MMA News and Discussion Thread

[Gene Kiniski]

It's official as per Meltzer (members-only report).

Strikeforce now has all the key EXC fighters and TV deals. There will be a show on Showtime on 4/11 headlined by Frank Shamrock. CBS will probably have quarterly shows.

That's awesome. I'm excited to see this go through.

Also, I love Dana White. "Were you a good boxer", "No, that's why I'm a promoter".

[Fitzy]

Sports Illustrated has this:

ProElite, Inc. and California-based Strikeforce have finalized the transaction for an asset purchase, SI.com has learned.

ProElite CEO Chuck Champion, who has been criticized for his handling of a sale that put the company's fighters in limbo for four months, confirmed the news Thursday.

ProElite, a publicly traded company that promoted mixed martial arts under the EliteXC banner, fought hard to avoid filing for bankruptcy after shutting its doors in October. The deal with Strikeforce includes the following elements:

With Strikeforce:

• Strikeforce and ProElite agree to a limited asset purchase, including some fighter contracts and options for additional fighter contracts

• Strikeforce obtains library footage for EliteXC events

• Strikeforce obtains licensing of the ShoXC brand name

With CBS:

• Paid off debt to CBS/Showtime

• Showtime remains a partner with ProElite, same ownership stake

Moving forward ProElite will not dissolve, as was previously expected. The company will continue promote MMA events, primarily under the King of the Cage brand, though it still owns the rights to EliteXC-branded events. ProElite has a television deal with Fox Sports that needs renegotiating for previously-taped fights. It has yet to be determined what it will do with other promotional brands.

The deal calls for up to 16 Showtime-televised events per year, the first of which is set for April 11. The main event for the card has yet to be released.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

It's hard to figure out when that article is talking about ProElite and when it's talking about Strikeforce.

[Gene Kiniski]

GSP Reponds:

Thursday, February 05, 2009

by Lotfi Sariahmed (lotfi@sherdog.com)

Georges St. Pierre has had enough.

The UFC welterweight champion should be celebrating the four-round pummeling he gave lightweight king B.J. Penn last Saturday at UFC 94 in Las Vegas. Instead, St. Pierre’s had to defend his integrity amidst allegations that his cornermen improperly applied Vaseline to the fighter’s shoulders and back during his first two corner breaks.

“Listen, I never cheated in my life,” an animated St. Pierre told Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show on Wednesday. “Let me tell you something, I never said something bad to B.J. Penn. I never answered back to him with what he said. I’ve always been respectful. Even after the fight I went and told him, ‘Hey, keep your head up. You can be proud. You’re a tough guy. You stayed in the ring for a long time.’ But now that he says something like that it bothers me a lot. He already said I was taking steroids, that I was a quitter, that he was blaming me for seeing a sports psychologist and now he says that I cheat because I use Vaseline.”

The 27-year-old French Canadian, who narrowly bested Penn via split decision in their first meeting at UFC 58 in March 2006, said Penn’s contempt is misplaced.

“It’s disrespectful, but B.J. is a winner,” St. Pierre said. “I understand a winner’s mentality. A winner’s mentality always tries to understand the reason why he lost. In B.J.’s case, he doesn’t do it in a good way. I understand that he tries to understand why he lost, but what he should’ve done instead of looking at things he doesn’t control he should’ve looked at himself in the mirror and asked himself what he should’ve done better to be more well-prepared for that fight to be able to beat Georges St. Pierre instead of looking at me and try to find excuses… B.J. right now is doing it all wrong and he’s not going to become a better fighter if he keeps acting like this.”

Photo by Sherdog.com

GSP says a third bout

will be even worse for Penn.

Penn’s attorney, Raffi A. Nahabedian, filed a formal request letter to the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Tuesday, asking that the regulatory body investigate allegations that St. Pierre was “greased up” during the bout and impeded the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt’s ability to launch both a proper attack and defense from his back.

