JON FITCH OUT OF UFC 132 REMATCH WITH PENN DUE TO

Nothing is guaranteed in MMA…

As much as Penn fans wanted redemption for the UFC 127 draw between BJ Penn and Jon Fitch it appears that it will have to wait.

We just got word that Jon Fitch has been injured in training and forced to withdraw from the UFC 132 bout. No word on the extent of his injury or the cause.

It is reported that the UFC is in search of a replacement for Penn but no word on who that might be.

We will continue to follow this story as it unfolds.

New Zuffa Employee, Bigfoot Silva Wants To Put @bjpenndotcom

“It’ll be very good, I’m looking forwards to know how it’ll be like, I’ve never had issues with anybody, I’ve always respected everybody, but as a professional I believe it’d be interesting fighting Brock Lesnar. I don’t agree that Brock is the second on the ranking, it doesn’t make sense. This fight would be interesting so I put Brock on the place where he was supposed to be… It really doesn’t make any sense.”

Fresh off of his destruction of Fedor Emelianenko, Strikeforce heavyweight Antonio Bigfoot Silva is prepared to cross over and face Lesnar to get the world rankings in an acceptable order. If this match up does ever happen who ya got BJPENN.COM?

UFC Mirrors NBA and NFL Rise to Mainstream With Strikeforce Purchase

Zuffa, LLC has put themselves in a position to run the table.

Strikeforce, the widely considered number-two MMA promotion on the planet, was recently bought out by the UFC’s parent company. News broke of the purchase on Saturday morning.

What has began is a debate on whether or not Zuffa owning the majority of the talent-heavy fight leagues is a good thing. Some look at it as a monopoly in the making – which it is well on its way to being – and some critics tend to frown upon there being a big fish in a small pond.

But what is so wrong with that?

What most people who follow mixed martial arts can agree on is the hunger to see the sport become as accepted by the mainstream as the premier leagues of other sports, such as the NBA and NFL. Zuffa’s acquisition of Strikeforce is another step towards that direction.

By purchasing their only remaining form of high caliber competition, Zuffa has widened the gap between the UFC and any other promotion that promotes themselves as being considered a professional league. The only other fight company that comes close to the UFC now is Bellator, and before the purchase of Strikeforce was announced, they were a distant third place.

By having two brands competing for the top spot in in mixed martial arts, it made it difficult for the casual fan to identify MMA since they were being pulled in more than one direction.

“Let’s face the facts, Strikeforce is a brand that fans have come to like,” UFC president Dana White told MMAFighting.com. “People enjoy the fights that they are putting on.”

Now, the UFC has all the selling power that Strikeforce’s brand was carrying in 2011, and Zuffa will reap all the benefits from the people enjoying those fights.

The UFC president has made it clear that Strikeforce will continue to operate as a completely separate entity, but if history has taught us anything, the San Jose, Calif. based promotion will not operate independently for long. Intentions to merge the WEC with the UFC were denied for years, but that all changed in late October when that merger became official.

Pride was also intended to run as its own entity after Zuffa purchased it in 2007. Obviously, that did not happen.

The UFC’s parent company executed a move similar to what the other major sports leagues did as they were growing and becoming the main attractions they are today. The NBA, for example, had major competition in the late 60s to mid 70s in the form of the ABA or American Basketball Association. In August of 1976, the NBA – which was considered the more prominent of the two leagues – bought out and dismantled three of the seven ABA teams and absorbed the Nets, Pacers, Spurs, and Nuggets. Since then, the NBA continued to expand and ultimately became the top destination for professional basketball to be played world wide. Players like Moses Malone, Julius Erving, and George Gervin were now part of the National Basketball Association, and would move on to become Hall of Fame inductees.

By eliminating their competition, the UFC has the potential to strengthen its marketability with an even deeper talent pool headlined by names like Emelianenko, Overeem, and Mousasi. This move mirrors what the NBA did in the Summer of ’76, capitalizing on its competition’s biggest assets.

