Brett Rogers and Team Bison issued an open letter on the Kimbo Slice/Elite XC situation today via Rogers’s official website. I don’t think I have to tell you that it’s a riveting read. Here it is, exactly as penned by Rogers and his camp:

An Open letter to all

On behalf of Brett Rogers, Team Bison and everyone representing our camp: we would like to clarify a few issues that may be mis- interrupted by the press and the many many message boards.

First we would like to start out by once again thanking Gary Shaw and Elite XC. Elite is our home and it is where we hope to be for a long time. They treat their fighters great. More then the day to day treatment of the fighters they are interested in developing fighters and making long term commitments to their fighters. Unlike other promotions who have a tradition of “one and done” and cancelling contracts without notice; Elite is standing by their fighters. We are proud to be with the organization that brought back Yves, Sammy and Phil when others wrote them off. We were proud to be part of an organization that gave James Thompson a chance at redemption (and in our mind earned another chance on Saturday!). Elite gave us an amazing opportunity to bring aboard great sponsors who could really get their money’s worth.

We really believe in Elite and hope to bring more of our fighters up through their ranks. We do not want anyone to think for a second we are ungrateful, angry or otherwise disappointed with Gary Shaw, Elite, Showtime or CBS. And no; we have not been forced or threatened to say this and anyone who thinks we could be does not know Team Bison. Simply put; we will always speak our minds and will not be intimidated; which brings us to the Kimbo situation.

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(Photo courtesy of the LA Times.)

Final viewership figures from EliteXC/CBS’s Saturday Night Fights broadcast were announced today via press release, and despite all the unfortunate aspects of the event itself, it was undeniably a smash in terms of drawing an audience. The final 51 minutes of the 171-minute program delivered an average of 6.12 million viewers, peaking at 6.51 million viewers during the main event. Compared to CBS’s regularly scheduled programming at 9:00-11:00 PM on Saturday during the 2007-08 season, the ratings were up an astounding 357% among men aged 18-34. In other words, as troubled as SNF was, you’ll definitely be seeing it again. (Apologies, squeamish Middle America.) Here’s the demographic breakdown released by CBS, showing rating figures and peak viewership:

The 4.31 million average viewers pulled in by SNF from 9 to 11 p.m. edged out the 4.23 scored by ABC during that time and the 4.31 recorded by NBC, which was showing an NHL playoff game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings. CBS’s beating of NBC was especially prominent in L.A., where EliteXC peaked at a 7.2 share, while the NHL averaged a 3 share. (FOX kicked everyone’s ass with the perennial Saturday night twofer of Cops and America’s Most Wanted.)

And if you need more useless information, here are the top 10 markets for CBS from 11:30-11:45 PM on Saturday:

1) Oklahoma City/KWTV: 11.1 rating/18 share
2) Nashville/WTVF: 10.3/19
3) New Orleans/WWL: 9.7/15
4) Memphis/WREG: 8.4/14
5) Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville/WSPA: 8.0/15
6) Las Vegas/KLAS: 7.5/15
7T) Tulsa/KOTV: 7.3/13
7T) Miami/WFOR: 7.3/12
9) Los Angeles/KCBS: 7.2/17
10) St Louis/KMOV: 7.1/13

It wasn’t just American Gladiators that kept Gina Carano from making weight on Friday. “Conviction” had also been busy filming live-action interlude scenes for Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, which will be released for Xbox 360 and PC in October. Here’s the promo, which shows her dressed as her character “Natasha.” (Hopefully she’ll have a terrible Russian accent in the game to go along with that name.) Warning: The cheesiness level on this one is HIGH.

(Props: EA via Kotaku via reader Trevor E.)

(Yeah, that’s a sword. Just another day for Bas.)

Kimbo Slice’s trainer and respected elder statesman of MMA Bas Rutten has posted a message to his website evaluating Slice’s performance on Saturday night and addressing some of the more controversial moments of the bout. As usual, Rutten offers a fair perspective even as a staunch Kimbo ally, but perhaps most interesting is this P.S. at the end of his remarks:

P.S. People ask me if the fight should have been stopped at the end in the second round, I say YES because those are the rules, it should have been stopped because Kimbo didn’t do anything to improve his situation. But I think what made the ref NOT do it was the fact that Kimbo was giving his thumbs up the whole time to let the referee know that he was OK.
This was the refs decission, not Kimbo’s.

