The question of whether Brock Lesnar’s chin is made of titanium can now be put to rest. UFC 116 went down in the history as a bookie’s absolute nightmare. Someone out there made a prop bet of Brock Lesnar submitting Shane Carwin in the second round and they have just cashed-out on their extremely lavish betting account. Sunday is here and it’s time for this week’s Rumor Mill to slap you in the face with an influx of information. Enjoy.
- Shane Carwin was taken to the hospital after UFC 116 as a precautionary measure. Nothing seems to be wrong with him.
- Erin Toughill will make her Strikeforce debut on the ‘Strikeforce Houston’ card next month.
- Apparently David Branch said something to Gerald Harris (or his team) before UFC 116 to incite a little bad blood between the two.
- Czech Republic’s Karlos Vemola will be cut sometime this week from the UFC roster.
- There seems to be a huge announcement on the horizon regarding Strikeforce. It could come as soon as this week.
- The ratings/ranks of fighters (including Fedor) will be tweaked one final time for EA Sports MMA.
- Scott Coker has been toying around with the idea of a sixteen-man middleweight tournament this year.
- Eddie Bravo ‘quit’ his job as a UFC production analyst to corner George Sotiropoulos, however after the fight, the UFC intends to to re-hire him.
- If Randy Couture defeats James Toney, he will probably be next in-line for a light heavyweight title shot.
- There’s a large chance Overeem vs. Bigfoot Silva may happen.
- Dana White killed the Fedor TapouT deal (more along the lines of giving TapouT an incredible ultimatum not to sponsor Fedor) because in an interview with Ariel Helwani, M-1’s Evgeni Kogan called himself ‘M-1 Global’s Dana White’ (although this was wrongly interpreted by Dana White. A caller suggested this and Evgeni Kogan did not refute this claim on the air).
- After the Fedor TapouT deal was extinguished, M-1 Global called ZUFFA in order to get them to reconsider.
- Another rumor is that Fedor has been shopped around by M-1 Global while still under contract with Strikeforce.
- M-1 Global wanted to have the undercard at Strikeforce Fedor vs. Werdum but they failed to obtain visas for all the fighters. The same thing happened at Strikeforce Nashville that prevented Fedor (or any other M-1 Global fighter) from competing on the card.
- Tim Kennedy vs. Jacare may be on tap for Strikeforce.
- Arlovski vs. Kharitanov may also happen on the Strikeforce Houston card.
- Money is not the issue with Jake Shields’ impending ZUFFA contract, an instant title shot is what they are debating.
- The beef between Dana White and Showtime has opened up yet again due to some undisclosed contract signed with one of ZUFFA’s close partners.
- Heard this from a fairly reliable source, M-1 Global is in the hole roughly 15-20 million dollars and some of M-1 Global’s employees are not getting paid.
- M-1 Global does not plan on having the M-1 Challenge series, although in a recent interview we conducted with Kogan, he refuted this rumor.
- There seems to be an even larger chance that Jay Hieron will be going to UFC and it might happen within this month.
- Nick Diaz vs Evangelista Cyborg is likely to go down for the welterweight title sometime this Fall.
- Even though Kurt Pellegrino said in a recent interview that if he loss at UFC 116 he will retire, Kurt still plans on fighting for UFC.
- Dave Batista has enlisted a team of trainers to prepare for his Strikeforce debut which will happen later this year.
- Gilbert Yvel will not be cut by UFC.
- Joe Rogan apparently went nuts on stage at the House of Blues last night and even smashed a few shot glasses. Apparently Eddie Bravo had to cut him off. According to people who were there, Joe Rogan went on a long rant about Brock Lesnar raping him and that’s why he’s nervous when he interviews him.