MMA Round Up: UFC & More
By Scott Heritage
Starting the roundup with some good news, David “The Crow” Loiseau will be fighting in the UFC again after all. The Crow missed out on a spot in the UFC 113 card because of some truly shocking decision making from the Montreal Athletic Commission. They initially denied him a license to fight while investigation his non existent links to organized crime, only to approve his license after he had already been removed from the card. The hero of the piece has turned out to be Mirko Mladenovic of the Vancouver commission, who told the UFC that they would like to have Loiseau on the upcoming card they are overseeing, UFC 115.
Tito Ortiz and Jenna Jamison appear to have reconciled after the back and forth accusations of domestic abuse and drug addictions of last week. The official story from both of them is now that Tito only grabbed her, and that the pills he found in her pockets were old and that she tested clean for drugs after the incident took place. Tito returned home after the automatic restraining order placed on him after the complaint was made expired.
With all the drama that’s been going on around Tito lately, his fighting career is probably the last thing that has been on his mind. One minute he was fighting Chuck Liddell and the next he’s out of the fight and in a holding cell. He also had an unfortunate bout of the flu recently which had him hospitalized for several days. As for when and if he will return, your guess is as good as mine.
Realistically despite what he might tell you, the game has passed Tito by and he is no longer a top ten fighter. The last thing he wants is to pick up more losses against the top guys in the division, and his name value is the main thing that’s keeping him going. Most likely he will wait it out and fight the winner of Chuck Liddell vs. Rich Franklin.
One fight he could have taken was as a replacement for Forrest Griffin against Antonio Rogerio Nogueira (little Nog) at UFC 114, although that spot has now been taken by Jason Brilz. Griffin pulled out of the bout with a shoulder injury, which strangely enough was first broken by TMZ. In the past TMZ have covered a few of the more mainstream stories related to MMA, such as the Tito and Jenna incident, but this is the first time I can remember when this kind of thing has been reported by anyone other than one of the MMA media outlets. Random occurrence or a sign of MMA’s growth into the mainstream? Probably a little of both.
Legal news, and both the UFC and Don King are filing MMA related suits in the next couple of days. The UFC are trying to obtain the domain name “TheUltimateFighter.com” which is currently registered to an individual by the name of Anton Resnick. The domain was supposedly registered with the intention of being made into a clothing company, which in the end never happened, and was purchased before Zuffa could register the name as a trademark. They are now demanding that they be given the domain name because Resnick isn’t using it, under the cyber squatter law. It seems to me like buying the name would have been easier than going to court, but the UFC never likes to do things by halves.
Was Rezner really intending to use it for a clothing company or to sell for big money to Zuffa down the line I hear you ask? Well it could well have been either, although if he was on top of his game he would have put up a website on the domain so as to take away Zuffa’s legal claim to it. As it is now he will probably lose out.
Don King has issued a cease and desist letter to Shine Fights over Ricardo Mayorga’s MMA debut this month against Din Thomas. The veteran boxing promoter has an exclusive contract with Mayorga, and is looking to stop the fight from happening. The outcome of this one isn’t technically a lawsuit yet, but you can be sure it will be because Shine aren’t likely to stop promoting their main event this close to the fight.
Fedor Emelianenko and Brock Lesnar also made their respective next fights official this week, against Fabricio Werdum and Shane Carwin. It appears whatever the issues were between StrikeForce and M-1, they have been resolved for the time being, and Lesnar is back in good health. Should Fedor win, he might well eventually face the winner of the upcoming fight between Alistair Overeem and Brett Rogers, who contest the StrikeForce Heavyweight title in a couple of weeks time.
Overeem has been making noise recently about how M-1 are scared to pit him against Fedor and how he has been avoided. To M-1’s credit though, it has been Overeem who has been away from StrikeForce for the last 2 years while he fought in K-1 and Dream. Had he defended his title a couple of times, one of which would probably have been against Rogers, then he might be the one fighting Fedor right now instead of Werdum. Before he gets too ahead of himself though, he also has Rogers to take care of, which I have a feeling is going to be more difficult for the Dutchman than most of his fans are predicting.
The brawl at StrikeForce Nashville has already been forgotten by most of the fans, but not by the Tennessee Athletic Commission who have issued 6 letters of complaint against the offending parties. The commission has not yet handed out any punishments to those involved, but can issue license bans, fines and suspensions if they choose to.
In further StrikeForce news, after probably losing Jake Shields to the UFC, they might be on the verge of signing a former UFC welterweight to take his place. Karo Parisyan is apparently in talks with the promotion after he was booted out of the UFC last year for his series of problems. Injuries, panic attacks and pain killer addiction has kept Parisyan out of action since January of last year, and after pulling out of a scheduled bout just days before the event, the UFC released “The Heat”. After a lengthy lay off though it looks like Karo is ready to get back into the cage and back into MMA.