The NFL also dabbled in the absorption game when they consumed the AFL in 1970. In doing so, the NFL kept its moniker and expanded to 24 teams, becoming the elite professional football league in United States. The USFL tried to give the NFL a run for its money in the 80s, but they ultimately folded, opening up the door for players such as Herschel Walker to move on to the NFL and have stellar careers with more exposure.

Like Walker’s move from the USFL to the NFL, talents like “Jacare” Souza could move into a position where they get more publicity and deeper divisions to show how dangerous they can be.

Another perk stemming from Zuffa’s purchase is the addition of Strikeforce’s video library. The UFC now has nearly all the footage of almost all relevant fighters in mixed martial arts today. The growth of their video vault gives the UFC all the more reason to, one day, do what the NFL and NBA have done and launch a league dedicated cable and/or internet channel. The NFL Network and NBA TV have become jewels to their their leagues. The UFC has strengthened their chance to have the same jewel and bring exposure on a 24-hour basis.

The UFC is following the same footsteps the NFL and NBA made when they were working to become accepted by the mainstream. Now, the NBA is garnering more top-ten highlight reels than it has ever had, and the NFL has arguably surpassed Major League Baseball as the most popular sport in North America. In climbing to these positions of mainstream acceptance, both leagues have faced competition and absorbed the opposition to the fullest extent of the word, ultimately securing themselves as the premier organizations.

The sport of MMA is young. It will continue to grow and likely get to the point where “UFC” will be the letters you see on the tab you click at your favorite sports website. You do, after all, click on “NBA” and “NFL,” not “basketball” and “football.”

These leagues have dealt with their criticisms. The UFC is no different and it will have its naysayers. It seems pretty clear that Zuffa’s lucrative MMA promotion is on its way to being the NBA’s and NFL’s equivalent. With the UFC heading towards monopoly status, some begin to worry about the promotion having too much power. When the other sports leagues grew large enough, athlete unions formed to bring balance. As imminent as the UFC’s hold on the MMA world is, perhaps the forming of a fighter union is equally as imminent. And maybe, just maybe, necessary.

The game has, indeed, changed. Is it for the better or for the worse?

Game Changer: Zuffa and UFC Purchase Strikeforce

In a move that will change the mixed martial arts industry forever, Zuffa, parent company of the UFC, has purchased Strikeforce.

The deal was announced by UFC President Dana White in an interview with MMAFighting.com on Saturday.

“It’s literally official right now,” White said in the interview about purchasing the San Jose, Calif. based promotion. “We literally just closed the deal.”

MMAWeekly.com had been told by sources a couple weeks ago that  Zuffa was talking to their partners in Abu Dhabi at Flash Entertainment about funding to purchase Strikeforce. Flash owns a percentage of Zuffa, and the deal was likely marked by a financial undertow from both Zuffa and their partners in the Middle East.

Zuffa has made a move similar to this before when they purchased Pride Fighting Championships in Japan and also buying World Extreme Cagefighting a few years ago.

This move, however, may end up proving to be the biggest deal of them all, as Zuffa has now purchased the only other major MMA promotion in North America, and by far their biggest competitor.

White says the deal just came together recently, but emphasized the point that the UFC and Strikeforce will continue to run as separate entities.

“Let’s face the facts, Strikeforce is a brand that fans have come to like, that they do have a following, people enjoy the fights that they are putting on,” White stated.

In the deal, Zuffa will be the owner of the Strikeforce brand and library of fights, but the contracts of all fighters remain under the Strikeforce name and they will continue to operate “business as usual.”

White also confirmed that Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker will remain with the company in the same role as before. He will lead the promotion and have free reign to handle all fighter contracts and continue signing new deals with fighters as well.

Fighters will continue to fight under the Strikeforce banner, including Fedor Emelianenko, whose management company M-1 Global has had a volatile relationship with White and Zuffa for years. White maintains that Emelianenko will remain in Strikeforce, and they will honor all previous deals.