There you have it. Even Rutten believes that the fight should have been stopped. His reasoning that the “thumbs up” prevented it is a little shaky. I wonder, which trapped arm was Kimbo using to give that thumbs up? Might it not have been a better idea to use said arm for defending his face?

Regardless, Rutten makes several good points about Kimbo’s evolution as a fighter, and doesn’t shy away from pointing out the numerous mistakes he made in the fight, particularly once he got tired.

UFC welterweight Marcus “The Irish Hand Grenade” Davis is known for a few different things. Wearing a kilt to the Octagon is one, and being one of the few ex-pro boxers to make a successful transition to MMA is another. On Saturday he takes on Mike Swick at UFC 85, his fourth consecutive bout in the U.K. In this exclusive Cage Potato interview, the Bangor, Maine native talks about his future with the UFC, his relationship with U.K. MMA fans, and his transition from boxing to MMA.

CagePotato: Hey Marcus. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. First off, tell me how training has been going. Have you done anything differently to prepare for Mike Swick?

Training’s been going great. I spent the last twenty-four days at Sityongdong training camp, working on some stuff there. I just got back to Maine, and I’m kind of tapering off now. The only thing I would say that might be different for this camp is that about twelve weeks out I started eating like a pig, gaining weight. I got myself up to 193 pounds.

I went into training camp benching over 400 pounds and squatting somewhere in the high 400’s. I was the strongest I’ve ever been in my whole MMA career going into training camp. I wanted to make sure I was big and strong and able to deal with Swick’s weight. Then I rekindled my relationship with my old boxing coach, Joe Lake, and had him take a look at my hands to make sure that small things were right, like my hands were up, my chin was down, that I was punching on the move and doing the right things. But I only spent a couple weeks doing that, and Mark DellaGrotte was always with me making sure that I stuck to being an MMA fighter and not a boxer.

Swick has a reputation for being a pretty good stand-up fighter, but do you feel like you’ve got a clear advantage when it comes to striking? Is that where you’d like to see the fight decided?

Oh yeah. I would love for him to come in and think, ‘You know what, I’m going to make a statement. I’m going to stand with him and knock him out.’ I would love for that to happen.

Do you really think he’ll come in with that attitude?

No, I don’t think so. I think he’s going to try to use his reach, he’s going to try to stay away from me, and the second I get in there to try and throw punches he’s going to shoot for a takedown and try and get me to the ground.

Let’s talk about your relationship with the UFC fans in the U.K. It seems like you’ve become a staple for any fight card over there now. I know you’re very proud of your Irish heritage, but how much of your popularity in the U.K. is attributable to that and how much is their response to what they’ve seen of you in the Octagon?

(Slice, during his “Suge Knight” period.)

Street-brawling YouTube sensation Kimbo Slice (real name: Kevin Ferguson) was arrested by Miami Beach cops in May 2002 on gun and open container charges. The felony weapons rap against Slice, 28 at the time, was eventually dismissed. He entered a no contest plea to the booze charge and was ordered to attend an alcohol education course. — TheSmokingGun, via the UG

The California State Athletic Commission has released the official salary figures for WEC: Faber vs. Pulver, proving that just because you’re one of the best fighters in the world, not to mention the marketing face of your organization, doesn’t mean you’ll be paid like a star. The numbers are below; each winning fighter’s salary represents a doubling of their base salary (i.e., Faber earned $22,000 to show, and $22,000 to win). The figures don’t include sponsorship money, undisclosed “locker room” bonuses (which we really hope Yoshiro Maeda received), or deductions for insurance, licenses, and taxes.

Urijah Faber ($44,000) def. Jens Pulver ($33,000)
Miguel Torres ($28,000) def. Yoshiro Maeda ($6,000)
Mark Munoz ($16,000) def. Chuck Grigsby ($3,000)
Rob McCullough ($32,000) def. Kenneth Alexander ($3,000)
Donald Cerrone ($10,000) def. Danny Castillo ($3000)
Mike Brown ($10,000) def. Jeff Curran ($10,000)
Will Ribeiro ($6,000) def. Chase Beebe ($7,000)
Tim McKenzie ($12,000) def. Jeremy Lang ($4,000)
Alex Serdyukov ($6,000) def. Luis Sapo ($3,000)
Jose Aldo ($6,000) def. Alexandre Franca Nogueira ($8,000)
Dominic Cruz ($6,000) def. Charlie Valencia ($7,000)
Total: $260,000

Anyway, it’s just another reason why Faber should move up in weight and head to the UFC, especially now that he’s reached an Anderson Silva-level of domination in his league’s weight class. At this point in his career, the only challenges left are a superfight with Norifumi “Kid” Yamamoto — who, by the way, will be fighting a complete nobody at DREAM.5 — and a run at lightweight. How much more can the WEC really do for him?

(Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

From a recent blog post on MacDanzig.net:

Forget what you heard! Mac is NOT fighting at UFC 87, or in August at all! Mac will most likely fight in September, and the fight has not yet been signed.

It’s possible that Danzig’s reported matchup with Clay Guida at “Seek and Destroy” (August 9th, Minneapolis, MN) will simply be moved to a later event. We’ll update you when we know more. In the meantime, another compelling lightweight matchup may be added to the card that would take a bit of the sting off the Danzig/Guida loss.

NBC Sports is reporting that exiled former #1 contender Hermes Franca will return to the Octagon at UFC 87 against Frankie Edgar. Due to a positive steroid test, Franca was given a one-year suspension after his lightweight title fight against Sean Sherk at UFC 73; the suspension ends on July 5th. Franca resigned from the UFC in order to make money fighting outside of the U.S. — though decided against competing when he learned that doing so could jeopardize his chances of getting licensed here again — so it’s interesting that the UFC is welcoming him back with open arms. Could Dana White be planning a steroid-free rematch between Franca and Sean Sherk sometime in the future?

In other UFC 87 news, Karo Parisyan says he’s been booked to fight at the event. He was expected to face George Sotiropoulos, but the TUF 6 semi-finalist was forced to pull out of the match due to injury, and a replacement hasn’t been found yet. Parisyan was most recently defeated by Thiago Alves at UFC Fight Night 13 in April.

(Props: BloodyElbow)

(One brief moment from the “dull affair” that was Lawler-Smith)

New York Times reporter Joshua Robinson either didn’t really watch Elite XC’s event on Saturday night, or he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Those are the only two explanations I can come up with anyway, considering that he had this to say about the Robbie Lawler-Scott Smith middleweight title bout:

The next bout, between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith, was a dull affair. The officials stopped it in the third round after what they deemed an accidental foul — Smith took a thumb in his right eye — and the bout was declared a no contest. But that fight was quickly forgotten when Slice stole the show.

It’s interesting to note that this is the perspective of someone hired by the New York Times — one of the best newspapers in the nation — to write about sporting events for a living. If he could have misconstrued what was happening in the cage so badly, is it possible that mainstream America was confused as well?

We gave Elite XC a hard time for their event as a whole, but to refer to Lawler-Smith as a “dull affair” is a statement that is untenable at best. It makes you wonder if it was the sporadic boos during the fight or the fact that it was actually pretty technical and not an all-out slugfest that prompted this reporter to start looking at his watch. Either way, he probably should have kept his eyes on the action. That, or the Times should have assigned someone who knew something about the sport they were covering.

In other news from the MMA world…

(Overeem fixing to get his Dream on.)

Dream has added two more fights to Dream.4 on June 14, including former Pride fighter and current Strikeforce champ Alistair Oveerem taking on Tae Hyun Lee and Brazilian light heavyweight Alexandre “Cacareco” Ferreira squaring off with Russian Alavutdin Gadzhiyev.

While not exactly big names in the U.S., “Cacareco” and Gadzhiyev should put on a good show. Gadzhiyev is riding a seven-fight win streak, mostly in Pancrase, and “Cacareco” is a beast of a man who last fought for the IFL in February, submitting Lew Polley in the first round.

As for Overeem, he would appear to have major edge over the 1-1 Tae Hyun Lee. Unless Lee has significantly improved since his first-round TKO loss to Ricardo Morais in 2006, this bout could rival the Sakuraba-Melvin Manhoef fight for mismatched beating of the night.

I think that’s a real award in Dream. If it isn’t, it should be.

(Images courtesy of Sherdog.)

I was holding off on posting about this because I thought a video would turn up by now, but it looks like the video-sharing sites aren’t on fire with undercard matches from EliteXC: Primetime, so here goes.

Posted above is the Sherdog Fight Finder record for Nick “The Mad Monkey” Serra, who completely shamed his family’s name on Saturday night. Sure, you see “DQ (Wouldn’t Get Up From Butt Scoot)” and you think, wow, that’s pretty embarrassing. Dude. Dude. You have no idea.

