(This matchup was briefly considered as a replacement bout until Sims was deemed ‘non-competitive’ after it was revealed that the guy in the sweatshirt had taken six weeks of jiu-jitsu classes a few years back.)

As much as we hate government intrusion into the private lives of citizens – particularly those citizens among us who just want to date that cute sixteen year-old chick with the glasses who works at the movie theater without those arbitrary ‘age of consent’ laws getting in the way – but there are times when it’s obviously necessary, such as in the case of the completely unnecessary Tim Sylvia vs. Wes Sims rematch. The Ohio Athletic Commission, in its infinite wisdom, has decided not to sanction the bout for the March 20 Adrenaline event in Youngstown, on the grounds that “the fight was not going to be competitive at this time.”

That’s right. Tim Sylvia, who got knocked out by Ray Mercer last year, can’t fight Sims, who “sucks” too much to even get in the same cage with "The Maine-iac." Forget the one-sided loss to Bobby Lashley and his attempts to sell Kimbo Slice’s skull cap from TUF 10, now Sims has officially hit bottom.

Not that we’re complaining, mind you. Whatever prevents this fight from bringing the overall integrity of the sport down with it, whether it’s an act of God or a heavy-handed athletic commission, we’re all for it. Now let’s see what the Ohio commission can do about those age of consent laws.

(Sylvia vs. Sims @ Superbrawl 38, 12/12/04. You had me at that intro music.)

According to Wes Sims’s manager Ken Pavia, the A-Hole Show will try to follow up his paycheck-collection at Strikeforce: Miami by taking on Tim Sylvia at an Adrenaline MMA event in Youngstown, Ohio, on March 20th. The bout will be held under special rules, in which spectators will be allowed to throw peanuts at the fighters during the match. Just kidding, but with both men drifting near the low points of their careers, it’s hard to look at this meeting as anything but a freak show — even if it’ll surely be sold as a grudge match between two extremely dangerous tall UFC vets.

Sylvia and Sims fought once before in Superbrawl, following Sims’s 0-3 stretch in the UFC and Sylvia’s loss via broken arm to Frank Mir. It was an easy mauling for the Maine-iac, who won by TKO in a minute and a half. In his last appearance, Sylvia rebounded from a humiliating knockout loss against Ray Mercer (and snapped a three-fight losing streak) by scoring a first-round TKO over Jason Riley at Adrenaline 4 in September. Sims most recently put on a ton of weight and lost to Bobby Lashley, following an exhibition loss to Justin Wren on The Ultimate Fighter 10 last year. Is it even worth asking who ya got?

(Sherman’s the guy on the left. Get used to that face, you’ll be seeing it again next month. Photo courtesy of osirisshoes.)

MMA Mania passes along the full lineup for Adrenaline MMA IV (September 18th; Council Bluffs, Iowa) and while we’ve already covered the Tim Sylvia/Jason Riley main event, we now know that UFC light-heavyweight Houston Alexander will be taking on Sherman "The Tank" Pendergarst (11-14) in the co-main event. Alexander’s three-fight losing streak may be a major bummer — and the reason he has to take a tune-up fight outside of the UFC — but Pendergarst has lost his last five matches, and has only won two of his last twelve. Competing mostly as a heavyweight, the Tank has suffered KO/TKO losses against such notables as Shane Carwin, Antoni Hardonk (at UFC 65, Pendergarst’s only Octagon appearance), Justin EIlers, and Tim Hague, and was one of the unfortunate fighters to experience the YAMMA pit first-hand; he lost to Alexey Oleinik by submission.

In other words, this could be just the sacrifical lamb that heavy-handed Houston needs to get his confidence back. Then again, eight of Pendergarst’s 11 wins have come by submission, meaning that Alexander should still be on high alert. So, dude with no ground game (Houston) vs. a guy who gets knocked out a lot (Sherman) — who will be able to impose their gameplan?

The full lineup for Adrenaline IV is after the jump…

With the cobwebs finally clearing from his devastating knockout loss against Ray Mercer, Tim Sylvia will try to regain some semblance of respect against Jason Riley at Adrenaline MMA’s fourth event on September 18. Riley holds a 6-1 professional record, and went 4-0 as an amateur. All of his fights have taken place in Ohio, and he became the NAAFS heavyweight champion after knocking out Justin Black in April.

