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DREAM announced the brackets for their upcoming Bantamweight GP today:

Dream will be staging the first round the World Bantamweight Grand Prix at Dream 17 on September 23rd. It was already known that the three top finishers from the recent Japanese BWGP made it into the World GP, and Dream had also previously confirmed that Rodolfo Marques and Bibiano Fernandes were participating. Today, Dream announced the final three contestants and the opening round matchups. They also apparently removed the third place finisher from the Japan GP, Kenji Osawa, and replaced him with the man he narrowly defeated in the third-place fight, Takafumi Otsuka.

The final three contestants announced were WEC veteran Antonio Banuelos, former Dream grand prix contestant Abel Cullum, and BE's # 4 bantamweight prospect Yusup Saadulaev.

Here are the first round matchups:

Antonio Banuelos vs. Hideo Tokoro

Bibiano Fernandes vs. Takafumi Otsuka

Masakazu Imanari vs. Abel Cullum

Rodolfo Marques vs. Yusup Saadulaev

The rest of the card includes Tatsuya Kawajiri's first foray into the featherweight division when he takes on Joachim Hansen, Dream lightweight champion Shinya Aoki facing "Razor" Rob McCullough, Willamy Friere vs. Satoru Kitaoka, and "Lion" Takeshi Inoue vs. Caol Uno.

Really looking forward to seeing Marques and Saadulaev, and Banuelos/Tokoro & Imanari/Cullum should both be fun fights. Interesting to see how Kawajiri looks at Featherweight, too.

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Rumor mill time:

No Future Likely for UFC and Strikeforce on CBS and Showtime, ProElite Close to Deal

by Brent Brookhouse on Aug 8, 2011 12:16 PM PDT in MMA News

Many MMA fans have taken Zuffa's repetition of Strikeforce being "business as usual" since the purchase to mean "just a matter of time." There has been much speculation that Strikeforce would be shut down in 2012 when their deal with Showtime and CBS comes to a close. Cage Potato is now reporting that the resurrected ProElite is close to signing a deal with the networks which should represent the final nail in Strikeforce's coffin:

Sources close to the promotion that was recently brought back from the verge of death by Stratus Media Group, who acquired a 95 percent ownership stake of the company in June, have informed CagePotato.com that ProElite is in the final stages of negotiations for a multi-year television deal with Viacom that will see its events broadcast on both Showtime and CBS starting in the first quarter of 2012.

Viacom owns 20 percent, or approximately 11,991,172 of the 59,955,862 outstanding shares of ProElite (PELE) which are currently trading at 48 cents each after sitting at a penny for the past three years since EliteXC folded. At the height of EliteXC's popularity, the ProElite's shares routinely traded at $15. A resurgence of the company aided by a deal with Viacom, would mean that for every dollar they can raise the stock purchase price by, the media conglomerate could stand to earn close to $12 million U.S.

Zuffa isn't likely to give up air time in any of their deals to put Strikeforce on TV, and they're not going to look for new deals for the smaller promotion when they're still trying to better the UFC's broadcast situation. One can only assume that Strikeforce is going to make it through 2011 and that will be it.

But today is the day to be upset that you didn't buy a ton of $0.01 shares of ProElite as the shares are going to see yet another huge bump after the deal is completed and officially announced.

Update by Brent Brookhouse: TJ Thompson of ProElite refutes the claim on Twitter:

We have no imminent deal with Showtime/CBS. We @ProElitemma are not sure what "source" cage potato used but they were wrong.

It could be that there is no deal, it could be that this is careful language to make it sound like they're not ready to sign for negotiation purposes or it could be that this is a public company that does not want such big news made public yet.

http://www.bloodyelbow.com/2011/8/8/2351537/proelite-showtime-cbs-ufc-strikeforce

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  • 2 weeks later...

4.gif

!!

And reports are out that SpikeTV executives were at Bellator last night, so those Bellator to Spike rumors are looking a bit more sensible.

Judging from Spike TV press releasing the end of The Ultimate Fighter just minutes before the UFC on FOX announcement, it's safe to say they're not taking the new UFC on FOX dealt well. Spike TV executives appeared at yesterday's Bellator 48 show. Also, a couple days before the event Spike TV placed a few graphical inlays promoting Bellator 48. If Bellator to Spike isn't a lock by the beginning of 2012 (or even the end of 2011) I don't know what is.

story at

http://middleeasy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5619:the-sunday-morning-rumor-mill&catid=34:organizations

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  • 2 weeks later...

For those interested, the first One FC card has just kicked off, Soo Chul Kim vs Leandro Issa is about to start, and it's streaming free on Sherdog.

http://www.sherdog.c...n-Sherdog-17781

Edit: And a low blow within 10 seconds. laugh.gif

Edit 2: First fight was okay, followed by 2 great ko's, and then followed by Bas Rutten singing along to Johnny Cash.. this show is great!

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Ironically enough, Wang asked to move the fight to a catchweight at 159lbs I believe, and still came in at like 163.

EDIT: And I don't think he's ever heard of defense.

EDIT 2: RENZO!

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Anyone watch the StrikeForce show? Cormier actually looked pretty good on the feet, dropping Silva several times. Rockhold winning was also a shock, while the Barnett fight went as I thought it would. Barnett - Cormier is actually a pretty interesting fight. Winning the GP (as far as its fallen in the fans eyes) still builds Barnett up, while Cormier would be established with the win - just in time to be brought into the UFC.

Sad for Gracie, but from about thirty seconds in it looked like that's how the fight would go.

Edited by ferencpuskas
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