean” here because I like him as a fighter and he’s a good guy, but I would rather have seen Liddell fight Shogun Rua on the Sept. 22 show. Rua fought in Pride before coming to the UFC and White wants to expose him to the UFC audience before putting him in a big event like that. But I think enough fans know Rua and would have gotten excited by a Liddell-Rua main event that it could have, and should have, been made.

Iole thinks that Dana White should put together the dream match between Shogun Rua and Chuck Liddell when probably 95% of the audience doesn’t know Rua. Because it’s a sport and you can’t fix the outcomes, match making becomes more about putting people in the octagon together with hopes of certain outcomes. But you can’t really predict the outcomes as easily as in the past. Upsets have been the story in the UFC specifically this year. Georges St. Pierre was well on his way to probably the biggest pay day of his career if he could defeat Matt Serra. That victory would’ve set up a title rematch (and rubber match in their series) with Matt Hughes. The only problem with the scenario was Serra. Serra shocked the MMA world with a knockout of St. Pierre, and now he gets to face Hughes and it’s not as big of a fight.

The best thing for the UFC is to have Liddell beat Jardine and Shogun Rua beat Forrest Griffin. That could set up a match with Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva and you’d probably give Shogun one more fight. And then both guys would win and face off in the dream match that we all want to see. But that’s two fights each that need to end up with Liddell and Rua victorious, in order to put together their match in the way it would make the most money. However, if you were to put Shogun in there with Liddell today, without his introduction into UFC, it wouldn’t do good business. But then again, if either he or Liddell loses before finally facing off, it probably doesn’t do great business either.

I think Dana White and company are making the right decision though. As long as Shogun wins, he’ll put himself into big matches even if Liddell doesn’t. And if he doesn’t, then he probably doesn’t deserve to be in that spot anyway. But I don’t think he will. He’s far too good.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

Steroids, steroids, and more steroids.

- Jake Rossen from Sherdog.com has an interesting take on steroids.

- Zach Arnold talks about steroids and the drug culture in his CBS Sportsline column.

- Sean Sherk is using Howard Jacobs to appeal his case to the California State Athletic Commision, according to Loretta Hunt of The Fight Network.

- Gregg Doyel of CBS Sportsline wants steroids out of the sport completely.

In non-steroid news …

- Sam Caplan talks to Tito Ortiz in his Five Ounces of Pain Q&A.

- Dear Don, I have a video game problem …

- Heavyweight contender Gabriel Gonzaga’s coach, Marco Alvan talks to the Boston Herald about Gonzaga’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Talking Points

The steroid talk is going to continue until the end of time. We are only at the beginning. As UFC becomes more and more popular, the new media attention will also bring negative or more intrusive attention. Dana White and company are in favor of steroid testing and working with the state athletic commissions. That’s definitely a good thing. And I’m sure there will be a far bigger star than Sean Sherk who will fail a steroid test. How the UFC follows that up will be even more important than what they are currently doing to try and prevent the problem.

I am going to do show recaps of The Ultimate Fighter Season 6 when it starts up in September. Rather than do them in column format, I’ll probably just write them here. The show features Matt Hughes and Matt Serra as coaches to build up their fight for Serra’s welterweight title which will take place more than likely in November.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Both lightweight champion Sean Sherk and contender Hermes Franca tested positive for steroids after their fight at UFC 73 according to UFCMania.com. Franca sent an apology to MMA Weekly.com to explain his positive test.

- Sherdog.com’s Josh Gross has a story about a drug violations report released by the California State Athletic Commission.

- Zach Arnold of FightOpinion.com provides his take on the situation.

- Dave Meltzer reported yesterday that Mauricio Shogun Rua will face Forrest Griffin on the under card of UFC’s September card in Anaheim. The main event is Chuck Liddell vs. Keith Jardine.

Talking Points

Dana White doesn’t want a dirty sport. That much is obvious. At every step, he and Marc Ratner have talked about regulation as a positive thing. One way to halt UFC’s mainstream push is for many of their fighters to fail steroid tests. Sean Sherk is a workout madman. The fact that he failed a steroid test doesn’t really surprise many in the MMA world, just based on how he looks. But to the common fan who watched his UFC All Access show and watched how hard he trained, I’m not so sure they have the same unsurprised opinion. Most regular sports fans don’t understand steroids and don’t want to understand steroids. To them, a baseball player can steal signs to his benefit, but if he puts something in his body that helps him hit a home run, he’s a cheater. It’s all about the level playing field. And it’s very much black and white.

