Brock Lesnar Expected for UFC 91?

According to the Pioneer Press:

Former Gophers wrestler Brock Lesnar, who is 2-1 as a mixed martial arts fighter, found out this week that Ultimate Fighting Championship would like him to compete next on a November card, but his opponent and site remain undetermined.

That November card (also known as UFC 91) will reportedly go down on 11/15 in Portland, Oregon, with a bout between Kenny Florian and Joe Stevenson likely to be on the lineup. The most prevalent rumor regarding Lesnar’s opponent is that he’ll be facing Cheick Kongo. In other UFC news…

— Anheuser-Busch has tapped Chuck Liddell and Anderson Silva as spokesmen for Bud Light. Which is kind of strange considering both of them are nearly unintelligible without a translator.

— A lightweight bout between Rich Clementi and Gray Maynard is slated for UFC 90 (October 25th, Chicago). Clementi has won his last six fights, including a submission of Anthony Johnson at UFC 76 and a decision win over Terry Etim at UFC 84. Xtreme Couture’s Gray Maynard increased his record to a perfect 5-0 with his unanimous decision over Frankie Edgar at UFC Fight Night 13 in April.

— Dana White will be appearing on A&E’s Mindfreak next Wednesday at 10 p.m. According to UFC.com: “With the use of a blindfold, a knife and a deck of cards, Criss attempts to teach UFC® President Dana White first-hand how to do a prediction of his own. Can Dana pull off a little magic with the help of the Mindfreak?”

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Penn Prepping for Year-End Fight — With or Without GSP

Just as Kenny Florian won’t be sitting on the bench until BJ Penn decides to give him a title shot, Penn also wants to get another fight in by the year’s end, even though Georges St. Pierre has said he doesn’t plan on returning to the Octagon until 2009. According to a report by MMA News, BJ’s brother JD has confirmed that the UFC’s lightweight champ is back in the gym and training for a fight in December, and his fight against GSP will likely be pushed back until February 2009 when the UFC holds it’s Superbowl Weekend card.

So maybe a Penn/Florian title fight at the end of the year is still a possibility? Then again, JD’s claim that BJ will fight in both late December (against TBA) and early February (against GSP) is so unlikely it’s barely worth discussing.

The good news is, the UFC’s year-end card could wind up being so stacked that it doesn’t even need a high-profile BJ Penn fight in the lineup. Besides the heavyweight title match between Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir, NBCSports has suggested that a superfight between Anderson Silva and Chuck Liddell as well as a light-heavyweight title match between Forrest Griffin and Wanderlei Silva are both outside possibilities. (It’s also been reported that the UFC is trying to set up a fight between Quinton Jackson and Wanderlei Silva for a November event, despite Silva’s preference to fight on the December card.)

Potentially related: If Tyson Griffin beats Sean Sherk, he wants Kenny Florian next.

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GSP/Penn Fight May Not Happen This Year?

(St. Pierre wants to “do it” — just not right away. Video props to Bloody Elbow.)

In an article written for RDS.ca titled “Jon Fitch est un Terminator” (and translated here by Fightline.com), Georges St. Pierre says he may not return to action until next year:

Many state that my next opponent should be BJ Penn. Nothing has obviously been signed yet, but he is my number one challenger. I believe he deserves a chance to challenge me for my title, but we’ll see what happens on that matter in the next few weeks…

On my end, however, I don’t know if I’ll be stepping back into the Octagon before 2009. I’ve fought four times in the last 12 months. I therefore need some rest. I like the life I lead, but I sometimes need to relax. It’s not the fight as such that’s exhausting; it’s all the preparation that comes with it. I’ve made so many sacrifices to prepare myself. During training camps, I practically do not live anymore. It’s therefore on a psychological level that I need to recharge.

So unless Dana White can bribe/threaten him into changing his mind, the UFC’s New Year’s show may be down one superfight. But no matter when the inevitable meeting goes down, it’s obvious that Penn wants it a hell of a lot more than St. Pierre does. If you watched the end of UFC 87 (video above), you probably picked up on the different vibes displayed by Penn (with his shrill cries of “LET’S DO IT GEORGES, YOU WANNA DO IT!?”) and GSP (who seemingly wants to fight Penn as much as anyone else who “deserve a shot”).

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Rampage/Shogun Rematch in the Works?

During this recent Q&A session (shot by the MMA Analyst), Mauricio “Shogun” Rua claimed that his next fight will likely be against Quinton Jackson in December. Rua and Jackson previously met at PRIDE Total Elimination 2005 (4/23/2005), where Rua won by first-round knockout after some rib-crushing knee strikes and a trio of fight-ending soccer kicks.

