Roger Huerta

Roger Huerta has announced that he will not be re-signing with the UFC.  Huerta recently told Sherdog that he would not be signing on with the UFC and other media outlets have recently confirmed.

According to Huerta, he intended to re-sign but "all that other stuff came up."  That other stuff being acting and/or modeling.  Huerta has been criticized over his decision by many in the MMA community who say that walking away would make it difficult to return.  Huerta insists that his relationship with the UFC is very strong and that he wants to eventually return.

"The UFC is my home," Huerta said. "They are my family, and eventually I should be coming back to them."

Justin Eilers

Many mixed martial arts news sites are reporting that Justin Eilers was shot and died shortly after on December 26, 2008 in an apparent domestic disturbance at an acquaintance’s home in Canyon County, Idaho. Eilers was 30 years old.

He was reportedly shot by his mother's boyfriend, James Robert Malec.  Malec has since been arrested and charged with second degree murder.

Eilers was 19-7-1 as a mixed martial artist.  That record includes four fights in the UFC of which Eilers went 1-3.

Juanito Ibarra and Rampage Jackson

Juanito Ibarra has denied rumors that he offered Wanderlei Silva "help" at defeating Quinton "Rampage" Jackson at the upcoming UFC event UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008.  According to Ibarra, he has not contacted, not has he approved a representative to contact Wanderlei Silva about possibly training Wanderlei.  Ibarra is quoted as saying:

I can't believe the stuff that gets printed in these magazines and websites.  This is exactly why I don’t read them. 

I never once contacted Wanderlei or his manager. I know them, sure. I really like Wanderlei. He's a great fighter and an extremely respectful person. I have absolutely nothing bad to say about him, his manager or his trainer, but if he received any kind of letter from someone claiming to be affiliated with me, then I honestly don't know anything about it and I didn't approve it.

It seemed like a sketchy story since Wanderlei has already handed Quinton two previous losses in Japan, however, both fighters are in very different places in their careers and the UFC has different rules than PrideFC.

Quinton Jackson and Juanito Ibarra split ways after Rampage lost his Light Heavyweight title to Forrest Griffin via decision at UFC 86.

Wanderlei Silva

According to UFCFight.com, Rampage Jackson's former trainer, Juanito Ibarra, approached Wanderlei Silva with the proposition of giving Wanderlei "the formula" for beating Rampage.  Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva are set to square off against each other in a Light Heavyweight bout at UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008.

Earlier this year Rampage and former trainer Juanito Ibarra split ways soon after Jackson's Light Heavyweight championship title loss to Forrest Griffin.  Wanderlei and Quinton have faced off twice before in Japan's now defunct Pride Fighting Championships.  Wanderlei won both of those bouts with brutal knockouts.

According to the article, Wanderlei refused Ibarra's help.

New York is one of the only states in the U.S. yet to sanction mixed martial arts competitions.  Yahoo! Sports has a story on Bob Reilly who seems to have zero idea what MMA is or what MMA is about.

You can email your opinion on this subject to delmonf@assembly.state.ny.us.

It would be awesome to one day have the UFC put on an event at Madison Square Garden.  It's uncharted territory for MMA as of now.  But with idiots like Assemblymen Bob Reilly sitting in office somewhere spouting off uneducated opinions it just won't happen.

Probably not the best phrase to use for MMA.  Anyway.  Check out this article on Sherdog.  They talk about the UFC bringing back old matchups of UFC Fighters that have already been paired up and proven who the best of the two fighters are.  An example is the possibility of a matchup between Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture, a fight we have seen three times and don't really need to see a fourth.

Sherdog also touches on the idea of Faber Vs. Pulver II in the WEC, a rematch of a fight from just a few months ago, a fight that was convincingly won by Faber.  I touched on that rematch in a previous article myself.

The point is, the UFC needs to make some new stars instead of recycling popular previous matchups.  There are definately enough mixed martial artists out there ready and willing (and capable) of getting into the Octagon with these veterans and putting on a good show.

I do have to say I'm looking forward to Rampage Jackson Vs. Wanderlei Silva III at UFC 92: The Ultimate 2008, despite Wanderlei having destroyed Rampage in their two previous matchups in PrideFC. I believe Rampage has a better shot at earning a decision against Wandy in the UFC.  Although I would never come right out and suggest that Wanderlei would lose.  )

MMAJunkie recently revealed its poll results  for the question, besides Anderson Silva, who is the best Middleweight in MMA?  Apparently, despite not even fighting at 185lbs anymore, the answer is Rich Franklin.