As UFC grows, they will be under closer examination for failing anything. One way the boxing industry can counter argue MMA and UFC is if more UFC fighters test dirty than boxers. I think Dana White and the people at UFC are smart enough to see this as a problem that could eventually hurt them and will do what they need to do to make sure it doesn’t become a huge issue. But having your lightweight champion test positive for steroids is a big enough deal to raise some eyebrows.

After wondering why Chuck Liddell wasn’t facing Forrest Griffin rather than Keith Jardine, my final thought was that they were protecting Griffin. Well, that thought is out the window. He’s now facing Shogun Rua, who is arguably the best 205 pound guy in the world. He doesn’t have the notoriety of a Chuck Liddell or Rampage Jackson in the US, but many consider him the best based on his career in Pride FC. To me, Liddell vs. Griffin is the biggest match they could’ve created with the situation at hand. Some might say that putting Griffin with Shogun gives the fight some mainstream eyes because Griffin is still the more well known fighter in the US. I buy that somewhat. But if the idea is to make the most money off of two fights, there is no doubt in my mind that Liddell and Griffin would do much more business than any other combination of the four fighters. Yes, that includes putting Shogun in the ring with Chuck, which is a dream fight for any MMA fan. The fact is that Griffin is simply better known and far more popular with the UFC audience. If Griffin loses to Rua, maybe Rua earns instant credibility in the eyes of the US fight fan, but where does that leave Griffin? If he loses to Liddell, he just lost to the UFC’s biggest star. And let’s say that Griffin were to upset either guy. Who does he gain most in beating? Well, that’s an easy one as well.

Match maker Joe Silva and Dana White understand what they are doing. I’m not doing to discredit either man. Both men have forgotten more than I currently know about UFC and their marketplace. The thought simply might be that Rua needs a win over Griffin to immediately become a star in the US. And if that’s the thought, I’m ok with it. Maybe secretly I just want to see Liddell vs. Griffin.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- There is a fantastic piece on The Smashing Machine Mark Kerr, who was the focal point of an excellent documentary several years ago. Written by Kenny Rice for NBCsports.com, Kerr talks a lot about the drug issues in sports today.

- Last week, Dana White was interviewed by ESPN.com and talked about Frank Shamrock (with a reply by Shamrock), PPV in 2008, HBO, and the possibility of heavyweight star Fedor Emelianenko coming into UFC, among many other things.

- Todd Martin writes about the number two MMA company in the US (a very distant second place), Elite XC.

- Sam Kaplan has a Q&A with free agent and former UFC Heavyweight champ, Josh Barnett.

- After talks with Wanderlei Silva broke down for a fight with Chuck Liddell, Dana White and Joe Silva scrambled to put a fight together with the “Ice Man” and Keith Jardine according to UFCmania.com.

- Sherdog reports that UFC 75 will be televised on Spike TV rather than on PPV.

Talking Points

Rather than go with a more proven box office draw in Forrest Griffin, UFC decided to put Keith Jardine in the match with Chuck Liddell. I haven’t really heard why they avoided Griffin, but it would be the bigger match. Griffin can talk and he’s very well liked and better known based on his contract winning fight after the first Ultimate Fighter with Stephan Bonner and even more recently in losing a match against Tito Ortiz that many people thought he won. But the fight goes to Jardine, who beat Griffin last December decisively, but also lost to little known Houston Alexander in his last fight. Matching Jardine with Liddell seems like more of a best case scenario than a well booked fight. But it stems from losing out on the possible juggernaut fight that they were trying to put together between Wanderlei Silva and Chuck Liddell. Silva’s camp wanted a later date than the proposed September date, but UFC didn’t want to postpone the fight. They could still do that fight at a later date.

You’d expect Liddell to be a heavy favorite and maybe it’s not the right time for Griffin to be in there with Chuck. There might be other reasons to not do the fight. But a fight with Griffin would be at least twice as marketable as this one with Jardine. In any case, Liddell is still the star of the promotion, and the fight will be big enough, just based on him being involved.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- According to UFCMania.com, Tito Ortiz and Rashad Evans will fight again in a rematch which will be the next immediate fight for each.

- The website also stated that at the post fight press conference on Saturday, White stated that B.J. Penn was going to stay in the lightweight division. They also reported that Rich Franklin would get his rematch against Anderson Silva for the middleweight championship at UFC 77, and that it would be held in Franklin’s hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.