White stated that fighters such as Paul Daley and Josh Barnett will remain with Strikeforce and they will fulfill those contracts, but did point out that Daley will still never fight in the UFC again. What that means for his future beyond his current contract remains to be seen.

The women’s division in Strikeforce will also remain status quo according to the UFC president. He stated time and time again that everything running in the MMA promotion remains business as usual.

Strikeforce remains in a contract with Showtime for approximately two more years. White says that his partners at Zuffa will deal with them for any issues, as he has never held his tongue when talking about the cable company.

Strikeforce employees will remain “for now,” according to White, but Zuffa will lend a hand wherever help is needed, including any behind the scenes issues and production.

The deal is a landmark change in MMA as Zuffa now owns the biggest conglomerate in the fighting world. While White stated “business as usual” several times in his interview, the business of MMA is now changed forever.

Mixed Martial Arts World Hit by Disastrous Earthquake in Japan

A tragic earthquake measuring 8.9 in magnitude hit off the coast of Japan Friday afternoon (overnight in the United States), the ramifications of which continue at the time of this writing.

Aftershocks are ongoing and Tsunami waves are ramping up. Flooding is rampant across Japan, wiping out cities, farmlands, cars, bridges, and buildings. There are Tsunami warnings and alerts spreading throughout the Pacific from Russia to Hawaii to the coastline of North America down to Australia and too many countries to mention.

Yoshihiro Akiyama

There are obviously much more important issues to worry about at a time like this than sports, but considering the MMAWeekly.com is a mixed martial arts news site, and there were several MMA events scheduled for Japan this weekend, we felt compelled to update fans on the situation as best we can.

Jewels, Shooto, Pancrase, Heat, and Tribelate all had events scheduled in the coming days. It is quite difficult to communicate back and forth with Japan at the moment, but our friends over at MMA-Japan.com have done a tremendous job in utilizing their deep contacts in the country to find out the latest status of events.

While common sense would indicate that all events will eventually be cancelled, thus far, MMA-Japan.com has confirmed that both Jewels and Pancrase have cancelled their events.

CNN is reporting that the extent of the disaster varies widely across the country, which could be the reason why all the events mentioned weren’t immediately cancelled.

Shortly after 1:00 a.m. PT on Friday, MMA-Japan.com added that “Shooto tweeted they are going forward as planned with their weigh ins and will go forward with plans as set.”

Japanese fighter Yoshihiro Akiyama is slated to fight Nate Marquardt at UFC 128 on March 19 in Newark, N.J. Akiyama had trained recently with Greg Jackson’s camp in Albuquerque, N.M., but because of Marquardt’s longtime status with the team, Akiyama was not able to train there for this fight. He was believed to be training in Japan.

We were unable to find out whether or not Akiyama was in Japan at the time of the earthquake or if he had already left for the United States.

MMAWeekly.com will do our best to keep tabs on the situation as it effects the mixed martial arts world, but also keep an eye on our friends over at MMA-Japan.com. They always do a tremendous job updating the scene in Japan.

On a more personal side, our hearts go out to those in Japan and other areas that are enduring this disaster as it unfolds.

 

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Professional Cup

 

With € 60,000 in prizes, the first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Professional Cup, comes to innovate and build a new concept of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu competitions.
Located in the beautiful town of Biella, Italy, the tournament is a great opportunity for those who want to enjoy traveling and at the same time put their Jiu Jitsu into prove, in the search for the great title.
The championship will be held on the 13th, 14th and 15th May, at the L…auretana Forum stadium, in Biella, Italy. The event is open to all gyms. 

Application’s deadline: May 5
Date and schedule check: May 9
Announcement of keys: May 10
Price: € 100.00 until April 15. After that, € 120.00
Location: Lauretana Forum Stadium next to the Centre Commerciale “Gli Orsi”
Viale Domenico Modugno 3,
13900, Biella, ITALY.