All that hype, and it only came down to six minutes of utter domination. If you caught the light-welterweight title fight between Manny Pacquiao and Ricky Hatton last night, you saw more proof that Pac-Man is one of the best boxers to have ever lived. The video is above; watch as Pacquiao opens with a 10-7 first round on the strength of two knockdowns, then delivers the finishing blow at the end of the second. Pac’s trainer Freddie Roach had predicted a third-round knockout via left hook, explaining later that Hatton tends to leave himself open when he throws his jab. Turns out, Pacquiao is even better than he thought. Could Money Mayweather be next?

So yeah, this is really happening. In the above promo for Adrenaline MMA’s "Bragging Rights" event (June 13th; Birmingham, Alabama), Tim Sylvia and Ray Mercer have a very dramatic face-off, and man is Ray fat and slow. You have to imagine the betting odds will start to favor the Maine-iac after this one, particularly because their boxing match will be held in a cage. No word yet on any of the other matchups on the card or how to watch it at home, and Adrenaline’s website still needs work; we’ll probably have other things on our mind that day anyway. But you gotta love Mercer’s trash-talk at 0:14-0:18. For some reason, his delivery reminds me of a Maury Povich guest…

(Nick Diaz: His style is impetuous, his defense is impregnable.)

When Nick Diaz says he’ll fight anybody, anywhere, at any time, he ain’t bullshittin’. Buried in GracieFighter.com’s news section is this little gem about Diaz’s future ambitions (props to BloodyElbow for the tip):

To which RJJ probably responded, "Nick who?" Okay, so it may not quite be the marquee fight that Jones vs. Silva would be, but it’s a pretty decent substitute. I know I’d be curious to see how Nick’s pitty-pat-punches-in-bunches routine would fare against a great boxer (he’s already 1-0 in the sport), and he’s a natural at fight-promotion. Why let Tim Sylvia and Ray Mercer hog all the crossover fun? Don’t be scared, Jonesy!

GracieFighter also had another update on their site that should calm some of the outrage caused by yesterday’s official Strikeforce payouts post:

We’ve spent a lot of time analyzing Strikeforce’s main event this Saturday, but we’re honestly just as psyched to see the return of Chute Boxe rising star Cristiane "Cris Cyborg" Santos. When she steps into the cage against "Girlfight Monster" on Saturday, it could be one more step towards the fight that everybody wants to see — Cyborg vs. Carano. Get reacquainted with Santos’s body of work through the above highlight video, where she beats on some poor Brazilian girls as if they were rented redheaded stepchildren.

After the jump: TheGarv has found a complete version of the new James Toback documentary Tyson, which doesn’t hit theaters until later this month. We don’t expect it to be up for long, so take a look now because it’s required viewing. Did you know that Iron Mike was burnin’ with the gonorrhea when he fought Trevor Burbick? You do now!

(They just don’t make MMA-themed t-shirts with the middle-aged manager’s body type in mind, do they?)

MMA agent/Adrenaline promoter Monte Cox is stunned, absolutely stunned, by the New Jersey Athletic Control Board’s decision not to sanction the proposed boxing match between former heavyweight champ Ray Mercer and owner of an unblemished 0-0 boxing record Tim Sylvia.  Talking with Ariel Helwani at Versus.com, he called the decision “ridiculous,” adding: “It must not have been as compelling as the Bonaduce-Canseco fight.”

That would have been a sweet burn…if that fight had actually taken place in New Jersey and not Pennsylvania, as Helwani points out.  As it is, it’s just a sweet burn on Pennsylvania, which, let’s not forget, only recently decided to sanction MMA.

Now that the fight has been moved to the lawless territory known as Alabama (pronounced: Al-uh-bam-uhhh) Cox is trying to convince people that it’s purely coincidental that he decided to relocate his entire event to a state with no sanctioning body:

(Unfortunately, Ray Mercer won’t be this star-struck. Photo courtesy of Land Sharks.)