- Gary Herman’s Notebook column on CBSSportsline.com has a quote from Dana White saying that Fedor Emelianenko will be fighting in the UFC in late 2007 or early 2008.

Talking Points

After an extremely heavy June, it looks like the MMA world will slow down. The next UFC show isn’t until UFC 74 on August 25, 2007 headlined by Randy Couture’s title defense against Gabriel Gonzaga. It will be interesting to see if the lack the national coverage will put the UFC on the back burner for a while.

What happened to all the ESPN coverage? They had a ton of coverage for the show headlined by Chuck Liddell vs. Quinton Jackson just two months ago. But after that, it’s been pretty light. On ESPN’s website, Wladimir Klitschko’s victory over Lamon Brewster in a heavyweight title fight was on the front page. I didn’t see if the UFC show made the front page or not, but if it did, it wasn’t up there for long. The boxing match wasn’t even a PPV event, instead being shown on HBO on Saturday afternoon. While the UFC didn’t have an easy to market fight on the card, they did have a lightweight and middleweight title fight in addition to a Tito Ortiz fight. From a notoriety standpoint, Ortiz is probably in the top 5 of recognizable faces in MMA and has headlined two of the biggest UFC PPV shows in history against Chuck Liddell and Ken Shamrock. It’s easy to see that a Tito Ortiz fight means more to MMA than a Wladimir Klitschko title fight does for boxing. But until the UFC is able turn the corner in the eyes of the sports media, a UFC event which is big business based on live gate and PPV buys will still not be seen as important as a boxing match that wasn’t even important enough to put on PPV.

News and notes from around the MMA world …

- Phil Baroni failed a steroid test according to MMACalifornia.net. They also reported that Carter Williams also failed a drug test, but it wasn’t for steroids. It was for cocaine of all things.

- UFCmania.com reports that Sherdog.com has pulled back their original report that B.J. Penn was set to face off against Diego Sanchez in August. Penn’s camp has stated that the fight wasn’t going to happen in August, but they wouldn’t rule out another possible date.

- Sherdog.com also has an article on Greg Jackson, trainer for Rashad Evans (who fights Tito Ortiz this weekend) and many others.

- With drug testing being a bigger deal now because of the Chris Benoit situation (I have more on Benoit below), Mike Sawyer talks about how people are passing drug tests on F4Wonline.com.

- Mike Coughlin has a long preview (in which he goes over almost every facet of Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans) of UFC 73: Stacked, which is this weekend.

Talking Points

There are things to be learned by the Chris Benoit situation. For the small few who don’t know about the Benoit situation, I posted something on my personal blog the day after it happened, logging how I saw the story breaking. More and more is coming out about how depression, possible shots to the head (wrestling bumps), and pain killers could’ve had an effect on Benoit at the time of the murders. In today’s MMA world, not much is different. Throw in steroids, and you have a fairly strong concoction which can change behavior. I don’t want to say that something like this will happen in the MMA world, but those who are treating their bodies and minds similarly as Benoit did should take note.

On a lighter note, for those who constantly need a fighting fix on television, check out Fight Girls which is an all girl Muay Thai fighting show. Much like UFC’s The Ultimate Fighter, it’s an elimination show. But unlike UFC’s show, the girls that win, will go on to fight the best Muay Thai girls in Thailand. It is a little softer as far as the training aspects and so far, the girls are more mature than their male counterparts, but it’s still entertaining. The fights aren’t shown as they were fought in the ring. Instead, they are shown much like the fights on Mark Burnett’s Contender were, with different camera angles, in slow motion and with music. Gina Carano is a trainer on the show and she’s reason enough to watch.

The most talked about fight on the UFC 73 card is Tito Ortiz vs. Rashad Evans. If Tito Ortiz is fighting on a show, even if he’s not fighting for a title, it’s going to be the most talked about fight on the card. Though it’s not a title fight, it is the main event and main draw for the card. Evans is up and coming and an exciting fighter, but I don’t think he’s veteran enough in the sport to beat someone like Ortiz yet. Ortiz is bigger and stronger and knows all the tricks. Evans is more athletic and beating Ortiz puts him on the map and in line for a title shot. But I still think Ortiz is going to do just enough to pull out a split decision. Much like he did against Forrest Griffin, I think he’ll eek out a victory, and more than likely, it will be an unpopular decision.