If this is true, then the previous rumors about a third meeting between Rampage and Wanderlei Silva are false. In a new video interview on Sherdog, the Axe Murderer says that the UFC hasn’t spoken to him about a fight with Jackson, though he’d enjoy the matchup. (”A fight with him is a pleasure, because I don’t like him,” Silva says. He also pronounces “Rashad” as “Hasha.”) Unfortunately, this puts us back to square one on predicting who Wandy’s next opponent will be. He says he wants to rematch Chuck Liddell, but that fight may not happen until next year; if Liddell beats Rashad Evans next month, the Iceman’s next fight would very likely be Forrest Griffin for the light-heavyweight title. Wild guess: Wanderlei gets the winner of UFC 89’s Lyoto Machida/Thiago Silva match, but not until January or February.

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Affliction’s Gravy Train Coming to an End

(The Maine-iac may go from being grossly, grossly overpaid, to just grossly overpaid. Photo courtesy of Tim-Sylvia.com.)

Dave Meltzer is reporting that Affliction VP Tom Atencio will be asking certain Affliction fighters to take a pay cut to fight in their next event (October 11th, Las Vegas):

The promotion has talked with some fighters about doing the 10/11 show for 50% of what they made on the first show but in return they would give those fighters easy opponents.

Overpaid fighters who could use an easier opponent the next time out? They might as well have called Tim Sylvia out by name — though Ben Rothwell and Matt Lindland could fit that description as well. For the record, Josh Barnett has stated that he would not accept a pay cut to fight again for Affliction; he previously made $300,000 with no win bonus for his knockout of Pedro Rizzo.

BloodyElbow also points out that the Thomas & Mack Center’s Affliction page lists Affliction II’s main event as “Arlovski vs. TBD!” — suggesting that the return of Fedor Emelianenko might not be a done deal after all. Well sure, I mean he just went 36 seconds with one of the top ten heavyweights in the world; the man could use another three-year break…

Related: The weirdest thing I came across while doing a Google Image Search for “Tim Sylvia.”

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“Unfinished Business”: The Aftermath

(“I’d like to say fuck you to all my fans, fuck you to everyone at Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu who helped me train for this fight, a huge fuck you to my brother, fuck you to my sponsors Chase Chevrolet and Stagr…” Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

If CBS’s latest “Saturday Night Fights” card proved anything, it was that the EliteXC brand isn’t strong enough yet to pull in viewers without its marquee fighters. “Unfinished Business” drew 2.62 million sets of eyeballs according to f4wonline.com, and while that’s not a ratings disaster, it does represent almost a 50% drop from the “Primetime” show in May, which was headlined by Kimbo Slice and Gina Carano. Getting the ratings back on track will be priority #1 for EliteXC’s next show; during Saturday’s broadcast, it was announced that “Saturday Night Fights III” (actual title TBA) will go down October 4th at the BankAtlantic Center near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Mr. Ferguson and Ms. Carano have been booked to fight.

Now the question is, who will they be fighting? We previously mentioned that Kelly Kobald was being discussed as the next opponent for “Crush/Conviction,” but Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos had a star-making performance this weekend with her double-homicide of Shayna Baszler, and a Carano/Cyborg matchup would probably be the biggest fight in women’s MMA right now. As for Kimbo, who freakin’ knows. Brett Rogers is still the most obvious choice for Ferg’s next opponent, but EliteXC has been cagey about confirming it, leading some to wonder if Rogers is being saved for Antonio Silva’s first heavyweight title defense. Regarding a Slice/Rogers match, EliteXC’s Head of Fight Operations Jeremy Lappen said “I’m not sure if that’s the fight fans want to see right now,” telling Sherdog that EliteXC is now looking at four or five potential candidates for Slice’s next opponent. He wouldn’t name names.

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Sanchez/Alves Moved to UFC 90; Pulver/Garcia at WEC 36?

(The Nightmare returns; photo courtesy of MMA Junkie.)

A couple of important fight bookings to pass along this morning…

First, MMA Weekly reports that a welterweight bout between Diego Sanchez and Thiago Alves will take place at UFC 90 (October 25th, Chicago); the UFC hasn’t officially announced any of the fights on the card yet. Originally, Sanchez/Alves was rumored to take place at UFC 89 in Birmingham, England, but with that lineup filling out it looks like the Nightmare vs. the Pitbull will be used to anchor the UFC’s first show in Chi-town.

Meanwhile, Leonard Garcia has reportedly agreed to face Jens Pulver in a featherweight match at WEC 36 (September 10th; Hollywood, Florida). WEC 36 is also slated to feature title fights between Urijah Faber and Mike Brown, and Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen. Garcia hasn’t fought since a TKO victory over Hiroyuki Takaya at WEC 32 in February, after which he was caught up in a minor misunderstanding over drug smuggling. Pulver had to undergo elbow surgery after his unanimous decision loss to Urijah Faber last month, but according to Lil’ Evil, “everything is good.”

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