When we reported that the Tim Sylvia/Ray Mercer "Crystal Pepsi" match had been shot down by the the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, you probably thought it was the last you’d hear about this strange footnote in Tim’s career. Well guess what — life’s not fair. Monte Cox has moved Adrenaline III to a different state, and the Maine-iac’s pro boxing debut will go on. As Sherdog reports:

Well, that’s one way to get around the issue. There are no other bouts scheduled for Adrenaline III yet — and the league’s website offers nothing other than a link for a motorcycle helmet dealer — but if there’s no regulatory body to answer to, there’s really nothing stopping Monte from filling out the card with midget kickboxing, lesbian submission grappling, and a donkey act. Sounds like Birmingham is in for a good night.

Semi-related: Frank Shamrock also has his eyes on a move to pro boxing. In a new interview with MMA Convert, Shamrock says he might give the sweet science a try after he takes care of business against Nick Diaz, Cung Le, and (hopefully) Tito Ortiz. What, no more "Blood Brothers"?

(And you thought his career had already suffered every possible indignity.)

I never thought I’d type this sentence, but thank God for the state of New Jersey’s common sense.  The New Jersey Athletic Control Board is refusing to allow the ill-conceived Tim Sylvia/Ray Mercer boxing match to take place on the Adrenaline III card in Atlantic City on May 30.  Commissioner Nick Lembo wouldn’t say why he was denying the bout.  But we already know why, don’t we?

This is one of those rare instances where a government agency steps in to stop an incredibly dumb idea and we all end up thanking them for it.  Like when the FDA put an end to Crystal Pepsi (at least that’s how I remember it going down).  There’s no reason for formerly-serious MMA fighter Tim Sylvia to make his pro boxing debut against former boxing champ Ray Mercer, just like there’s no reason to make Pepsi clear.  (Note: whoa, now that I think about it, this might be the most perfect analogy I’ve ever made.  Tim Sylvia/Ray Mercer really is to combat sports as Crystal Pepsi was to the soft drink industry.)

The downside is that a capitalist go-getter like Monte Cox probably isn’t going to be deterred by an athletic commission telling him that a fight is too stupid to be sanctioned.  Instead he’ll likely save it for another event in a place where the commission isn’t so picky about letting ex-champs box guys with zero pro boxing experience.  Might I suggest the city of Japan?

(Okay, so this photo of Bobby might be a little re-touched. Props: TheWrestlingFan.com.)

MMA Junkie has obtained the official payouts from Saturday’s "March Badness" MMA/boxing card in Pensacola, Florida, and it looks like Roy Jones Jr. did alright by his fighters, paying out living wages (for the most part) while still leaving open the possibility that he turned a profit. The numbers are below, if you’re interested…

MMA SALARIES

Jeff Monson: $25,000 (win bonus was $10,000)
def. Roy Nelson: $30,000

Bobby Lashley: $40,000 (win bonus was $10,000; he also received an undisclosed cut of the PPV revenue)
def. Jason Guida: $15,000

Din Thomas: $10,000 (no win bonus)
def. Gabe Lemley: $5,500

Dennis Hallman: $6,000 (win bonus was $3,000)
def. Danny Ruiz: $2,000

James Freeman: $600 (win bonus was $300)
def. John Mowry: $300

BOXING SALARIES

(Bobby Lashley vs. Jason Guida)

MMA matches:
Jeff Monson def. Roy Nelson via unanimous decision (29-28 x 3)
Bobby Lashley def. Jason Guida via unanimous decision (30-27 x3)
Din Thomas def. Gabe Lemley via TKO, 4:13 of round 1
Dennis Hallman def. Danny Ruiz via submission (rear-naked choke), 1:50 of round 1
James Freeman def. John Mowry via KO, 2:38 of round 1

Boxing matches:
Roy Jones Jr. defeated Omar Sheika via TKO, 1:45 of round 5
B.J. Flores def. Jose Luis Herrera via unanimous decision
Eric Clinton def. Richmond Dalphone via unanimous decision
Kieyon Bussey def. Robert DaLuz via majority decision
Kelvin Price def. Kevin Howard via majority decision

Notes…

— The Lashley/Guida bout didn’t live up to the pre-fight trash-talk, and Lashley proved that he’s not quite ready for prime time. The first round was spent mostly in a clinch against the ropes after Guida was able to stuff Lashley’s takedown attempts. The next two rounds saw Lashley on top of Guida and working some ground-and-pound, but Guida never took much damage. In fact, a guillotine choke attempt that Guida put on Lashley in the third round was the closest that the fight came to being finished. It was a moral victory for Guida — though his record now drops to 17-20, while Lash increases to 2-0.

