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Big MMA TV slate for UFC tonight and Bellator tomorrow

By Zach Arnold | October 20, 2010

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Tonight on Spike TV — final all-access show with Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez (9:30 PM) airs along with a new edition of The Ultimate Fighter. Dave Meltzer says the network also plans on airing the main card from last July’s UFC 116 (Carwin vs. Lesnar). On Thursday night, we get Bellator. Eddie Alvarez is prepared to give Roger Huerta a beatdown this Thursday night in Philadelphia (at the Liacouras Center) for Bellator’s latest event on Fox Sports Net/Comcast Sportsnet. It would be nice if the network actually aired the show live on their affiliates, but that war is lost. Nevertheless, it’s a fight I’m definitely interested in watching. Bjorn Rebney claims that new TV developments are coming soon for Bellator.

Also on the Philadelphia card is Ben Askren vs. Lyman Good for the Welterweight title, Wilson Reis vs. Deividas Taurosevicius, Rick Hawn vs. LeVon Maynard, and fighting on the undercard is Jamal Patterson.

UFC notebook leading into UFC 121

Lance Pugmire in The Los Angeles Times today talking about Brock Lesnar’s drawing power and where it places Cain Velasquez financially. One fighter who isn’t drawing much attention for being on the UFC 121 event is Tito Ortiz and The LA Times takes note of where Ortiz’s career stands.

Jason Probst has a preview of the main card for UFC 121. Take a look at Dave Meltzer’s article on Cain Velasquez’s training and who he’s been training with.

Yoshihiro Akiyama claims that Michael Bisping was very slippery when he tried to take him down during their UFC 120 fight. UFC 120 drew a 1.3 rating on Spike TV for the delayed broadcast last Saturday night. Jamie Penick says there’s no reason to be disappointed with the rating.

Jon Jones has made it clear that he won’t fight Rashad Evans. UFC might have a few million reasons for him to change his mind.

THQ and UFC have a new licensing deal that lasts until 2018.

Both Chuck Liddell and Dana White appeared at a political rally at UNLV for Harry Reid on Monday. The reaction on Politico is… interesting. White will attend a political rally on Wednesday with VP Joe Biden at Univ. of Nevada (to stump for Reid).

The ChicagoNow web site claims that Good4UDrinks has been banned by Zuffa for sponsorship of fights because of Zuffa’s business interests in Xyience. Sherdog has more details on the story. Take note of what Shane Carwin, of all people, had to say about this:

“Another worthy, great, honorable company supporting fighters banned from the UFC. Thank you for making the road even tougher.”

A third UFC-branded gym is set to open in Corona, California (Inland Empire – Tapout country). The strategy is to win over ‘blue-collar’ fans.

Misc. news & notes

The ups and downs of Roger Hollett’s MMA career in Canada.

Check out this profile article on Aisling Daly.

Who would you like to see Jose Aldo fight next, Mark Hominick or Josh Grispi?

Stephen Brunt in The Globe and Mail talks about fight promoters in the Toronto marketplace. He brings up the upcoming Bernard Hopkins/Jean Pascal fight being promoted for Quebec City on 12/18 and how Quebec has much more experience in dealing with fighting events. The Toronto Sun remarks on the state of Canadian boxing and says that MMA has had an impact on recruiting young prospects who otherwise would have stayed in boxing.

Topics: Bellator, Boxing, Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, WEC, Zach Arnold | 17 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |

17 Responses to “Big MMA TV slate for UFC tonight and Bellator tomorrow”

  1. 45 Huddle says:

    1. Call me a skeptic on Rebney announcing a big TV deal. They tried to hype the FSN deal like it was something big. It still surprises me they are even talking season 4. They must be huge in the hole right now.

    2. I thought the UFC 120 ratings were a home run considering the card. I was expecting less then 1.5 million. To get almost 2 million on a Bisping main event in 2010 speaks to the power of the UFC name.

    3. Jon Jones…. talk about ducking competition! He joined Jackson’s camp when Evans was already championship level. To now claim he won’t fight him is ridiculous. At least fighters who came up throughout their entire careers have one leg to stand on when they don’t want to fight their training partner. Jones has no leg to stand on and just comes off acting like a scared fighter. Maybe if Evans is champion, Jobes will move to Heavyweight.

    4. Any reviews on EA MMA game yet? EA workers have been spamming The UG trying to hype up the game, but the demo didn’t make the game seem any good…

    5. Carwin is a complainer. The UFC has a right to say no to what sponsors are on their programs.

    6. Why is Hominick even in the title talk? Put him up against a good grappler and he will get submitted….

    • The Gaijin says:

      “4. Any reviews on EA MMA game yet? EA workers have been spamming The UG trying to hype up the game, but the demo didn’t make the game seem any good…”

      45 – From what I’ve read, keep in mind I’m not a gamer by any means (so I don’t know who’s credible and who’s just a shill) but was more interested in seeing how the game was received w/o the UFC brand, it’s largely received very positive reviews.

    • edub says:

      “Maybe if Evans is champion, Jones will move to Heavyweight.”

      This is what I am hoping for. He just keeps growing so if a year from now he has dominated Bader, and then someone after he will prbably be around 250. The way he manhandled Wlady, Hamill, and Vera makes me think HWs won’t be a problem for him size wise.

