UFC Fight for the Troops 2 was just the start of an enormous MMA marathon that will continue well into March. It’s a great time for MMA and an even better day for the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill. Actually, any day is a great day for the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill, but Sunday seems to be the most appropriate day. Once again, the following items are rumors that have been floating around the MMA-verse this week. Obvious rumor mill is an obvious rumor mill. Don’t mess it up for everyone else, 10ers.
- We’ve just witnessed the death of FEG. If not the death, the slow, excruciating process of dying once the Yakuza eviscerates the corpse of FEG for whatever it’s worth. In short, FEG is done. Now that it’s over with, no one really knows what will happen. The Yakuza has already dipped their hands in the organization and, as Enson Inoue said on The Underground, it’s impossible to run an MMA organization without the the Yakuza being involved. Tanigawa is considered somewhat of a ‘marked man’ by the Yakuza, and apparently it’s just going to get worse.
- Apparently FEG won’t even respond to Mike Kogan’s calls, despite him being the director of FEG USA.
- We first placed it in the Sunday Morning Rumor Mill last year, but it looks like Shinya Aoki will jump ship and join Strikeforce exclusively.
- I’m going to tread lightly on this one, but Kyacey Uscola, contestant from The Ultimate Fighter: Team Liddell vs. Team Ortiz, was allegedly imprisoned this month for holding someone at gunpoint. Allegedly, Kyacey ‘passed out’, the cops subdued him and found a shotgun shell in his pocket.
- Cyrille Diabate is training in Thailand not only for his upcoming fight with Steve Cantwell, but he also plans to open up a gym that will be associated with Tiger Muay Thai located somewhere in Thailand.
- Dan Quinn sent me a text the other day and alleges that he has evidence that Diego Sanchez is ‘gay’. He then followed up with a 30 minute conversation about how he wants me to fly him out to New York to met the girl of his dreams, so take that as you will.
- To my knowledge, Strikeforce is not in talks with DREAM in regards of purchasing the organization. Not sure why that rumor was so prevalent on the net this week.
- After our impossible to obtain Lee Murray interview, a lot of fighters contacted me in order to get Murray’s address to send him training gear.
- Lee Murray received a sponsorship deal from a relatively large MMA clothing company this week.