— Roy Nelson got straight-up robbed by the judges. Though Jeff Monson did win the third round via striking exchanges, the first two were controlled by Nelson, who scored takedowns and was able to achieve mount in both rounds. But it seemed that all three judges credited the second frame to Monson due to some knees he threw in the clinch. After the fight, Monson admitted that the fight "could have gone either way," while Nelson immediately stormed off in anger.

— After beating Gabe Lemley with a ferocious punches-and-knee combo that put Lemley out cold, Din Thomas told the crowd that it’s not cool to put hands on a lady, and if Rihanna needs someone to kick Chris Brown’s ass for her, she should holla.

More videos from "March Badness" are after the jump…

A little over a year ago an improbable but potentially beautiful rivalry was born when Brett Rogers stepped up to the podium at an EliteXC post-fight press conference to inform Kimbo Slice that his performance against James Thompson was “garbage.”  This led to the infamous, ‘Rogers, you a hater!’ melee, and left most of us assuming that EliteXC would match these two big men up against one another they first chance they got in order to capitalize on the heat.

But what we failed to take into account was that EliteXC was run by morons, so that fight didn’t happen.  Now Rogers is getting back into action on April 11, and FiveOuncesofPain reports that his opponent will be Ron Humphries (5-0) who supposedly fought on that “Iron Ring” show on BET that I didn’t watch beyond the first episode.

So all right, not exactly a marquee matchup, but maybe they plan to build Rogers and Kimbo back up again and then throw them in the mix together later on, right?  Maybe, but Kimbo seems to have other ideas.

(Calmly explaining the Atlas philosophy: Life is generally bullshit.)

Michael David Smith talked to legendary boxing trainer and analyst Teddy Atlas about the upcoming Vitali Klitschko/Juan Carlos Gomez fight and about the state of boxing in general.  When asked whether the rise of MMA and the UFC was partly responsible for the decline of boxing, Atlas couldn’t resist putting his way with words to work, saying “the sport’s good and the participants are tough guys — but Ultimate Fighting’s not a pimple on the ass of boxing.”

We beg to differ, Teddy.  Not only is it a pimple on the ass of boxing, it’s a great big boil that will continue to fill with puss and other gross stuff until it bursts at the most inopportune moment, leaving an embarrassing stain on the ass of the boxing world’s slacks that everyone will see but won’t tell you about because it’s just too awkward.  Then you’ll get home and realize you’ve been walking around all day like that, and you’ll never want to leave the house again except for groceries and maybe to rent a movie.  But you’ll run into people you know at the video store and they’ll still remember the ass stain incident.  They won’t say anything, but you’ll know they’re thinking about it and you will feel shamed.

See?  Now that’s how you craft an extended motherfucking metaphor, Teddy.

Okay, but seriously, Atlas did give MMA its due and admitted that the UFC does a better job of consistent promotion and marketing than boxing.  And he has a point when he says that the big boxing matches still outdraw and out-pay the UFC, but he also has a point when he laments that this is all boxing has become, “one big fight a year.”

(Rahman snatches the WBC/IBF/IBO heavyweight boxing titles with his fifth-round KO of Lennox Lewis in April 2001.)

According to a new report on Sherdog, former heavyweight boxing champ Hasim Rahman is planning on entering MMA competition sometime this year. Has he joined an MMA camp yet? No. Does he have any grappling experience? No — unless you count the brief wrestling contest he had against Lennox Lewis when they were promoting their rematch in November 2001. But his manager Sandro Gelke seems to have a pretty solid grasp on the sport, so he should be just fine:

("Well I might be an asshole, but I’m the asshole who just killed this bobcat, so what’s up now?")

