UFC 132 Fighter Salaries: Tito Ortiz, Wanderlei Silva Top Payroll

UFC 132 main card fighters and former champions Tito Ortiz and Wanderlei Silva topped the $1.277 million payroll for Saturday's "UFC 132: Cruz vs. Faber 2" event in Las Vegas, the Nevada State Athletic Commission announced Tuesday. Ortiz earned $450,000 for his upset first-round submission of Ryan Bader, while Silva took home $200,000 for his 27-second knockout loss to Chris Leben.

Source: http://mmafrenzy.com/19051/ufc-132-fighter-salaries-tito-ortiz-wanderlei-silva-top-payroll/

Kultar Gill Allan Goes Takanori The Fireball Kid Gomi Akihiro Gono

?Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson? adds pair of female fights to lineup

Before fans have an opportunity to see Strikeforce champ Marloes Coenen defend her welterweight title against top contender Miesha Tate at ?Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Henderson? a handful of other talented women will take to the cage in hopes of procuring victory. According to an official announcement from Strikeforce, veteran competitor Julie Kedzie will take on [...]

Source: http://fiveouncesofpain.com/2011/07/01/%e2%80%9cstrikeforce-fedor-vs-henderson%e2%80%9d-adds-pair-of-female-fights-to-lineup/

Vagam Bodjukyan Kotetsu Boku  Tony Bonello Stephan Bonnar

Hand Injury Knocks Patricio Pitbull Out of July 23 Title Fight Against Joe Warren

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Patricio "Pitbull" Freire, the flashy featherweight who qualified to face Joe Warren in a Bellator championship rematch, has suffered an injury that has forced him to withdraw from a scheduled July 23 match with Warren.

Freire confirmed the news on Tuesday through Twitter, saying that he has fractures of his left thumb as well as ligament injuries that pushed him to the sidelines.

That injury news was originally reported by MMA Junkie, who spoke with Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney on Tuesday.

Freire said that on Saturday, he was told it will take four months to be able to fight again, and is hoping to get his shot at the gold in November.

The 23-year-old Freire holds an impressive record of 17-1 since turning pro in 2004 at the age of 16. The Brazilian's only career loss came to Warren in June 2010 in a controversial split-decision victory that made Warren the promotion's first-ever featherweight champion.

Freire returned for season four's tournament and stormed through Georgi Karakhanyan and Wilson Reis with knockouts before defeating Daniel Straus via decision in the finals.

Instead of waiting around for Freire to return, Warren is off to other pursuits. Even prior to this, Warren asked to participate in Bellator's upcoming bantamweight tournament with hopes of becoming the promotion's first two-division champion. He was granted a spot in the tourney and is scheduled to face former Olympic freestyle wrestling bronze medalist Alexis Villa on September 24 in a first-round bout.

 

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Source: http://mmafighting.com/2011/07/05/hand-injury-knocks-patricio-pitbull-out-of-july-23-title-fight-a/

Dan Cramer Alberto Crane Marcio Pe de Pano Cruz Luke Cummo 

UFC?s behind-the-scenes guru gets chance meeting with Obama

PITTSBURGH -- Burt Watson (pictured in the background), the man who you've seen directing traffic at weigh-ins, works tirelessly to keep things running well at UFC events, and he was rewarded with a chance meeting in Pittsburgh. The UFC's main behind-the-scenes man met President Obama while both were at the fighters' hotel, and told his tale to Cagewriter.

The Hyatt Regency in Pittsburgh hosted both the fighters and the president, who was in town to make a speech at Carnegie-Mellon University. Because of Obama's presence, security was tight around the hotel. Watson's room was near the fitness center, so his room had to be checked by Secret Service before the president could go in and do his daily workout. Watson's room was swept by bomb-sniffing dogs and Secret Service agents.

After the sweep, Watson had to turn on the sauna to ready it for fighters. When he entered the fitness center, he saw the president, and asked if he could go in.

"I opened the door, and there was President Obama, pedaling on a bike and reading the newspaper," Watson said. "I started shaking a little bit. There was no one else in the room."

Because of his job with the UFC, Watson has met a who's who of celebrities, but was still blown away by getting to meet Obama.

"I don't get starstruck, because I work with celebrities all the time. It's not my job to get starstruck, but I was dumbfounded. I walked towards him, reached out my hand and said, 'What's up?' He said, 'How are you?' I said, 'Right now? I'm honored.' And he said, 'Nah, I'm honored.' And as I walked out, I thought, 'Oh [expetive]! Did I just walk out of the room with the president of the United States? Me and him!"

He said that the enormity of the situation didn't really hit him until later.

"Not until I walked out of there did it hit me that I was literally one-on-one with the most powerful man in the world. History has a way of making you a part of it without even asking. Never in my wildest, wildest dreams did I imagine that I would meet the President of the United States."

