Daily News and Rumors 08-08-09

"I didn't plan on going head-to-head with them. They're weird like that," White said at a UFC 101 question-and-answer session with fans. "We had that date, and everyone asked them to go off that date but for some reason they like to fight with us." mma.fanhouse.com


“His intensity seemed forced, and he seemed a little small,” said the challenger from Dover, Mass. “I am ready to go five five-minute rounds, and we will see tomorrow night if he is ready too.” sherdog.com


Strikeforce on Friday announced that it is going back-to-back with Cyborg headlined events. While Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos faces Gina Carano in the main event on Aug. 15, her husband, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos, will square off against Tim Kennedy in a Sept. 25 headliner. mmaweekly.com


American Top Team fighter Wilson Gouveia (12-6 MMA, 6-3 UFC) has suffered a back injury that has forced him to withdraw from the preliminary card of the Aug. 29 event "UFC 102: Couture vs. Nogueira." mmajunkie.com


"I look at it as a great opportunity," Hendricks said of the fight. "That's the UFC's pride and joy right there. If I come in here and I lose, hey, I lost to their 'TUF 7' winner. It's supposed to happen. I go in there and I beat him, hey, now they're going to look at me and say, 'Hey, OK. Maybe we should put some time and effort into this guy.'" mmajunkie.com


After his devastating second knockout loss, Arlovski returned to his native Belarus. “I talked to some priest. He read me a poem,” Arlovski related. He also spent couch time with a sports psychologist to the Russian Olympic wrestling team and communed with his family. fighting.com

“I cried a lot after my fights, you know. When I lost to Fedor, I cried. When I lost to Rogers, I cried. You might be surprised, but I had tears a lot in my last relationship,” Arlovski told, referencing his relationship with Playboy model Patricia Mikula. fighting.com


“Nobody really believes [that I am a fighter], I don’t really go around telling people what I do unless they come up and ask me about it,” McCrocy told MMAMadness.com. “I’m pretty much a private person as is so I don’t go around being super boisterous and being like ‘oh I’m a fighter and I’m badass’ and all that stuff.” mmamadness.com

“I’m fighting to fight, man. It isn’t like I called them up and said ‘I want to fight Howard’, they just proposed the fight and I was like ‘ok cool.’ That’s kind of the way it’s been for everything. When they offered me to fight Hazelett, they were like ‘you could either fight Hazelett in November or you could wait to see if you get matched up later on.’ It could have been a little bit of a gamble but with him being a black belt and having more experience in the UFC I wanted to take that challenge. I did my best with it and the result is the result. Whatever comes next is whatever the UFC gives me and we’ll take a look at it and go from there.” mmamadness.com


Speaking on how he and Dana White re-established a friendly, working relationship, Tito noted, “Me and Dana met in Las Vegas before UFC 100 and we both decided to bury the hatchet. We were really good friends at one point, but we just didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of topics. Dana even told me that if I didn’t end up signing with the UFC, it’s still better to have me as a friend than an enemy.” fightline.com


“I believe in what I do and train,” stated Maia. “A lot of guys train, but don’t believe it’ll work, that they’ll have to fight [standing], but I believe that I’ll get [in the Octagon] to do my jiu-jitsu, not to fight standing. Of course I’m ready to strike, but, if [I don't] need to strike and do a classic jiu-jitsu, it’s better.” fightline.com


Michael David Smith: Has working as a commentator made you better as a fighter?
Frank Mir: I believe so. In the last two years my fighting ability has become more well rounded, and that comes from watching every fighter and breaking them down, and trying to explain techniques. I think as a commentator I can call moves quickly because I have a broad view of martial arts, and whether a fight is on the feet or on the ground or in the clinch, I can see moves get telegraphed and understand what's happening. There have been times when I've been commentating, and I've seen a move and thought, "Wow, I never thought about that transition. Now I want to go back into my gym and try that out." mma.fanhouse.com


"We agreed that on the fights we do with Fedor, we're going to co-promote the event like Golden Boy does with Bob Arum or Gary Shaw does with Don King (in boxing)," Coker said. "It's done in boxing every month. It's just a co-promotion of our fighter against their fighter. We pick who the production arm will be, and then they work out a venue deal, and everybody participates on the upside and the downside." mmajunkie.com