MMA Junkie has confirmed the ugly rumors: Tim Sylvia will be strapping on some boxing gloves to take on Ray Mercer in the headlining match of Adrenaline III (May 30th; Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, Atlantic City). Though the bout was originally proposed as an MMA match between the former UFC heavyweight champ and the dude who got choked out by Kimbo Slice, Sylvia’s manager Monte Cox had this to say:

Here’s the problem as I see it: There aren’t too many people who want to watch Tim in an MMA match anymore, let alone competing in a less-interesting sport, against a guy who was a champion in 1991. (Though don’t get us wrong, Mercer’s a boxer and Sylvia isn’t, so this actually could turn into another high-profile, embarrassing loss for the Maine-iac.) But honestly, why headline an MMA card with such a meaningless exhibition? Does this mean that Sylvia, who has lost three out of his last four fights, might be transitioning to a new sport? Could we be that lucky?

Well, not so fast. Sylvia’s fight against Ken Shamrock may have fallen apart, but Cox is angling to get Timmy on Affliction’s third fight card against Paul Buentello, as long as it’s not too close to May 30th. Affliction III looks like it’ll go down in June, with Emelianenko vs. Barnett headlining.

(Say what you will about Big John, he could rock the black track pants and latex gloves with the best of them.)

The Los Angeles Times takes a look at various cheating methods in combat sports today, from the illegal substance in Antonio Margarito’s glove to the Vaseline on Georges St. Pierre’s body.  The message here is that cheating, or “gamesmanship,” as Bert Sugar charitably tags it, is nothing new.  

But of interest to MMA fans are remarks from former UFC referee “Big” John McCarthy, which suggest that greasing problems have persisted for some time now, and that it’s no big secret, either:

"Guys will push the envelope in every way possible," former UFC referee "Big" John McCarthy said of mixed martial arts fighters. "Vaseline has always been an issue in MMA. It’s a real problem."

McCarthy has seen MMA fighters come into the octagon after taking a bath filled with soapy water or even baby oil. "You can’t notice it when they’re dry, but when they get on the ground and start to sweat, it starts to come out of their pores," McCarthy said.

(Seth Petruzelli: Not exactly a crowd favorite.) 

Former greatest pound-for-pound boxer in the world Roy Jones Jr. is testing the waters of MMA promotion with a hybrid boxing/MMA card to be held March 21st in Pensacola, Florida. Jones’s company Square Ring Promotions, Inc. is hosting "March Badness" at the Pensacola Civic Center, featuring RJJ himself boxing in the main event against Palestinian-American journeyman Omar Sheika. Jones, who has held titles in four different weight classes during his career, is coming off a high-profile decision loss to Joe Calzaghe in November. Of greater interest to MMA fans is the event’s supporting card, which will feature three fairly compelling MMA matches.

Seth Petruzelli, the flamingly heterosexual UFC vet who jabbed-out Kimbo Slice at EliteXC: Heat in October then accidentally admitted he was bribed to keep the fight standing, will be facing Doug "Rhino" Marshall, the former WEC light-heavyweight champion who lost his belt to Brian Stann last March. Also on the card, WWE-superstar-turned-MMA-prospect Bobby Lashley, who scored a 41-second TKO over rookie Joshua Franklin during his MMA debut in December, will take on a heavyweight opponent to be named later. And legal problems notwithstanding, Jeff Monson has been booked to fight former IFL champ Roy Nelson, who was most recently knocked out by Andrei Arlovski at EliteXC: Heat.

The whole shebang will be available on pay-per-view.

(Arlovski tries for the Dan Severn, sweat-soaked-grey-t-shirt look.)

Following his knockout loss to Fedor Emelianenko at Affliction: Day of Reckoning, Andrei Arlovski has signed with Golden Boy Promotions and will begin his career as a boxer, reports FightHype.com.  

You may recall that Arlovski’s trainer, Freddie Roach, said he’d like to see Arlovski take on heavyweight boxing champ Nikolai Valuev if he was victorious against Fedor.  Of course, he wasn’t, so maybe Valuev won’t be Arlovski’s first opponent, which is probably just as well.  But whoever he does face in the boxing ring, at least he won’t be tempted to try another flying knee.

