Joe Doerkson Released From UFC Contract
April 30, 2008
It appears that the UFC isn’t done their spring cleaning just yet. Joe Doerkson appears to be the latest UFC fighter to get the axe in a recent series of cuts aimed at trimming some fighters from jam packed weight divisions.
Doerkson is a good MMA fighter that just couldn’t cut it in the big leagues by the looks of his fight record. His MMA record of 39 and 12 is very respectable, but then a look at his UFC record shows his struggle to find his place in the organization, the UFC record is a embarrassing five losses and one win. Unlike other fighters whom left the UFC recently including Kalib Starnes and heavyweight Jake O’Brien, Joe has confirmed the UFC has left the door open for him to return again.
Joe had problems in the UFC before, he was cut from his contract two times before this one. Most recently he was cut after his Unanimous decision loss to Nate Marquardt back at UFC 58. He went on to WEC where he had a respectable 7 fight win streak that ended in a loss for the title against Paulo Filho. The UFC must have been impressed because they brought him back a third time to replace the injured Dave Terrell where he faced off against Ultimate Fighter veteran Ed Herman at UFC 78.
Doerkson would try his luck again this time at UFC 83 against highly regarded Canadian Fighter Jason MacDonald only to come up short. Where Joe goes from here is anyone’s guess. If Joe could claw his way back twice before, there is nothing stopping him from doing it again. It’s likely Doerkson will go back to the drawing board and perhaps find himself in a smaller MMA promotion for awhile, this probably isn’t the last we see of Joe Doerkson in the UFC. Look here for more information on Joe Doerkson as it develops.
Fedor Starting a Reality TV Series
April 29, 2008
Well this is a bit of an odd move by Fedor Emelianenko, the controversially ranked number one heavyweight fighter in the world. The reality show will showcase contestants battling for a chance to face off in the ring against the heavyweight legend. The show will go under the name “Fighting Fedor” and will bring in 16 heavyweight fighters from around the world to St. Petersburg, Russia. The fighters will live and train in a club called the red devils sports club and will obviously be competing against one another for a chance to take on the champ.
M-1 happens to be the owners of the club the fighters will stay and train at and not surprisingly, influence Fedors career quite a bit. It seems that the fighters will be privileged to train with many “well known fighters” who will appear on the show once in awhile for special training sessions and demonstrations. Taking a cue from the U.S. based MMA reality series “The Ultimate Fighter” each week two of the contestants will square off and battle, the loser obviously goes home.
Details are pretty sparse on the reality series as of right now. Nothing has been mentioned about when the show will be televised, on what networks, when and where the fight with Fedor will happen and no mention of any cast members besides Emelianenko yet. We will have to wait and see if this reality series interferes with Emelianenko’s upcoming match against former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia. That match is being produced by Affliction, which Tim has recently signed with and will be taking place on July 19th from Dallas, Texas. Look for more information on the reality series as the details trickle onto the net.
Travis Lutter No Longer With the UFC
April 28, 2008
We all know Travis Lutter as a decent well rounded middleweight fighter. He was the winner of The Ultimate Fighter season 4, which was a comeback show for older UFC fighters that were granted a second chance into the UFC. He was in MMA headlines most recently for losing a 2ndround knockout to ex middleweight champion Rich “Ace” Franklin. It would appear that will be his last match in the UFC as they have recently announced Lutter has been released from his contract.
This would be the third cut from the UFC roster in about a month, Kalib Starnes was cut early last week for his abysmal performance against Nate Quarry. Earlier this month Jake O’Brien was cut out as well. Seems the UFC is doing a bit of spring cleaning, it can’t hurt considering the amount of talent in divisions these days.
Lutter’s release comes as a bit of a surprise to MMA fans though, he’s a solid fighter and almost had the win over Rich Franklin in the first round with a arm bar. The reason for Lutter’s dismissal come straight from Lutter himself, he says he was cut because of his 2 losses in a row. It may be two losses in a row, but a lot of fighters in the UFC have gone on a loosing streak far worse then his and stuck around. Not to mention the fact that his losses were against two of the toughest fighters in the division, Rich Franklin and Anderson Silva. Of course, his record isn’t great in the UFC at 2-5, his lack of action and difficult opponents seamed to have sealed his coffin.
What Lutter will do now is to be determined. Fans are eagerly awaiting an announcement from the UFC veteran about where he will go and what he will do with himself. There are rumours circulating about him signing with Elite XC or even going to Japan, but they are not founded on any facts just yet. We’ll just have to wait and see what Lutter has in mind for his career, look for more information on Lutter here as it develops.
