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After the Bell UFC 86
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After the Bell UFC 86

UFC president Dana White did an interview several weeks back with Y101 FM in Richmond, VA where he discussed his thoughts on Jesse Taylor and most notably was especially critical about Affliction. He rips into Affliction like you wouldn’t believe. It’s well worth a listen.

MMAmania is reporting that SpikeTV will air UFC 84: Ill Will (Penn vs Sherk) at the same time CBS runs their second installment of Saturday Night Fights (Lawler vs Smith II) on July 26th.This comes one week after UFC will run counter programming in the form of Anderson Silva vs James Irvin to battle Affliction: [...]

In the wake of the UFC 86: “Jackson vs. Griffin” main event, Juanito Ibarra — the manager and trainer for Quinton “Rampage” Jackson — has been saying he plans to protest the unanimous decision his fighter dropped against new 205-pound champion, Forrest Griffin.

Following the fight, Ibarra told anyone who would listen that to become champion “you have to beat the champion.” He clearly feels “Rampage” was robbed of a win … and his championship belt.

Challenger Forrest Griffin won the fight 48-46 on two judges cards and 49-46 on the third.

Keith Kizer, executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said Tuesday that no formal protest has been filed and that he does not expect one from Ibarra.

Kizer said, however, Ibarra did contact with complaints about the first round scoring. In that round Jackson landed some nice uppercuts, including one that seemed to hurt Griffin.

But, Kizer pointed out, giving the round to Jackson would only mean Griffin would take a majority decision and still be the new UFC light heavyweight champion — perhaps that’s the reason no formal protest has been filed at this time.

Changing the first round would mean the following:

Adalaide Byrd scored the fight 48-46 and gave the first to Griffin. Her decision would become a 47-47 draw.

Roy Hilbert scored the fight 49-46 and also gave the first to Griffin. His
decision would become 48-47, still for Griffin.

Nelson Hamilton scored the fight 48-46. But he awarded the first round to
Jackson. His score would remain 48-46 for Griffin.

Interestingly, many of those on press row had the bout scored a draw giving Jackson rounds one, three and four, while believing Griffin took a 10-8 round in two and won the fifth.

The result is apparently all in the eye of the beholder.

(Props Cage Potato)

There was a Ricco Rodriquez sighting in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. The former UFC heavyweight champ participated in a four-round boxing match at the Las Vegas Hilton that resembled something closer to one of those old-school Toughman contests at a rodeo arena in West Virginia.

Rodriguez lost in a split decision to Chad Davis — a Phoenix fighter who earned his first career win — according to the Las Vegas Sun.

Ricco, to put it gently, didn’t look too suave. He weighed in at 270 pounds, his stomach toppling over the elastic band on his Throwdown shorts.

Xtreme Couture boxing coach Ron Frazier cornered the former champ.

Rodriquez won his last MMA fight on June 27 at something called Ultimate Combat Experience. That came after the Gods of War show in Charlotte, N.C., was canceled. Ricco was supposed to headline that arena show in a fight against Jeff Monson. He also participated in April’s YAMMA Pit Fighting event.

Since beating Randy Couture in 2002, things have been strange for Ricco. Bizarrely he attempted to sell his UFC belt online and appeared on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of the Ricco fight was former professional heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson watching from ringside. “Iron Mike” wasn’t impressed with the performance.

“Are you going to throw some punches or what?” he asked in round one.

And later:

“Come on,” Tyson begged in his famous falsetto. “Try to hurt each other.”

It didn’t happen.

This courtesy of the Fight Network. These totals include announced win bonuses for all of the victors as well as specialty bonuses (KO, sub and fight of the night) where noted to indicate why the large pay of say Cole Miller. Forrest Griffin: $310,000 (fight of the night) Rampage Jackson: $285,000 (fight of the night) [...]

In a recent interview with the Brazilian News site Tatame, UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva expressed that the move to fight at light heavyweight is only temporary and he has no intention to fight for the title.

Translated:

When I fought on Pride, a 185 weight class didnt existed, only a 205 weight class and I always fought on it. But I didn’t had the same physical quality and technique I have now. It’s an experience we are doing it for many reasons. One of them is as a personal favor for Dana White that I could do this fight and I, alongside all my friends that help me, concluded that it is possible. We will see. I will try to do my job as I always have been dong, independent of the result, and I’m going to test myself to put me to the test and see if I can do it. If the result is positive, then it means all our new experimental training methods worked. Whoever has a mouth, speaks whatever they want. Irvin is right and that’s why everyone has its own weight. I don’t have intention to fight on this category and Im only doing this because they (UFC) asked me and I think I can do it. I don’t intend to fight for this belt, this belt belongs to Lyoto (Machida) and he already proved that. I’m going to fight because I like to fight and because I like challenges.

Anderson Silva will take on James “The Sandman” Irvin at UFC Fight Night 14 on July 19th, free on SpikeTV.

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The UFC has announced its next move to neutralize another one of its competitors, UFC 84 “Ill Will” which featured BJ Penn defeating Sean Sherk will air July 26 at 9 PM EST on SpikeTV. Also, SpikeTV will air a full day of Mixed Martial Arts programing which will also include the re-airing of UFC Fight Night 14 “Silva vs. Irvin”.

This is not the first time the UFC has stubbed EliteXC and CBS, during the debut show EliteXC “Primetime” the UFC ran a new documentary on Chuck Liddell dubbed “Ultimate Iceman”.

“EliteXC Unfinished Business” takes place on July 26 from the Stockton Arena in Stockton, CA.

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