If you’re Arlovski this move makes perfect sense right now.  Having lost to Fedor, there’s no immediately obvious opponent for him outside the UFC ranks.  He’s already beaten Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson, Josh Barnett has the next shot at Fedor (though it won’t happen until the summer, at the earliest), so why not put on some bigger gloves and find out whether Roach really knows a boxing diamond in the rough when he sees it?

The upside for MMA fans is we get to see someone from our world match his skills against a real boxer.  We’ve all heard about how superior their striking is for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to find out the old-fashioned way?  Not to mention, this could actually get people to care about boxing’s heavyweight division again, at least for a little while. 

(‘Lying is such a negative word.  I prefer to call it efficient storytelling.’)

By all accounts, HBO boxing commentator Larry Merchant’s claim that Oscar De La Hoya was missing the Shane Mosley-Antonio Margarito bout on Saturday because Affliction paid him $5 million to attend their show is straight up false.  The question is, did Merchant know it was untrue when he said it?  According to what Golden Boy CEO Richard Shaefer told Sherdog, the answer is: kind of.

Schaefer says he told Merchant that De La Hoya would be helping to promote the Affliction show because “our partners at Affliction made an over $5 million commitment to the event.”  Merchant took that and twisted it to mean that Golden Boy was paid $5 million by Affliction, which is quite a leap, as even Merchant almost admits:

“The $5 million was the number thrown out,” Merchant told Sherdog.com on Tuesday. “There was not a discussion on how that precisely was allocated or how it was branded. Is it a little bit glib or short-handed to say that Golden Boy got $5 million and Oscar had to be there? Yeah. Yeah. I’m on television and I’m trying to tell a story as tightly as I can.”

That’s obviously a pretty sorry excuse.  Being on TV doesn’t give you license to distort a story just to make it shorter, as Merchant well knows.  The fact is he just doesn’t like MMA, as he freely admits without ever being asked.  Even tacked on to the end of his erroneous $5 million claim was this little zinger: “It would take that much to get me to go to one of those things.”  Now he says he’d go for a mere $100,000, despite the fact that no one in the MMA world wants or needs him there.

But the thing that’s frustrating about Merchant’s disdain for MMA is that it makes no sense coming from a guy whose life has been spent covering the fight game.  Just look at this quote from Merchant about the decline of boxing, taken from Joe Layden’s book about the Mike Tyson-Buster Douglas bout, The Last Great Fight:

Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog, episode 2 – Watch more Free Videos

In the second episode of Dana White’s UFC 94 video blog we get a look inside the taping of “The Ultimate Fighter,” and encounter a man identified as Dana White Sr.  Could this really be the father of the UFC prez?  The brief look we get at their relationship seems contentious yet oddly loving enough.  After that it’s off to NYC for more Pinkberry (so no more Men’s Health cover shoots any time soon, then?) and another race through the city streets.  Oh, to be rich and loaded on sugar.  Nothing at all about GSP-Penn in this episode, by the way.

Andrei Arlovski comes home to Chicago and thanks his fans for their support after his loss, which he attributes to a stupid mistake.  His cameraman, playing the role of the enabling sycophant, insists it was just necessary risk-taking, but Andrei knows better.  He also tosses another jab at “pee-pee-pee taster” Tim Sylvia, because that always makes a man feel better when he’s down in the dumps.

(Give it your best shot, but please, no thai-style leg kicks.)

Just when you thought the Kimbo Slice hysteria had died down, more people have figured out how to make money off his likeness.  PrimeTime Amusements has unveiled their brand new “Team Kimbo Boxing Machine.”  

It’s one of those arcade games often found in cheap bars where the object is to hit a speed bag as hard as you can in order to prove your manliness to drunk chicks nearby.  After you hit the bag, a number appears, devoid of any unit of measurement, telling you whether you’ll get laid or not.  Ideally, you will find the number insufficient, and continue pumping quarters into the machine as you become drunker and angrier.  Meanwhile the girls go home with some guys who claim to work on Wall Street.

The fact that Kimbo is not a boxer doesn’t seem to bother the people at PrimeTime Amusements.  Nor are they troubled by the fact that these days “Team Kimbo” probably exists in name only.