McCarthy Retires From MMA Fighting
April 26, 2008
Charles McCarthy has been on a bit of a roller coaster in his MMA career. Well that roller coaster has finally come to a stop, as he has recently announced his retirement from the mixed martial arts fight scene. The announcement comes after his loss at UFC 83 to Ultimate fighter veteran Michael Bisping, whom dropped down to middleweight to fight McCarthy.
McCarthy Fans need not worry, he is not leaving MMA for good, just his fighting career. He will continue teaching his students at his Ultimate Self Defense Academy in Florida. He feels he has achieved many of his MMA goals and others are just out of reach and seems comfortable with that. He wants to now commit most of his time to his business and family as fighting professionally certainly eats up ones free time.
McCarthy began his MMA career in Absolute Fighting Championships where he remained for the better part of his career. He came to the UFC back at UFC 52 where he lost his match against David Loiseau due to a impressive spinning back kick. Dana White gave McCarthy a second chance on The Ultimate Fighter 4, he lost to Pete Sell in the first round of the tournament. He did come back and redeem himself with a win in his match against Gideon Ray at the series finale. McCarthy hadn’t done anything in the octagon for quite some time after that, about 18 later months he came back at UFC 83 where he lost due to TKO to Michael Bisping. Look for more information on McCarthy as it comes available. Fans may still see him in the UFC as a coach to one of his many students some of which could end up in the octagon.
Shamrock Sues the UFC?
April 24, 2008
Ken Shamrocks name is synonymous with UFC so it comes as quite a shock to MMA lovers around the world that he has decided to sue his former organization for breach of contract. His contract had stipulated he would have a two fight deal prior to his last fight with the UFC. This seems quite an odd move for Ken as nothing has been in the news recently about his dissatisfaction with the UFC, not to mention the guy is in the UFC hall of fame.
It seems though that back in October of 2007 Ken revealed in an interview with www.mmajunkie.com that he was thinking about pressing a lawsuit. Not only that but Ken said he planned to return to the organization even though he had announced his retirement almost a year prior to the interview. Kens last match was against Tito Ortiz in October of 2006. He lost for a third time to the Huntington Beach Bad Boy and though accepted the loss quite graciously at the time, it seems he has been brooding over it ever since. The alleged contract Ken signed and is now suing over, said Ken would have had two more fights after the match with Tito, presumably allowing a fourth and final match between the two.
Instead of that happening though, quickly after his loss to Tito, Shamrock announced his retirement from MMA. Now Shamrock says he always had intentions of coming back to the sport though, which seems to be a outright lie considering he retired, twice.
What it comes down to though, is Shamrock wanted to come back to the UFC for his last matches stipulated in the contract. Zuffa claims the contract was fulfilled when Shamrock announced his retirement and that it’s all legal thanks to the retirement clause which is allegedly in all Zuffa contracts. It looks like Shamrock is seeking about ten grand in cash in addition to legal fees and court costs.
Kalib Starnes Booted From the UFC
April 23, 2008
So, UFC 83 went on without a hitch, Canadian fans were welcoming and saw many of their fighters win tremendous victories. Sadly they also had one hell of an embarrassment in Kalib Starnes.
Kalib is no slouch, at least he didn’t use to be. He was favored to win in his season of the ultimate fighter until a rib injury put him out of condition. He came back to the UFC and had some pretty decent matches against the likes of Jason MacDonald and ultimate fighter veteran Chris Leben.
His match at UFC 83 in front of over twenty one thousand fans against Nate Quarry was nothing short of abysmal, he simply ran away from Nate the entire three rounds. Refusing to stand toe to toe or make any effort to take him down. He didn’t event respond to blatant taunting by Nate, which he later apologized for. The unanimous decision was a joke with the judges scoring kalib with 27, 26 and a pathetic 24 points for the fight. Kalib would then lose it and shout derogatory comments at Nate’s corner which was extremely unprofessional. Dana White obviously thought the same thing and has officially released Kalib from his UFC contract and acknowledges he will not be back in the UFC.
Obviously Nate Quarry did not have a whole lot to say about the match, simply apologizing for his taunting and saying it’s frustrating trying to fight a guy that’s always moving backward that fast. No surprise here, but Kalib Starnes could not be contacted for comment. Dana White simply had this to say about Kalib “He should consider a new line of work”
*update* Kalib has gone on record saying he requested release from the UFC before Dana let him go and scolded Dana for not contacting him about the situation before mentioning any of it to the media. According to Starnes he broke his foot early in the match and that’s why he didn’t press the fight at all. Extremely bad luck for Starnes keeping in mind his previous fight ending, or a BS smoke screen, you decide…keep in mind how quickly he was backpedaling the three rounds on a “broken foot”
Dana White Says Serra Versus Hughes Still A Possibility
April 22, 2008
Well this is a nice bit of news I’ve come across. Seems that Dana White has acknowledged the fact that fans still want to see a Serra Hughes fight. We were robbed of the Ultimate Fighter coach’s showdown when Serra suffered a bad back injury, which saw his belt go to St. Pierre as he won the interim belt match against Matt Hughes. Fans were left disappointed as there was a lot of build up of the match and of course it’s certainly no secret how much Matt Hughes and Matt Serra truly despise each other.