These poll results are probably accurate considering how dominant Rich Franklin was in the Middleweight division during his reign as champion.  Interestingly, Dan Henderson, who fights Franklin in the 205lb division in January at UFC 93,  is the runner up to Franklin in the Poll Results.  You would have to consider Paulo Filho somewhere in the runnning, despite his being close to insane, and you would have to consider Cung Le, even though he hasn't fought recently and does not plan to fight anytime soon.

Another reason why it would be easy to consider Franklin as the top contender for best Middleweight is simply the fact that there are so little good Middleweight fighters out there, especially in the UFC.

UFC 94 is set to showcase two of the best pound-for-pound MMA fighters on the planet with George St. Pierre putting his UFC Welterweight Championship title on the line against "The Prodigy" B.J. Penn.  This is a rematch between the two from UFC 58 in which St. Pierre won a split decision against Penn.

This is a highly anticipated matchup as both fighters have improved  by leaps and bounds since their last fight.  Georges has added wrestling to the list of things he's better at than everyone else and B.J. has dedicated himself to being the best fighter he can be as opposed to just being a the best fighter  he can be without having to try hard.

I would like to give an early prediction to this fight and say that B.J. Penn will be the victor.  I think Penn is much more tenacious than Pierre.  Penn wants to beat Pierre more than anything while it seems that to GSP, this UFC thing is just a job.  That's not to say Georges can't beat Penn.  I just think that Penn wants it more.  As far as skill, athleticism and professionalism go, St. Pierre is tops.  Let's hope he comes in wanting to destroy Penn.

The fight may be sold out, but you can still find UFC Event Tickets for sale.

With EliteXC having folded, many of it's fighters are already looking for new organizations to call home.  Jake Shields is one of the more high profile fighters of that group being a top-ranked Welterweight.

Shields is calling himself a free agent after having filed a breach of contract against EliteXC.  Jake is ranked 4th in the 170lb division by WAMMA and it should not be difficult to find a place to fight very soon.  He would like to be a UFC Fighter.  "My dad manages me," says Shields. "He's just started looking around today. Obviously the UFC being the top show that I'm looking at, but I'm definitely going to look around a little bit. Hopefully I'll be signed somewhere in the next month and be fighting within two or three months."

It would be good to see the UFC give him a contract.  Shields is a world class fighter and would present many UFC veterans with a challenge.  Jake Shields has good striking, is an excellent grappler and has a black belt in Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu.

Dana White went off the deep-end again recently cutting top Welterweight contender UFC Fighter Jon Fitch.  White said he would not be dealing with Fitch or anyone else with American Kickboxing Academy.

Said White in an interview, "We're looking for guys who want to work with us and not against us, and frankly I'm just so [expletive] sick of this [expletive] it's not even funny."

The problem apparently stems from a new UFC game in the works for 2009.  The makers of this UFC video game want lifetime rights to the UFC Fighters in the game and Jon Fitch has a problem with that.  "I'm more than willing to work with them, but I don't see why we have to give up our whole lives for this," says Fitch. "Why not a time limit? If we did a 10-year deal with them, is that unreasonable? I don't understand how this happened, honestly. It's tough."

This whole thing to me is borderline insane.  I don't think it's unreasonable for Dana White to ask for his fighters to participate in this video game.  I do think it's unreasanable for him to think that it's appropriate for him to can one of his fighters because they might want to be involved in another video game some time in the future.  Not only that, White decides to flip out about this at a press conferance and thinks that we should all just agree with his tantrum.

Jon Fitch seems like a level headed dude.  He's put in work in the octagon and racked up a record matching winning streak for the UFC.  Why would White go after this guy in that manner?  It makes zero business sense to take this public.  It seems like Dana White's emotions got the better of him.  I don't think it was in the UFC's best interest to let this make headlines.

Any way, Dana White got his way again.  Jon Fitch went ahead and signed the agreement for the video game and he has been returned to UFC fighter status.  He is again scheduled to fight Akihiro Gono at UFC 94 in January.