Tuesday, June 02, 2009

A new featherweight fight between Fredson Paixao (8-3) and Cole Province (5-1) has been set for WEC 42. The event will be taking place Sunday August 9th from The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas, Nevada. A headlining fight of Miguel Torres vs Brian Bowles is scheduled.

According to Chicago's MMA heavyweight Mike Russow (11-1) has signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC.  Russow is a Chicago police officer and has competed in Adrenaline MMA, XFO, and Pride.  He is scheduled to make his debut at "UFC Fight Night 19".

The Nevada State Athletic Commission confirmed that all ten fighters that were tested for illegal/banned substances at "UFC 98: Evans vs Machida" came back clean. UFC 98 took place on May 23rd from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Monday, June 01, 2009

On a television show driven by drama, excitement, and ratings, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has acquired the services of one of the most watched and talked about fighters in the history of the sport. Yahoo Sports is reporting that UFC President Dana White has signed heavyweight Kimbo Slice to be a contestant on "The Ultimate Fighter" reality series. The signing is sure to lift the already popular television show to new heights.

Mirko ‘CroCop’ Filipovic, once one of the most feared fighters on the planet, is officially rejoining UFC at UFC 99 from Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany. His opponent on June 13 will be Mustapha Al-Turk. The bout, after weeks of speculation and even a confirmation by the Croation’s own website, has finally been confirmed by UFC. The match is scheduled to be part of the televised portion of the pay-per-view event that will be headline by a 195 pound catchweight fight pitting Rich ‘Ace’ Franklin against Wanderlei ‘The Axe Murderer’ Silva.

Patrick ‘The Predator’ Cote (13-5) has signed on for another four fights with the Ultimate Fighting Championship according to MMA Weekly. It has been nearly nine months since we saw Cote celebrating the fact that he had taken middleweight champion Anderson Silva into the third round. A place the champion had never been before. Within minutes of that celebration Cote was dropped to the canvas, not by a punch or a kick, but by a blown knee.

Ratings have come in for Dream 9's prime-time televised event on TBS. The show pulled an average of a 16.2% rating with a high of 19.1% during the Joe Warren vs Kid Yamamoto fight. These numbers are a big improvement over Dream 6 which was aired during prime time.

Jon Fitch had the fight of his life against Georges St. Pierre at "UFC 87: Seek and Destroy" in August of 2008. Flying Penguin Pictures produced a film detailing Fitch's training camp for the fight.

After a successful run in the United Kingdom along with a TV deal and forthcoming show in Germany, the UFC looks to continue in their European expansion with a newly signed deal with the popular Portuguese television station, SIC Radical.

M-1 Global is reporting that Gegard Mousasi (25-2-1) is set to face Renato "Babalu" Sobral (32-8) at Affliction Entertainment’s third ev- ent “Affliction: Trilogy”.  Though the announcement has not been con- firmed, both fighters are listed on the promotional material and “sou- rces close to Mousasi” are being cited as confirmation.  The match- up is expected to be unveiled at the organization’s press conference in New York City, scheduled for this Wednesday, June 3rd.

Kim Couture withdrew from her fight with Miesha Tate for the Strikeforce Challenger Series card on May 15 due to her divorce with former UFC champion Randy Couture.  She recently sat down with MMAWeekly to discuss her divorce, her training, and what weight class she wants to fight at.

Following suit as many other popular MMA fighters have recently done, former UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion Forrest Griffin is promoting his new book "Got Fight? The 50 Zen Principles of Hand-to-Face Combat" being released tomorrow. Tour dates and release information detailed within.