Ariel Helwani spoke to UFC Heavyweight champion Junior dos Santos and his opponent Frank Mir for Fuel TV's UFC Tonight after the UFC 146 weigh ins. Dos Santos makes his first title defense tomorrow night in Las Vegas.

Dos Santos won the title from Cain Velasquez at UFC on Fox 1 last fall. He was originally scheduled to face Alistair Overeem this weekend but Overeem failed a pre-fight urine test for elevated testosterone:epitestosterone ratios.

SBN coverage of UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir

Continue reading this post »

Bellator Heavyweight Champion Cole Konrad had a quick night of work, while Rick Hawn concluded a grueling three month stretch to win the promotion's latest lightweight tournament, closing out another interesting season of Bellator Friday in New Orleans, LA.

Konrad remained undefeated at 9-0 with an easy victory over Eric Prindle, needing just 60 seconds to take his opponent down and submit him with a deep kimura. Prindle (9-2) didn't offer much of a challenge and with no heavyweight tournament in the near future, Konrad will be once again waiting for a fight in a very thin division.

On the flip side, Hawn (14-1) fought a very close fight in the season six lightweight tournament, doing enough with his hands and some key takedowns to beat a game Brent Weedman by unanimous decision.

With the win, Hawn now gets a title shot this year against Bellator Lightweight Champion Michael Chandler.

For more on the Hawn/Weedman fight and the rest of the card, join us after the jump.

SBN coverage of Bellator 70

Continue reading this post »

Junior dos Santos vs. Frank Mir

Brent Brookhouse: On the feet, it's advantage JDS. On the ground, it's Mir with the edge. But getting it from the feet to the ground isn't going to be easy for Mir. Mir does have a little pop in his punches, but dos Santos should be more than able to not get caught and stopped. Junior dos Santos by TKO, round 2.

Anton Tabuena: I'm still ‘pissed' about Overeem's test... Frank Mir doesn't have good takedowns, and Junior Dos Santos has excellent takedown defense. So unless he makes a silly mistake, Mir is likely to get blasted here. I'd actually hope that Mir pulls guard just to make things more interesting. I doubt it would help though. Junior dos Santos by KO.

KJ Gould: It starts on the feet, and Mir almost always eats more shots than he lands against a superior striker. JDS is a more powerful boxer than Nogueira and I really can't see him making the same mistake as Noguiera and attempting a guillotine choke while pulling guard on a stunned Frank Mir. Mir gets dropped, and if he's not out cold, JDS will either let him back up, or swing hard at his head if he's turtled. Junior dos Santos by KO

T.P. Grant: I know I pointed out Junior dos Santos' defensive liabilities when he throws punches, but I'm not crazy. Frank Mir is likely not the guy to take advantage of those openings. The most likely outcome of this fight is dos Santos smashing Mir with punches until he collapses to the ground. Even if Mir gets a takedown I doubt he will be able to keep dos Santos down but I do think if dos Santos engages in a grappling match Mir has a good chance of getting a submission. But that just isn't going to happen, so Mir needs to rely on landing a big punch before dos Santos and that just plain isn't likely. Junior dos Santos by KO

Tim Burke: Mir's standup is predictable. Cigano's isn't. As stated above, Mir doesn't really have the takedowns to get it to the mat and JDS is smart enough not to engage him there willingly. Seems pretty easy to call for me - Mir gets caught with a big shot, goes down, gets pounded out. Junior dos Santos by KO, round 1

Fraser Coffeen: I hate the way people are already jumping all over dos Santos and viewing him as unbeatable. Mir in fact has the tools to beat him on the mat. The trouble is, Mir gets too enamored with his striking, and while that striking has greatly improved over the years, he still is slow to respond when he gets hit (see the Carwin fight for a great example). Against a power puncher and finisher like JDS, that's doom. Junior dos Santos by KO, round 1

Ben Thapa: Have you ever seen that video of the sloth trying to cross the road and someone picks it up, only to have R. Kelly's I Believe I Can Fly play? Frank Mir has been the sloth trying to cross the road for quite a while now. He wins in impressive, bone-breaking and brain-crunching fashion against the lower level guys. But then he, like the sloth, looks across that expanse of asphalt towards the Promised Land of More Trees/Holding The Title Belt Again. I fully respect Mir's skill package, but still believe that it would take divine intervention for Mir-Sloth to cross the asphalt and beat Cigano here. That was one tortured metaphor, but referencing I Believe I Can Fly on Bloody Elbow is worth it. Two Saints, KO, Round 1.

Dallas Winston: To play devil's advocate, I think most are assuming that JDS has sharpened up his grappling and submission defense since Joaquim "Mamute" Ferreira armbarred him in 2007. Other than the sparse takedown defense he showed against Gonzaga and Carwin (who both got him down briefly), assumptions are all that's available because he simply hasn't been locked in a ground battle with a talented submissionist. So, that, along with Mir's propensity to pull off the impossible, give this match a certain appeal. Unfortunately, Mir has struggled against lumbering power punchers and JDS is a lightning-fast KO machine. Mir's wrestling, particularly with trips and throws in the clinch, has improved, but the speed and elite boxing of JDS should be surgical weapons against Mir. Junior dos Santos by TKO.

