Daily Rumors 8-03-09

After last week's negotiations with the UFC failed due to co-promoting demands, Fedor Emelianenko has instead signed a multi-fight deal with the UFC's biggest competitor, Strikeforce. mmajunkie.com

"We are extremely excited to have the opportunity to work with M-1 Global and Fedor," Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker stated. "Fedor has been the reigning king of MMA's heavyweight division for quite some time now so being able to work with M-1 and Fedor will substantially increase the level of competition amongst the athletes in this weight class." mmajunkie.com


A bout between perennial contenders Joe Stevenson (30-10 MMA, 7-4 UFC) and Spencer Fisher (23-4 MMA, 8-3 UFC), who both make their 12th appearance in the octagon, is slated for October's UFC 104 event. mmajunkie.com

A source close to the event today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) the lightweight fight is not official but that bout agreements are in the process of being finalized. mmajunkie.com


Despite five wins in his past six fights and a total of five Fight of the Night awards during his eight-fight UFC career, Tyson Griffin (13-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) has been demoted to the un-aired preliminary card of UFC 103. mmajunkie.com


"Ultimate Women Challenge" recently began production and will bring together 16 MMA fighters in September to compete for contracts with a yet-to-determined promotion. The show will put the women through three weeks of intense training and, Howry hopes, deliver the same jolt for women's MMA that "TUF" produced for the sport as a whole. mmajunkie.com


“I want to fight Miguel,” said Benavidez. “He’s the champ, he’s the best guy; he’s one of the best guys, pound-for-pound. He has the name right now so I’d like to be the guy to beat him.” mmaweekly.com


Known as one of the hardest workers both in training and in the fight, WEC bantamweight champion Miguel Torres has once again gone through the rigors of preparing to defend his title, this time against possibly his toughest test to date in No. 2 ranked Brian Bowles. mmaweekly.com

"Every next fight that I have is my Super Bowl. I'm only as good as my last fight," Torres said in a recent interview with MMAWeekly Radio. "I go out there with that mindset knowing that if I lose this fight, if I don't perform well or even if I win and don't perform well, that everyone's only going to remember that last performance. So I go out there every training camp knowing that I have to perform, I have to go out there and show what I'm made of, and not only show what I'm made of, but what the 135-pound weight class is." mmaweekly.com


At UFC 101 BJ Penn finally gets to answer all the questions. Is he really the best lightweight in the world, or is he overrated? Fans have started questioning the strength of his wins at 155, starting with the win over Jens Pulver. Pulver's gone on such a bad losing streak that the win isn't impressive in retrospect. He got a nice win over Joe Stevenson, but Stevenson went on to suffer a first round loss to Kenny Florian and a decision to Diego Sanchez. His win over Sherk looked impressive until Frankie Edgar easily outboxed Sherk. bloodyelbow.com

From my perspective, Penn's legacy in the sport is secure. But a loss to Florian at this point will give a lot of ammunition to those who have long believed he has never lived up to the hype. bloodyelbow.com


In a post of his personal blog over the weekend Shamrock who has wanted to face Ortiz in a rematch seemed very disappointed that Tito went back to the UFC.

“funny week in mma. tito in the ufc? guess money cures all things. what a punk no respect for him.” said Shamrock. frankshamrock.com