In other words, he has nowhere near the kind of high-profile, big-show experience that Tim Sylvia does. But you’ll never go broke underestimating the Maine-iac. After all, this is a a guy who weighed in at a morbidly obese 310.6 pounds for his last fight in June, and will now have to get back into legitimate fighting shape just one month from now. Will Sylvia snap his three-fight losing streak, or will Riley make his name off of the former UFC heavyweight champ?

According to NWI.com, Adrenaline IV will go down at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and is likely to feature former UFC vets Jeremy Horn and Houston Alexander — even though Alexander hasn’t been officially released from his UFC contract yet.

(Photos courtesy of Sherdog.)

If you want an idea of how not-seriously Tim Sylvia was taking his fight against Ray Mercer, check out the above photos, which show Timmy entering the cage looking like Jamie Varner‘s fat uncle. He’s as bloated as the Montauk Monster, and clearly hadn’t shaved his face or stomach in over a week. And goddamn did Ray make him pay for it. Sylvia now has the unenviable task of losing 45 pounds in a month-and-a-half for a scheduled "Affliction: Trilogy" bout against Paul Buentello on August 1st — though Buentello now wonders if the fight will even happen. Way to go, tubby.

UPDATE, 3:12 p.m. ET: Tim Sylvia has officially been taken off the 8/1 Affliction card.

(Props: MMA Scraps)

Jens was right — Ray Mercer still knows how to thump, and Tim Sylvia shouldn’t have messed with a real boxer. After weighing in at a worrisome 310.6 pounds for his boxing MMA match against Mercer at "Adrenaline III: Bragging Rights" in Birmingham, Alabama, Sylvia only had a chance to throw one leg kick before eating a massive overhand right and dropping like a felled redwood. (The video above doesn’t show the kick, but you can hear the cameraman’s buddy say "Aw see, they agreed to not do that.") After the fight, Mercer said “Wow, I didn’t get a chance to warm up," and called out Butterbean. Meanwhile, the Maine-iac’s career prospects just went from bad to worse. He’d better hope DREAM organizes another Super Hulk tournament — or maybe Strikeforce can set up a "Loser Has to Drink Ipecac" rematch between him and Andrei Arlovski.

Full results from the Adrenaline card are here.

(Tim Sylvia — undisputed heavyweight champion of the Comfort Inn.)

Remember that thing about Tim Sylvia boxing a 50-year-old man? Yeah, that’s happening this Saturday, in the main event of "Adrenaline MMA III: Bragging Rights" at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center. MMA Junkie has the list of the MMA fights that will be supporting Sylvia/Mercer, and they’re only slightly less pointless than the show-closing boxing exhibition.

For instance, you’ve got Rich "No Love" Clementi taking on a guy named Sasuke Zapata, who isn’t quite established enough to have a fighter profile on Sherdog or mixedmartialarts.com. (You can get a shaky look at him here.) Then, there’s Jeremy Horn with his 104 career fights taking on the allegedly 5-0 Chris Davis, who might be one of these guys. Also, jiu-jitsu-champ-turned-MMA-fighter Roberto Traven takes on John Salter, who you might have heard of if you’re related to him. Anyway, I just don’t have the energy to cut-and-paste, so if you really want to look at the complete lineup for this show, click away. And speaking of boxing…

As you may or may not know, Americans are freaking out about the state of the economy right now. Something about gas prices and houses and the value of the dollar, I don’t really pay attention. I leave most of my financial planning to this really nice homeless guy I met a while back. We just diversified my portfolio to include both kinds of vodka: flavored and unflavored. Things are looking up.

Jerry Magee of the San Diego Union-Tribune (via MMA Payout) has an interesting article linking the rough economic times with a booming combat sports environment. Just as boxing thrived during the Great Depression, he says, MMA is experiencing a similar boost these days:

In periods when Americans are up against it, they crave distractions. Boxing and MMA are among them, as Armando Garcia is aware. At Pechanga, Garcia, executive officer of the California Athletic Commission, said he was rummaging around his Sacramento office and he came across a report for the fiscal year 1925 that showed the commission’s revenues for that year (from licensing fees and the commission’s share of gates) had come to just more than $100,000.

