Tito Ortiz

Tito Ortiz will be showing up at an Affliction Press Conference this coming Wednesday.  Affliction made the announcement today.

A few months ago, Tito announced that he would be signing the biggest deal in MMA history with Affliction but that deal apparently turned sour.  Then Ortiz said he would be signing with EliteXC but ElitXC bit the bullet soon after.

Tito recently had back surgery, so even if this coneference is to announce his signing with Affliction, it would be unlikely that Ortiz would fight anytime soon.

Tito Ortiz is still a huge draw in MMA even though he's lost his last three fights, most recently to Lyoto Machida.  Ortiz has been a part of some of the biggest Pay-per-view events in mixed martial arts history and would be a boost to any mma event he participates in.

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.

EliteXC folds after losing millions of dollars the last two years.  ProElite seems not to have made an official announcement as of yet but the story first broke on the graciefighter.com website.  Nick Diaz was set to fight Eddie Alvarez in November.

This is no shock to the MMA community as most were very critical of EliteXC's business style likening it to Professional Wrestling style production. 

in its last show on CBS, Seth Petruzelli knocked out YouTube sensation Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson in fourteen seconds.  Petruzelli then went on "The Monsters in Orlando" radio show and dropped a bomb saying EliteXC told him to keep the fight standing.  This would be an advantage to Kimbo as he has very little to no ground game.

Petruzelli managed to knock out Slice and tumble the house of cards EliteXC was built on in one foul swoop.  Showtime was in negotiations with ProElite to purchase EliteXC and save the fight promotion.  Petruzelli's claims seem to have pushed Showtime in another direction and ProElite had no choice but to close its doors.

What a difference 24 hours can make!  A day ago Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson was set to matchup against "The World's Most Dangerous Man" Ken Shamrock on CBS Saturday Night Fights in the main event.  A day later Kimbo is TKO'd by Seth Petruzelli in one of the most bizarre series of events in MMA history.

Shamrock was forced to pull out of the scheduled main event against Slice because of a cut he recieved over his eye while rolling on the mat with one of his trainers.  Apparantley the cut was bad enough to warrant six stitches over his eye.  The athletic commission deemed the injury to severe to let Shamrock fight.  EliteXC called on Seth Petruzelli, who was scheduled to fight in an undercard bout, to fight Slice in the nights main event.  Slice took the bout after deliberating with his camp.  Before the night, Kimbo Slice had never even heard of Seth Petruzelli.

Kimbo Slice went right after Petruzelli as soon as the fight began and was immediately knocked down by "Silverback" with a short right hand.  The referee stepped in with just fourteen seconds gone by with Petruzelli the victor.

In the nights other fights, EliteXC welterwieght champion Jake Shields defended his belt against a game opponent in British striker Paul Daley,  Andrei "The Pitbull" Arlovsky defeated  Roy Nelson and Gina Carano reaffirmed her status as "the face of womens MMA" by taking care of Kelly Kobold.

I have to say after watching this second CBS Saturday Night Fights with EliteXC that I will be a lot more enthusiastic about these fight nights in the future.  There was no sign of the first events glaring problems.  No Gary Shaw.  No extended fighter introductions.  No cheer-leader booty shaking.  CBS really did a makeover this go-around and I, as an MMA fan, definately appreciate it.

The were some great fights to go along with the better production to.  In the lady's side we had Chris Cyborg take on Shayna Baszler.  Christian Cyborg is no joke.  She's so good she had two victory celebrations!  Gina Carrano might want to pick this time to move on to acting or modeling or whatever she wants to do.  MMA just got a little more dangerous with Chris Cyborg running around.  Besides her performance Saturday, who would want to fight someone names "Cyborg" anyways?

Nick Diaz was a dissapointment.  Not because of his performance, he demolished his opponent Thomas Denny, but in the way he carries himself and interacts.  His style out of the cage gives MMA a bad reputation.

 In the nights main event, Robbie Lawler fought Scott Smith for the second time in a championship bout.  The two fought in EliteXC's first event on CBS but the bout was stopped because of an incidental eye-poke and ruled a no-contest.  It was the best fight of the evening up to that point.

Their second fight started off much the same.  A slow moving begining to the first round followed by Lawler turning up the heat towards the end of the round.  Scott Smith came back strong in the second round bloodying Lawler with elbows to the head.  Lawler looked as he pressed Smith against the cage and delivered knees to the mid-section.  One brutal knee after another dropped Smith and Lawler pounced with ground and pound.  The fight was halted in the second round and Lawler retained his belt.

During the interview Smith said he was waiting for the ref to stop the fight to check Lawler's head.  Let this be a reminder to MMA fighters to stay busy at all times in the cage!  I think this fight could have gone longer and been much more entertaining if Smith would have actually kept fighting.

Some good fights last night on CBS!  With EliteXC handling production, I was a bit nervous on what new MMA viewers would see but the fights were exciting for the most part.  I didn't like the fighters entrances (too much like Pro Wrestling) but the show was not boring.

Kimbo Slice was finally forced to fight a game opponent in James Thompson.  Thompson has lost most of his recent fights via quick knockouts but he gave Kimbo a handful and even had Slice on the ground several times.  Thompson has a huge cauliflower ear and Kimbo finally had a chance to target it in the third round.  Slice smashed the ear open and continued going after it.  The ref stopped the fight with 38 left in the third round.

I was very surprised by the womens fight!  They slugged it out as much or more than the mens matchups and both of them took some big punches.  Gina Carrano came in to this fight over the weight limit of 141 but the two fighters agreed to fight anyway.  Kaitlin Young seemed to be a lot smaller than Gina and it showed at the end of the first round.  Carrano battered her up pretty bad and the fight was called in between the first and second round with the win going to Gina via TKO.

Fight of the night was definately Robbie Lawler vs. Scott Smith.  These guys slugged it out for most of three rounds and both were in danger of being knocked out at some point.  I really wish, for the sake of the sport, that this would have been the Main Event of the card.  Robbie Lawler impressed me.  That was the first time I've seen him fight and put on a good show against a game opponent in Scott Smith.

Late in the third round of their matchup, Lawler stuck Smith with an accidental finger to the eye.  Doc's looked at it and called the fight, which would not have happened in the UFC.  I think EliteXC definately has some questionable stoppages in their events.  No winner in the Lawler-Smith fight but I'm sure we'll see them fight again soon.

Tonight is WEC's event on the Versus channel!