During the bout, NSAC officials instructed St. Pierre’s cornermen, Phil Nurse and Greg Jackson, to cease rubbing the fighter’s shoulders and back directly after they’d applied Vaseline to the fighter’s face. St. Pierre said the regimen was meant to enable his recuperative breathing between rounds.

“First of all what happened is Phil, he put Vaseline in my face, but then after he didn’t have the Vaseline,” said St. Pierre. “After he put Vaseline in my face, he didn’t put Vaseline in my back. That’s what people don’t understand. He put one hand on my chest and he made a circle behind my back. It helps my breathing.”

St. Pierre also outlined the importance of being massaged between rounds.

“When you come back in the corner, sometimes by punching and clinching, your shoulders are stiff,” said St. Pierre. “So it’s good to massage the shoulders to make the blood flow, you know what I mean? To make it more loose. If you look at muay Thai fights, in muay Thai they come back in the corner to get massage[d] to make the blood circulate. It’s the same thing in MMA. You get massage[d] to make the blood flow so you’re more fresh the next round.”

In the letter filed Tuesday with the NSAC, Penn’s camp also stated they’d received prior knowledge of St. Pierre’s alleged tendencies.

Matt Hughes, who lost to St. Pierre in two of their three welterweight bouts, has been one former opponent of the beloved Canadian champion to comment publicly about the allegations.

“I’m not saying GSP did something wrong and I’m not saying that it would have changed any outcomes of any fights; but what I am saying is, for my last two fights against Georges, he felt greasy,” read a post on Hughes’ Web site on Tuesday.

St. Pierre seemed shocked by Hughes’ words.

“I don’t know what to say,” he told the “Beatdown” hosts. “The next fight day they just have to check me. I have nothing to hide. It pisse me off a little bit. It’s like people are jealous or something… I’m not going to talk bad. I don’t mind. Everything comes up and down in life. I think Matt Hughes is trying to find excuses now for going on the way down. I don’t know.”

When asked about giving Penn a rematch in light of the controversy, St. Pierre didn’t hesitate though.

“Lets go do a rematch with B.J. Penn,” said St. Pierre. “We’re going to do it this summer. St. Pierre-Penn III -- and this time we’ll wear a rash guard. I guarantee you the result will be the same or even worse for him.”

Got it from Sherdog, for source purposes.

I am laughing at the last bit, about the rash guard. I wasn't aware Hughes had made these claims before.

[ZJ Penn]

Yeah it came up the other day. Apparently Kenny Florian said something similar about Roger Huerta who either trains with GSP, has the same cornermen or something. I doubt there's anything in it, but it'll only get more publicity the more other fighters back it up.

[Fitzy]

Meltzer's latest column on MMAJunkie/Yahoo Sports states that they will use the Strikeforce name and not EliteXC.

Kimbo Slice, Gina Carano, Nick Diaz, Eddie Alvarez, and Jake Shields are the only names mentioned right now who are signed. They had about 80 fighters in EliteXC but they did not pick them all up.

He said within a week they'll make a decision on the champions from EliteXC and Strikeforce.

Strikeforces' champions are Overeem (heavyweight), Sobral (light heavyweight), Cung Le (middleweight), and Josh Thomson (lightweight).

EliteXC's had Wilson Reis (bantamweight), no lightweight champion as Noons was stripped of the title, Shields (welterweight), Lawler (middleweight), and Antonio Silva (heavyweight).

They have a deal for 12 Showtime events and they'll continue with the same style EliteXC had with half of those events being name fights and the other being the "development" style ShoXC fights. They have up to 4 live events on CBS in the same 9PM Saturday time slot.

Coker says they'll be doing PPV's but not right away.

[Thrilla]

Well, Silva can't fight in America at the moment can he? That's a legitimate reason for not using him as a champion. The only other real problem is the Middleweight Champion, however I think a Cung Le/Shields match could be a big match for Strikeforce with the right build up. They could have some pretty loaded cards coming up, be very interesting to see who they line up with whom.