      “Why is Hominick even in the title talk? Put him up against a good grappler and he will get submitted….”

      Completely agree. Grispi even dominated him when they fought. I don’t understand why Hominick would leapfrog Grispi, Mendes, Brown, or even Manny for that matter. He gets RNCd by everyone.

    • The Gaijin says:

      “6. Why is Hominick even in the title talk? Put him up against a good grappler and he will get submitted….”

      Honestly the way Aldo ripped through Brown, Faber and Manvel – I think they realize there’s no apparent contender for Aldo’s title, so they just want to build up his aura by having him run a clinic on Hominick. It’s too early, imho, to put Grispi in with Aldo…let him develop and make that into a (relative-sense) “monster” fight.

    • Smithers says:

      Hominick is the only guy who sort of makes sense. Grispi has a lot of upside but isn’t all the way there yet. If a year from now Aldo is off to the UFC fighting lightweight, Grispi may be ready to step in and be a credible person to carry 145. So why have Aldo run over him now?

  2. Hominick is a good gatekeeper style fighter who stylistically could give Aldo problems. And yet, why make that fight if you have designs of promoting Aldo? Seems like strange matchmaking even if I’m kinda interested to see how Aldo does against someone who can kick back.

    The whole teammate thing is fucking ridiculous.

  3. 45 Huddle says:

    CSN Chicago is airing Bellator live at seven tomorrow. I think this might be the second time ever that they have shown it live.

  4. frankp316 says:

    Bellator would not allow Aisling Daly to fight Tara LaRosa outside Bellator. So instead Tara is fighting Takayo Hashi next month in Atlantic City. She could have fought Carina Damm but Hashi is cheaper…and not as marketable.

  5. Chuck says:

    45 Huddle;

    EA Sports MMA is currently getting very good reviews. Mostly 8’s out of 10’s, in that general area. Basically the same scores that both UFC Undisputed games are getting, if not a little higher. By comparison (with the XBox 360 versions of all three games) IGN (who scores out of ten) gave UFC Undisputed 2009 a 7.6, 2010 a 7.8, and EA Sports MMA an 8. So IGN, overall, thinks EA Sports MMA is better than UFC Undisputed. Not by much though.

    Game Informer, who also scores out of ten, gave UFC 2009 an 8, 2010 an 8.25, and EA Sports MMA an 8.5. Once again, giving the bigger score to EA. Once again, though, not by much. The general consensus is that the UFC games are more technical, especially the grappling, whereas EA has the faster striking and is more “n00b friendly” and more intuitive. And has probably a better, and more streamlined, career mode (at least not as numbers or text heavy). I will definitely get EA Sports MMA soon. I wasted my money on Fallout New Vegas this week.

    • Chuck says:

      Oh, and before anyone goes “these reviewers are being biased in favor of EA!”, almost every reviewer has mentioned that the UFC games have the better rosters, but EA’s is good. If anything, most of these reviewers probably wanted to be biased towards UFC.

      • edub says:

        Have you played it at all yet Chuck? I haven’t been able to yet.

        I sat at Target last night going back and forth between Nba 2K11(Jordan Bitches), and EA MMA. I ended up going with neither for now…

      • Steve4192 says:

        Game reviews are are pretty much bought and sold these days. Both THQ and EA grease a lot of palms to get positive reviews from the big sites.

  6. david m says:

    “5. Carwin is a complainer. The UFC has a right to say no to what sponsors are on their programs.”

    Wow you sound insensitive. The UFC is arbitrarily taking away his income and ability to support his family and he is a “complainer”. You would complain too, genius.

    • Brad Wharton says:

      In one sense, I’m with 45 here. Is Shane Carwin really going to struggle to put food on the table because of this move? No. Is he going to have a big blank patch on his shorts at UFC 125? No.

      With that said, what I don’t like is the UFC dropping these bombs a week before the fights happen. As we saw with the whole Mitrione situation, when you’re pushed for time and there are other outside factors (shorts need printing, deals need signing etc), then saying on fight week “X brand is banned as a sponsor” isn’t particularly best practise.

      If the UFC are going to pick and chose for petty or non-petty reasons (which they have every right to do) then they need to at least have a (for example) three-week cut-off period for fighters to approve sponsors.

      Even without going that far, how hard is it for the UFC to produce a monthly list of ‘banned’ or ‘approval acquired’ sponsors who’s brands would create a conflict of interest for the UFC or their partners, to be sent out to anyone signed on to fight? Problem solved.

  7. The Gaijin says:

    WELP!

    Looks like my boy Eddie Alvarez done me proud…he ran a f**kin’ clinic on Huerta tonight. Pure domination.

    As I said before – If Eddie finished Roger he’d be worthy of the ranking people give him and imho a top 5 guy. He more than impressed tonight and honestly based on that performance and the performance of everyone else at LW, I could easily see him taking anyone in the top 5 out. Frankie Edgar prolly didn’t like what he saw live tonight.

    Just an awesome performance. Eddie A is for realz.

    • fd says:

      “Frankie Edgar prolly didn’t like what he saw live tonight.”

      Alvarez trains with Frankie on a weekly basis. I doubt Edgar’s sweating his Bellator run.

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