In 2004-2005, the commission’s revenues, according to Garcia, totaled $441,000. For 2005-2006, Garcia’s first in office, they reached $1.1 million. They hit $1.6 by the next reporting date. For the fiscal year just concluding, they are at $2.136 million, with boxing and MMA each having generated more than a half-million at the gates.

It’s an interesting theory. Quoting statistics on live event gates doesn’t necessarily prove it, especially since MMA has only recently come into its own as a mainstream sport with widespread appeal and acceptance, but it’s still worth thinking about. Magee’s thesis about hard times leading to a strong desire for distractions makes you wonder, what does he think Americans are doing when times are good? Staying home and staring at their bank statements?

(“Hey, my name’s Josh and I’m a sex addict.”)

— A heavyweight superfight between Josh Barnett and Jeff Monson has been announced as the main event of Sengoku II (May 18th, Tokyo); the card will also feature fights between Kevin Randleman and Ryo Kawamura, and Roger Gracie taking on an opponent to be named later. In recent weeks, Monson has also been reportedly booked to face Mike Russow at Adrenaline MMA’s debut event (June 14th, Chicago), as well as Kevin Randleman at a Global Fighting event on June 21st in Charlotte, N.C. With those three fights so close together, expect at least one to fall apart. Monson most recently defeated Hakim Gouram at a Ring of Fire event last December.

— Speaking of Adrenaline MMA, Monte Cox has been scurrying around trying to fill its first card. Besides Monson/Russow, the June 14th show is expected to feature IFL vet Bart Palaszewski taking on King of the Cage/UFC vet Jeff Cox, and ex-UFC fighter/boxer Terry Martin taking on Daiju Takase.

— The UFC officially added three fights to UFC 86 (July 5th, Las Vegas): Josh Koscheck vs. Chris “Lights Out” Lytle, Patrick Cote vs. Ricardo Almeida, and Cole Miller vs. Jorge Gurgel. Lytle and Almeida are coming off of impressive stoppage wins at UFC 81 in February, where Lytle picked up the “Knockout of the Night” bonus. UFC 86 will be headlined by the light-heavyweight title scrap between Quinton Jackson and Forrest Griffin, and is also expected to feature bouts between Joe Stevenson and Gleison Tibau, Frank Mir and Justin McCully, and Ben Saunders vs. Jared Rollins.

— As for the Ultimate Fighter 7 finale on June 21st, the UFC has confirmed that Evan Tanner vs. Kendall Grove will be the show’s main event — not Diego Sanchez vs. Luigi Fioravanti, which will get secondary status. Also officially booked are Spencer Fisher vs. Jeremy Stephens, Josh Burkman vs. Dustin Hazelett, Marvin Eastman vs. Drew McFedries, and Jeremy Horn vs. Dean Lister. And of course Tim Credeur vs. CB Dollaway (one would assume).

(Video courtesy of my Canon PowerShot.)

Bad Indian food, maybe? Check out the 0:16 mark to see him swallow it back down. Lovely.

Oh, and about Timbo’s “huge news”: Yeah, it actually was pretty huge. Here are the brass tacks:

— Tim Sylvia has left the UFC in a “mutual separation” and is officially a free agent.

— He has signed a non-exclusive contract with Adrenaline MMA (formerly M-1 Global). Between his fights with Adrenaline, events in Japan (likely referring to Sengoku and DREAM), and “the Affliction show,” he expects to fight 5-6 times per year.

— Adrenaline plans on holding its first event on June 14th in Chicago. Ben Rothwell has also signed to the organization.

— Notable Tim quote #1: “I’m out of the UFC for a couple years, and maybe I go back. I want to end my career in the UFC…Right now, this is the best thing for me.”

— Notable Tim quote #2: “There’s a guy out there named Fedor who I’d like to fight, and I think the only way that’s gonna happen is by me leaving the UFC.”

Holy crap! Can you imagine if Tim got a crack at Fedor before Randy Couture? It seems a little shocking that Dana White would let Tim leave the UFC without putting up a fight (Sylvia had one match left on his current contract), but maybe this is just an elaborate scheme to screw Randy. Dana, you brilliant asshole!