[K]

Here's some MMA news...

http://banterpit.channelbee.com/viewtopic.php?t=13009

Scroobius pip is now an MMA journalist, enjoy >_>

[ZJ Penn]

Plus isn't Overeem a likely UFC employee soon? So they could have two heavyweight champions now, but end up with neither.

[Thrilla]

Well, Strikeforce has just gone from alsorans to the number two promotion in the world, I imagine if they offered Overeem a good enough contract and a spot as one of the major faces of the company he'd be willing to stay. With Showtime shows and possible PPV on the horizon, they'll be an enticing option for him, particularly given the way the UFC tend to lowball guys when it comes to contracts.

[Fitzy]

Well, Silva can't fight in America at the moment can he? That's a legitimate reason for not using him as a champion.

Yeah I thought I included that. Must deleted that line by mistake. He going to get his license revoked for competing in Japan last month when he had a suspension for steroids since July of 2008.

Looking over my post I also took out the line that states that Silva's contract wasn't even picked up anyways. Not sure why either got deleted.

Also, I think Shields did say that if there was no competition at welterweight he'd think about going to middleweight, so I could see Shields/Cung Le eventually, but I am guessing that as soon as his deal with this company ends he'd look into going to UFC as he has been wanting to sign with them during the last few months. Lawler/Cung Le, however, I am sure they plan on doing to unify those titles.

Edited February 6, 2009 by Captain Fitzy

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Lawler/Cung Le should be awesome.

[Fitzy]

Cung Le just needs to stop trying to be an action movie star and fight more often.

[Thrilla]

For some reason I typed Shields when I meant Lawler, never mind.

[Fitzy]

For the past several days I have been reading statements made by St. Pierre and Greg Jackson about our fight on January 31. St. Pierre claims that he is "not a cheater" and that he and Greg Jackson will have "no problem with a rematch in the summer of 2009." To the untrained eye the grease might not look like much, but every grappler knows the effect that it has. Being able to apply your submissions and sweeps or just being able to hold on to your opponent to defend yourself from being hit is absolutely critical! There is a reason why you are not allowed to put grease anywhere on your body except for the area around your eyes. Because of the grease applied to St.Pierre's Body the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s executive director, Keith Kizer has stated that the Penn-St. Pierre fight "definitely wasn’t fair." I hereby accept George St. Pierre and Greg Jackson's challenge for a fight in the summer 2009. Lets call Dana now and set it up.

- BJ Penn

I think Dana will go for it, but not in the summer. He'll probably have BJ defend the lightweight title against Florian and GSP defend the welterweight title against Alves and then do the rematch after that. He'd be crazy not to, it'll do big business.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

And beyond that there's really no other challengers to either of those guys right now (maybe Diego once he's established himself at 185).

[Thrilla]

Seriously, grease or not, Penn got outclassed in that fight. He managed to hold his own a little in the first round but he did nothing in that fight apart from get punched in the face for rounds two, three and four. A third fight would go the exact same way as the last one.

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Seth Petruzelli's first match since beating Kimbo will be against Doug Marshall on the undercard of a boxing/MMA show on March 21

[Krone]

I am very excited to see where Strikeforce goes now that they have some fighters from EliteXC and their CBS deal. I would be lying if I said that I didn't really pay any attention to them at all, but now I am going to keep a very close eye on them and watch their shows. They look like they have some solid fighters as well, so I am very excited to see how they are going to do.

Also, I am fairly pumped for Fight Night tonight. Not sure why, cause the card isn't spectacular, but I am pretty pumped up.

[DeeJam]

I would love to see Guida fight Penn for the title. Guida would probably get caught in the 3rd or 4th round, but he'll give Penn a hella of a fight.

According to rajah.com, Andrei Arlovski is going to have his first professional boxing match in April. He doesn't have an opponent yet.