This evening, I’m hopping on a plane to Singapore and I’m not sure if I’ll ever return to Hollywood, CA. If the Pacific Rim is dope, I will inhabit it until I grow weary of white sand beaches and incredibly inexpensive food. I’ll be carefully maintaining the site while I’m away, but Jason Nawara and Cat Von C will be holding down the MiddleEasy namesake. This Sunday Morning Rumor Mill will be the ‘Conspiracy Theory Edition’ since there are entirely too many things floating around the MMA world that may (or may not) be connected.
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Some of you perceive it to be somewhat of a paradox that ZUFFA would not allow Loretta Hunt (via CBS Sports) to cover Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley despite the fact that their parent company, CBS Corporation, essentially owns Showtime. Granted, the primary reason was Dana’s grudge with Loretta that goes back a couple years ago. However as mentioned by Loretta Hunt in her ‘Talking Heads‘ series, CBS Sports is now hesitant on covering anything UFC since they were denied credentials for last weekend’s show. All of this just may denote that ZUFFA intends to break all ties with the CBS Corporation and groom a new company — NBC Networks. Let’s take a closer at what’s been going down.
Brock Lesnar made an appearance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last month, roughly around the same time Jon Bones Jones appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leo. Both shows air on the NBC Network. Being from Endicott, New York, one would only assume that appearing on the Late Show with David Letterman (which airs on CBS) makes more sense, geographically, than flying across the country for a brief appearance.
What has gone unnoticed by some is the amount of Saturday Night Live shirts Dana White has worn in The Ultimate Fighter: Season 13. Once again, SNL airs on NBC and it’s rumored that the UFC has pitched Jon Jones to appear as a guest host on the show. Finally, the parent company of NBC, General Electrics, has a partial stake in Ion Media which could also explain why the UFC has aired preliminaries on the Ion channel in 2010. It’s important to note that all of this is just aggregated theory.
- The recent inclusion of Art Jimmerson and Royce Gracie to UFC’s roster just makes one wonder if we will see both fighters compete at UFC: Rio. Personally, I’m still holding out on Wallid Ismail vs. Royce Gracie.
- While on the topic of UFC: Rio, it’s rumored that Oleg Taktarov meeting up with Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta earlier this year was solely UFC: Rio related.
- We’ve been existing in this bubble of MMA for a while now, but CBS execs are well aware of what happened with ZUFFA’s denial of credentials at Strikeforce: Diaz vs. Daley.
- Here’s another conspiracy theory for you guys. Cesar Gracie claiming on Inside MMA that Nick Diaz was going to start boxing and leave MMA for a while was made to put pressure on the UFC to cross-promote with Strikeforce. The claim is that Nick Diaz has essentially cleaned out his division and since UFC refuses to organize ‘super fights’ between the promotions, Nick would essentially leave MMA until this happens.
- Earlier this week, it was rumored that Jim Miller would be Gilbert Melendez’s next opponent.
- It’s rumored that Gina Carano will take on Sarah D’Alelio on June 18th in Dallas, TX.