Matt Serra’s less-successful brother faced off against Matt Makowski, who came into the fight with a 2-0 record. Nick entered the ring wearing a monkey mask, coming off like a broke-ass Jason Miller. (Makowski, for his part, made his ring-walk in spiked shoulder pads, Road Warriors-style.)

True to his nickname, Serra jumped on Makowski’s back after a brief opening exchange, but was slammed to the mat after transitioning to an armbar attempt. Despite throwing a solid upkick from the ground and getting to his feet, Makowski caught him with a couple of nasty uppercuts to close out the round.

Unfortunately, Serra hadn’t planned for round two. By two minutes into the second frame, he was truly, madly, deeply gassed, and his arms wobbled around at his sides. And then it happened. In a desperate attempt to get the fight to the ground, Serra weakly launched a Shinya Aoki-style flying guard-pull, missed Makowski completely, and landed directly on his back. As the crowd “ooh!’d in bemused shock, Serra sheepishly got to his feet. Makowski came in to engage, and Serra intentionally fell backwards onto the mat. Makowski threw his hands up and gave the ref a classic “WTF?” look. The ref ordered Serra to get up. The Mad Monkey refused, and the fight was called for Makowski.

And you know what? That wasn’t even the worst fight on the undercard.

Sure, it looked like he did from the TV angle, but the above gif supports the “thumbs up” argument. Take that, Brett Rogers! Still, what the hell was James Thompson doing just standing there? Thanks to reader “Vegas” for the find.

(Kaitlin Young was swept under the rug after her fight with Gina Carano.)

“[T]he doctor actually cleared me to fight the third round but the commission said no. I wanted to continue, my corner wanted to continue. The cut likely would have opened in the third but it was under the eye. If I had to guess, I would say that they didn’t want the visual of a woman with a bloody face on CBS. They also chose not to do a post fight interview with me or to include me in the post fight news conference and after party. I think the reason for that was my beat up appearance after the fight because I was not seriously injured and was completely coherent. I am very disappointed about that but cant help but wonder how people would have responded to that, as stupid as it is.” — Kaitlin Young, on her loss to Gina Carano and resulting media snub.

“Brett is gonna have to learn that it’s about the money…I don’t think [a fight between Brett Rogers and Kimbo Slice] is a fight that I would do. I might do Brett Rogers against [Antonio] Silva…but that’s what makes me a promoter. I appreciate all you guys, but you don’t run me. I’m just saying, I don’t read blogs, I don’t read anything…I run a professional sports franchise. My job is to put asses in seats, build stars, build superstars, not let someone guide me who fights who.” — Gary Shaw, getting a little hot under the collar during an interview with MMARated.

“I’m confident I’ll fight again. I’m also OK with the idea that it may not happen. I may get a bad (court) ruling and I can’t really see myself at this point going back and fighting two more times for the UFC if that’s what the state says I have to do. So there’s the potential I could be done fighting and I’m OK with that too.” — Randy Couture, on his disputed contract status with the UFC.

“Ortiz says he’s ’65 percent’ sure that he’ll begin his own MMA organization. ‘When I was in the UFC, they talked so much about how I wanted to get out of it and how I wanted to stop fighting,’ Ortiz said. ‘It was a bunch of baloney. I still see 3-4 more years of competition left (in me) and I want to build. I want to make a (rival) company neck and neck with the UFC. I think it’s going to be about taking care of the fighters and that’s what I’m going to do.’” — Tito Ortiz in an interview with the Boston Herald.

Elite XC sent out a press release early this morning trumpeting their ratings success on Saturday night’s CBS offering. They boasted “triple digit percentage increases” when compared to the network’s season average for that time slot, as well as strong ratings about the “key young adult” and male demographics.

The inaugural CBS ELITEXC SATURDAY NIGHT FIGHTS mixed martial arts event, live from Newark N.J., led the Network to demographic victory and significant time period growth among all key young adult and young men demographics from 9:00-11:00 PM, according to preliminary Nielsen live plus same day ratings for Saturday, May 31.

The 9:00-11:00PM portion of CBS ELITEXC SATURDAY NIGHT FIGHTS (2.7/05, 4.30m) was first in adults 25-54 (1.9/06), adults 18-49 (1.9/06), adults 18-34 (1.9/07), men 25-54 (2.6/08), men 18-49 (2.5/08) and men 18-34 (2.6/10).