I guess you have to strike the merchandising iron while it’s hot.  Though I hear these machines aren’t a great seller because all it takes is a weak jab to put them out of order.  Hi-yo!  Sorry.  I couldn’t help myself.

(Props: Fightlinker)

God help you, but what you’re about to see is the trailer for an in-production reality show about Gary Shaw and his family, titled Blood, Sweat -n- Bling. We could care less about what a boxing promoter does and what Shaw has accomplished in that field — the clip seems to leave out his brief and hideous stint with EliteXC altogether — so why not just skip ahead to the 4:51 mark and get a load of the segment on his son Jared. Apparently it’s not an act; $kala really is a deluded, epically entitled leech on his father, with absolutely nothing positive to offer society. (Check the freestyle: "Overseas in Greece, stop in Tel Aviv / Sucky-sucky Hong Kong, gotta love them Chinese.")

I have to admit, this trailer actually made me feel sorry for Gary. Between his incarcerated first son, total failure fourth son, worthless idiot wife, and (one would assume) heart disease and diabetes, I do not envy this man’s life. Getting up every morning must be a struggle, to put it mildly. Not that I’d ever watch this show, and I truly hope it’s never made available for other people to watch. But man, how ’bout this Jared Shaw? Is he The Worst, or what?

(The duct tape sponsorship proved to be one of Calzaghe’s best career decisions.)

Undefeated boxing champ Joe Calzaghe says he’s glad to be ending his career in the sweet science rather than beginning right now, because the combination of boxing’s self-defeating bullshit and the increasing interest in MMA (or UFC, as he calls it) could spell doom for the sport.  According to an AP story on NBC Sports, the champ isn’t very optimistic at all about the future:

"I think boxing is a dying sport. Globally — in America for instance — you’ve got UFC, which has taken a lot off boxing, business-wise,” Calzaghe said, referring to the mixed martial arts Ultimate Fighting Championship.

"There is too much politics in boxing, too many belts and too many champions, which dilutes real champions like myself,” he said. "There are four world champions in each division and it’s bad because there are no stars any more. It’s a big problem.”

While it might be a bit too gloomy a forecast to say that boxing is truly dying, especially after De La Hoya-Pacquiao just pulled in around 1.25 million pay-per-view buys, it’s kind of nice to hear a boxer who’s fed up with the path boxing has taken.

Even when the UFC pulls hardball tactics and throws their weight around in contract negotiations, it’s still better than what’s happened to boxing, which is as complicit in its own decline as any major sport ever has been. 

(Will Andrei Arlovski be the man to beat Fedor Emelianenko? Will anybody actually get to see it?)

Let’s get this out of the way first: If you didn’t watch Manny Pacquiao’s one-sided walloping of Oscar De La Hoya last night, click here. My God this Mexecutioner.

Okay now. We’ve already told you that boxing promotion juggernaut Golden Boy’s relationship with Affliction could be described as "non-committal" at best. What was originally announced as a grand partnership devolved into straight-up rivalry when GB scheduled a superfight between welterweight stars "Sugar" Shane Mosley and Antonio Margarito on January 24th, the same night as Affliction’s "Day of Reckoning" event. And it gets worse: The match is slated to go down at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, about a half-hour drive (depending on traffic) from Affliction’s venue of the Honda Center in Anaheim.

"Day of Reckoning"’s original date of October 11th was canceled due to nearly non-existant ticket sales, and they weren’t even competing with a major boxing match on the same day for attendance and local media coverage. Simply put, Mosley/Margarito on 1/24 is a death-blow for Affliction. It’s hard to envision them filling an arena without rescheduling the event yet again. Still, Fabricio Werdum is under the impression that Affliction has promised 16 events in 2009. Quite a lofty goal for an organization that has put on exactly one event in the last five months. But hey — everybody gotta have a dream.

(‘Affliction…nope, sorry, doesn’t ring a bell.’)

Remember when Affliction trumpeted a huge announcement, which was mostly a ploy to detract attention from the “rescheduling” of their second event?  And remember when that huge announcement was that they would be partnering with Golden Boy Promotions, thus bringing the feuding cousins of MMA and boxing together?  And then Golden Boy said, ‘screw that,’ and decided to promote a competing boxing match on the same night?  