Well, it seems there is light at the end of the tunnel, Dana White has announced that the match is certainly still a possibility at a recent press event held after UFC 83. The match is much more likely now as well because Hughes had of course lost again to St. Pierre and Serra just recently lost his belt to St. Pierre, so the two fighters are closer to each other in the standings again.
Now remember the match is not being officially announced yet, and there are a lot of other factors in the way here. One would be St. Pierre has expressed his desire to fight Serra again, this time in his home city of New York though the division is so stacked a third fight is unlikely anytime soon. Currently it looks like Jon Fitch will be the next contender for the belt against St. Pierre followed by Thiago Alves.
Of course it’s well within Dana’s power to set up the match as a potential co main event to a future pay per view. Hell it could even be a fight night main event, though that’s not a huge possibility considering how popular both fighters are they could make a pay per view out of it easily. There is no secret about how much the fight has been built up though and fans would certainly tune in to see the match they were robbed of. The potential money for Dana is huge so frankly he’d be foolish not to do the match at some point, or at least try his best to make it happen. Dana didn’t build the UFC on stupidity, my prediction is we will see this match in some form by the end of this year or very early next year, barring any unfortunate events that plagued the first match.
UFC 83 Bonus’s Handed Out
April 21, 2008
Well, as many of you may know. The UFC likes to hand out bonus cash for the best fights of the evening, thye hand one out for best submission, best knockout, and best overall fight. By the looks of it all three winners this time were undercard bouts
Jonathan Goulet and Kuniyoshi Hironaka shared the honor of having the fight of the night. Hironaka almost managed a KO in the last seconds of the very first round, but Goulet held on and came back the second round where he managed to knock out his tough opponent. This was a great beginning to UFC 83 as this was the very first fight of the night.
Jason MacDonald earned himself the knock out of the evening with a victory over his formidable opponent Joe Doerkson. Jason almost got the submission of the night in the first round with a deep guillotine choke on Joe in round one. Doerkson managed to make it through the round, but was clearly shook up as the second round went less then a minute before Jason knocked Joe out with a ground and pound barrage.
Demian Maia managed to get himself the submission of the night against The Ultimate Fighter veteran Ed Herman. Credit should be given to Herman though he never tapped out. Ed would lose consciousness after being rolled onto his back and eating a few punches while being choked.
Each fighter’s bonus was about seventy five thousand dollars, this was of course, in addition to their fight contract earnings, so to say these fighters did alright that night would be a bit of an understatement. The fighters salaries for the bouts should be released quite soon as well so look forward to that as well.
UFC 83 Vids
April 21, 2008
Did you miss UFC 83? If so see the video’s below….
Matt Serra vs. Georges St. Pierre (UFC 83)
Rich Franklin vs. Travis Lutter (UFC 83)
Michael Bisping vs. Charles McCarthy (UFC 83)
Dave Herman Rumoured to be at Elite XC 14
April 18, 2008
Fans may remember the name Dave “Pee Wee” Herman, his impressive MMA record of 11 wins and 0 losses is nothing to scoff at. Currently the undefeated and highly touted heavyweight champion of Elite XC, he’ll likely be defending his title against Ron Waterman, a former UFC veteran with a respectable record of 15 wins and 5 losses.
Though Herman has not officially been announced for the June 14th card yet, sources close to Herman mentioned the bout in passing so here’s hoping. This event will be taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii and for those not fortunate enough to be able to get there, it will be airing on the showtime network. Fans can look forward to seeing Nick Diaz, Muhsin Corbbrey, K.J Noons and Yves Edwards on this card as well.
A lot seems to be going on in Elite XC as it gears up for it’s primetime tv debut on the 31st of May on CBS. They’ve already announced a second CBS event which will take place on July 26th. A busy couple of months for the young MMA organization and certainly a time to watch and see if Elite XC can hold it’s own against the giant that is the UFC.
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Recent Comments:
- keyrock: Good post. I really like the flash forward to July 20th.
- bliff: or better yet tim wins. Now ask yourself where will Fedor go? No one will care.
- Jeff Spicoli: A natural choice for me. When it comes to MMA I can’t shut up, so I might as well type it down...
- admin: No email address’s?
- Matt: I am interested.