Those ratings only cover 9-11 pm, the release pointed out, which excludes what they expect to be the highest rated portion featuring the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson bout. Those numbers should be available on Tuesday. And if you happen to live in the 5% of the nation where the show was pre-empted by the “Children’s Miracle Network Telethon”…yeah, tough luck.

While Elite XC and CBS seem happy with those numbers, not everyone was pleased with the outcome. One dissenter in particular found his way on to ESPN to debate the topic, though he might be just slightly biased…

(Combat Lifestyle captures the excitement before the bell.)

As a study in contrasts, you couldn’t have scripted it any better. On Saturday night Elite XC delivered the dancing girls, the smoke machines, the big-time hype to go along with their network TV debut. Then on Sunday night the WEC delivered the fights. It’s a statement on the yin and yang of the MMA world, and it’s almost too perfect.

What the WEC delivered was an epic battle between two fighters who most sports fans wouldn’t recognize if they passed them on the street. Elite XC gave us a sloppy, mismanaged affair on a show ironically titled “Primetime”, featuring two fighters who were anything but.

It’s just a shame that the one show this weekend which best represented what MMA is all about was stuck in the cable hinterlands of the Versus network, while the all-show, no-go Elite XC main event ended up introducing millions of new viewers on CBS to everything that MMA has been trying to prove that it isn’t.

It’s not that the Elite XC show was horrible. Certainly, it was disappointing. The odd conclusion to the Kimbo Slice-James Thompson bout had some hastily crying ‘fix’ without any proof to support it, while others merely felt cheated out of a real finish. But what really hurt Elite XC was that what we saw on Saturday night felt so far from what we – the hardcore, pay-per-view buying fans – have come to expect.

Like many of you, I tried to keep my expectations for the CBS debut realistic. I felt about it the way you feel about introducing your new girlfriend to your parents: nobody has to do anything extraordinary, just as long as nobody embarrasses me. But when Kimbo Slice and James Thompson threw tired haymakers at one another and rolled around like two novice grapplers on the mat before the inauspicious ending to the sloppy display in the third round, embarrassed is exactly how I felt.

(Kimbo Slice vs. James Thompson)

(Gina Carano vs. Kaitlin Young)

(Joey Villasenor vs. Phil Baroni)

Smith/Lawler is here and Rogers/Murphy is here. James Thompson, Phil Baroni, and Gina Carano react to their matches after the jump.

Those left with a bad taste in their mouth from the multiple fiascos of Saturday’s EliteXC show got a palate-cleansing burst of brilliant MMA last night, as WEC 34 in Sacramento featured arguably the two greatest bouts in the organization’s history.

In the featherweight championship match, Urijah Faber solidified his status as one of the best fighters in the world, wearing Jens Pulver down with explosive striking combos and showcasing his scary conditioning during the first 25-minute match of his career. Faber came out hard in his usual style, landing a couple of big punches and knees in the clinch. Though Faber slipped to the mat while attempting a kick, Pulver couldn’t capitalize on the ground and was kicked off. The fight was halted briefly when Pulver was poked in the eye, but Lil’ Evil refused to take recovery time. Pulver took Faber’s back briefly against the cage, and ate a spinning backfist for his efforts.

The second round began with another brief stoppage as Faber accidentally kicked Pulver in the groin following a punch combo. Faber dominated the next couple minutes, taking Pulver down, throwing some big elbows, then landing a vicious punch combination when Faber scrambled to his feet. Pulver looked rocked, but fired back with his own punches, including a sharp uppercut that shook Faber. Faber answered with a takedown attempt, but Pulver sprawled and nearly secured a front choke. Faber escaped and punished Pulver with punches until the bell sounded. Pulver seemed gassed at this point, and clearly frustrated that he was being outboxed.

The third round was probably the most exciting of the match, starting with a sharp head kick from Pulver. After Pulver sprawled on a takedown, Faber was able to take Pulver’s back and slam him to the ground, but Pulver bounced up and began a thrilling striking exchange ending with a devastating body kick that put Faber in serious trouble. Faber shot for a takedown but landed with Pulver on top of him and dropping elbows. Faber reversed the position and landed a couple elbows of his own before the fighters were stood up; Pulver was very slow in getting to his feet.