Staff picking Dos Santos: KJ, Anton, Grant, Tim, Brookhouse, Fraser, Thapa, Dallas
Staff picking Mir:

Continue reading this post »

It's the final event of Bellator's sixth season, capped by a heavyweight title fight, the finals of the lightweight tournament and the promotional return of a former UFC talent.

Bellator 70 is live at Harrah's in New Orleans, LA, and you can follow along with all the main card action here on Bloody Elbow at 8 PM EST while watching on MTV2.

In the main event, Bellator Heavyweight Champion Cole Konrad (8-0) defends against season five tournament winner Eric Prindle (7-1-0-1), while Rick Hawn (13-1) battles Brent Weedman (20-7-1) in the 155-pound finals.

The main card also features a bantamweight tournament semifinal with Hiroshi Nakamura vs. Luis Nogueira while former UFC fighter Rich Clementi fights Derek Campos in lightweight action.

Get the down low on the Spike.com prelims and the main card after the jump.

SBN coverage of Bellator 70

Continue reading this post »

Make Bloody Elbow your home for discussion of tonight's Titan Fighting Championship 22 featuring UFC veterans Anthony Johnson vs. Dave Branch in a catchweight bout. Titan Fighting 22 takes place at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan. The entire main card airs on HDNet.

The main event has been the focus of some controversy as Johnson failed to make weight and had to give up a big chunk of his purse to Branch. This is Johnson's umpteenth failure to make weight. Initially he was a Welterweight who struggled with the cut to 170lbs but recently he's developed into a Middleweight who never even comes near the 185lb limit.

So far he's 0-2 against the scales at MW.

He failed to make weight 3 times in his 11 fight UFC career.

Complete results after the jump

MAIN CARD (HDNet)

• Anthony Johnson def. Dave Branch via unanimous decision.
• L.C. Davis def. Bill Kamery via TKO at 2:59 of Rnd 2
• Andrew Whitney def. Jose Vega via KO at of 2:55 of Rnd 1
• Fabio Mello def. Angelo Duarte via submission (arm triangle) at 4:34 of Rnd 1
• Rudy Bears def. Nick Nolte via submission (punches) at 3:57 of Rnd 1.
• Mirsad Bektic def. Willie Mack via TKO at 0:27 of Rnd 2.

It all comes down to this. The first "Ultimate Fighter Live" season will see the end of the fighters "in the house" with two semi-final bouts.

James Vick will face Michael Chiesa while Vinc Pichel takes on Al Iaquinta. Things worked out well from a "reality show" perspective as Vick and Pichel head into the semis representing "Team Cruz" while Chiesa and Iaquinta are a part of "Team Faber."

Last week's episode was the lowest rated episode in Ultimate Fighter history, so it will be interesting to see if the drama and "importance" of determining the finalists will lead to a bounce-back in the ratings.

Join in the comments here to talk about the action while it goes down and we'll update the post with the results of the fights.

And make sure you stick around Bloody Elbow this weekend for all the action from UFC 146, which goes down tomorrow (Saturday) night.

Continue reading this post »

Bloody Elbow will be providing live video and updates when all 24 fighters on the card step on the scale at today's UFC 146 weigh-ins live from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, NV. You can catch a live Youtube stream of the weigh-ins below the jump, or if that doesn't work for some reason, you can view it over at MMA Fighting. The weigh-ins begin at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT.

The main event is a showdown for the UFC heavyweight title between champion Junior dos Santos and challenger Frank Mir.

Join us and share your thoughts as the weigh-ins unfold.

Main Card:

Junior dos Santos (239) vs. Frank Mir (261)
Antonio Silva (264) vs. Cain Velasquez (240)
Dave Herman (233) vs. Roy Nelson (254)
Shane del Rosario (246) vs. Stipe Miocic (245)
Lavar Johnson (248) vs. Stefan Struve (255)

Preliminary Card:

Diego Brandao (145) vs. Darren Elkins (145)
Edson Barboza (155) vs. Jamie Varner (156)
C.B. Dollaway (186) vs. Jason Miller (185)
Dan Hardy (170) vs. Duane Ludwig (171)
Paul Sass (156) vs. Jacob Volkmann (155)
Kyle Kingsbury (205) vs. Glover Teixeira (204)
Mike Brown (145) vs. Daniel Pineda (146)

SBN coverage of UFC 146: Dos Santos vs. Mir

Continue reading this post »

UFC veteran Anthony Johnson has once again failed to make the 185 pound Middleweight limit. This time it's for his Titan Fighting Championship 22 bout against fellow UFC vet Dave Branch. The fight is tonight on HDNet.

5th Round reported:

Johnson tipped the scale Thursday at 194.2 pounds, which is 8.2lbs over the limit for a non-title middleweight bout. Branch didn't fare much better by clocking in at 189.2 pounds.

Oddly, Johnson still reportedly agreed to pay Branch $4,000 of his purse in order to keep Friday's now 195-pound catchweight fight intact.

Johnson was cut from the UFC after missing weight in three of his 11 UFC bouts. He initially fought at Welterweight but moved up to Middleweight in an unsuccessful attempt to make weight.

Johnson walks around near 205lbs and for many years made the huge cut down to 170lbs but he seems to have hit a limit and now can no longer make even the smaller cut to get down to 185.