Watson's calm, upbeat demeanor serves him well in his job as the behind-the-scenes man for the UFC. Working for the promotion since UFC 31, he has seen nearly everything the fight world can muster and has taken it in stride. This was different.

"For the first time, I was in awe."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/mma/blog/cagewriter/post/UFC-s-behind-the-scenes-guru-gets-chance-meeting?urn=mma-wp4064

Efrain Escudero Rashad Evans Urijah Faber Wagnney Fabiano

Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber Prove Little Guys Are Worthy of Big Hype

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LAS VEGAS -- On paper, the rationale behind the UFC 132 lineup seemed simple enough: get them to come for stars like Tito Ortiz and Wanderlei Silva, and they'll stay for Dominick Cruz and Urijah Faber.

No matter what you think of that hypothesis in theory, after the show that Cruz and Faber put on in Saturday night's main event title bout, you have to admit that it worked perfectly in execution.

Perhaps Cruz, who retained his UFC bantamweight title with a unanimous decision win over Faber after five close rounds, put it best: "We all train hard. We all work hard. Just because we're little guys doesn't mean we can't scrap."

The difference is that, after UFC 132, everyone knows it. And it's about time.

Years from now we'll probably look back on the slow, arduous rise of MMA's little guys from the cable TV hinterlands of the WEC on Versus to the main event of UFC pay-per-views and wonder why it took so long for some of the sport's most consistently exciting fighters to get the recognition they deserve.

Think about how long they fought for a fraction of what bigger fighters were getting. Better yet, think about how seldom they gassed out, or showed up to a fight unprepared, or just failed to put on a memorable performance.

But, the conventional wisdom told us, people don't want to see midgets in board shorts. They want the big guys. They want heavyweights swinging haymakers at one another's chins until someone falls down or just huffs and puffs to a full stop on his own volition. Who cares about 135-pound dynamos who are as exciting in the 25th minute as they are in the first?

Judging by the sound of Saturday night's crowd during the final seconds of Cruz-Faber, however, the conventional wisdom once again turns out to be woefully wrong.

As UFC president Dana White put it, "No matter how big the star power is on the undercard, these guys are fighting for the title. They deserve the respect to be number one, and tonight they went out and earned it. They've done it a million times before, but tonight everybody really saw it. Tonight, here in Las Vegas, tons of stars, a big 4th of July fight, and they went out and showed the world what we already knew."

Of course, here's where the cynic might wonder why, if White knew it would turn out like this all along, he kept the little fellas underpaid and under-appreciated in the WEC for so long, but that's water under the cheaply constructed bridge now. The point is, they're here now, and we should all be grateful for it.

For 25 minutes on Saturday night, Cruz and Faber gave us everything we've come to expect from the lighter weight classes. The only thing more impressive than the technique on display was the pace. Those two fought like a couple of chihuahuas battling over the last piece of bacon, and by the end even the spectators were breathing hard.

At the post-fight press conference, Cruz summed it up best: "It feels like I was in a tornado and I was running into stuff -- dressers and what not, I don't know."

But besides just the physical, these two also delivered the pre-fight hype. They spent weeks taking verbal potshots at each other, and fight week was one quotable quip after another between the two familiar rivals.

Even when it was all over and Faber gave Cruz his due as a worthy champion, he couldn't quite bring himself to doff his cap completely. When asked if the rivalry was now over and he was ready to acknowledge Cruz as the alpha dog in the neighborhood, Faber paused.

"I have to watch the fight again," he said.

After the performance those two delivered, he may not be the only one.

 

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Source: http://mmafighting.com/2011/07/03/dominick-cruz-and-urijah-faber-prove-little-guys-are-worthy-of-b/

Daiki DJ taiki Hata He Peng David Heath Delson Heleno

MMA on TV

Welcome to ?MMA on TV?, Five Ounces of Pain?s weekly update on the upcoming MMA-broadcast schedule. Miss the latest episode of ?MMA Live? or ?UFC Unleashed?? Wondering when Showtime, Spike TV, or HDNet are airing a replay of their latest offering or interested in finding out where to tune into live shows occurring over the [...]

Source: http://fiveouncesofpain.com/2011/07/04/mma-on-tv-44/

Ricardo Arona  Noboru Asahi Marcus Aurelio  Mikhail Avetisyan

Crash Course: UFC 132 "Cruz vs. Faber" Edition

Hello once more fans and friends and welcome to the latest edition of ?Crash Course?. ?Crash Course? is a series of articles designed to give readers a quick rundown on all the relevant information they need to know heading into an upcoming major MMA event. Everything from why you should watch, what you should expect [...]

Source: http://www.fighters.com/07/01/crash-course-ufc-132-edition

Josh Burkman  Mikey Burnett  Murilo Bustamante  Grant Campbell