Well on today’s conference call to promote the upcoming De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight, the ever-intrepid Michael David Smith (or MDS, if you’re nasty) of MMA Fanhouse hit Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer with a question about whether they’d really be promoting both the Affliction: Day of Reckoning card and the Mosley-Margarito bout on the same night.  His answer was the equivalent of when you asked your mom if you could stop for ice cream after soccer practice and she responded with, ‘We’ll see.’

"I don’t want to talk about it right now," Schaefer said. "We’re still trying to finalize it. The one thing I know for sure is that Antonio Margarito and Sugar Shane Mosley will be fighting on January 24."

I don’t know about you, but to me that does not sound like a man who is involved in a solid partnership that he is genuinely excited about.  Granted, Schaefer’s first order of business on this call was to promote the upcoming fight, not one in January, but he stopped just short of saying that he does not know, nor does he care what Affliction does on Jan. 24.  Will they have a show at all?  Your guess is probably as good as Schaefer’s, with the difference being that you might actually give a damn.

UFC welterweight Jon Fitch stopped by Mythbusters last week to help the gang test the idea that a person could realistically escape a live burial Kill Bill-style by punching their way out of the coffin then crawling upwards through six feet of dirt. You can check out the full episode here. Spoiler alert: This myth is quite busted.

And here’s 30 seconds of hype for “Ultimate 2008,” which goes down December 27th in Las Vegas — only on pay-per-vyoooooo.

After the jump: Video of Joe Calzaghe’s triumph over Roy Jones Jr. in their light-heavyweight championship boxing match on Saturday at Madison Square Garden.

(Now that belt is worthless for two reasons.)

I never thought I’d admit this, but maybe KJ Noons’ decision not to defend his EliteXC lightweight title against Nick Diaz on CBS wasn’t so dumb after all. You’ll recall that everyone from Jared Shaw to, well, us, gave Noons a hard time for running from a Diaz rematch. He was eventually stripped of the title and claimed breach of contract as he headed back to the world of boxing, where he was champion of nothing and had no chance to be seen on network TV.

But now that EliteXC’s fighters are sidelined while they wait to find out whether their contracts will be auctioned off, declared void, or simply held on to in such a way that prevents them from making a living, Noons is off making money as a boxer again.

Noons (7-1 as a boxer) is set to face Alex Bogarin (8-6-3) in a six-rounder next Thursday at the Expo Center in El Monte, Calif. The fight won’t be on CBS in front of millions of viewers, so you can still argue that it was dumb of him to turn down that exposure and the opportunity to pull in some extra sponsorship money, but the fact remains that he’s working.

Sure, you could also wonder why, if he’s contractually free to box, he couldn’t have fought Diaz and defended his title like any respectable champion and still returned to boxing when EliteXC went tits up. But this has to feel like a moral victory for Noons, so let’s not spoil it with details. As for the rest of the EliteXC stable, let’s just say it’s looking like a lean Christmas this year at Scott Smith’s house.

We’ve mentioned more than once that Affliction’s postponed “Day of Reckoning” card (January 24th; Anaheim, CA) will be a co-promotion with Golden Boy Promotions — though we weren’t really clear on what that partnership might look like. But it seems that Golden Boy is putting on a big-name boxing match the same night — Antonio Margarito vs. Shane Mosley — which will air on HBO opposite Affliction’s pay-per-view card. In other words, they’re not so much partners as direct competitors. As Bloody Elbow’s Michael Rome sees it:

I don’t think there is any joint promotional deal between Affliction and Golden Boy. I heard a few weeks ago that nothing was signed, and it looks like all they have is a t-shirt deal, or a production deal at most. They announced it prematurely to distract people from the fact that they cancelled their October show because it sold about 700 tickets.

This is not good. Without the promotional muscle of Golden Boy, there’s no guarantee that “Day of Reckoning” won’t tank as hard as it did originally. We already know that Affliction may be trying to cut their losses, and if there’s no real pact with Golden Boy in place, that’s one less incentive for them to remain in the game.

(The infamous “he’s going to eat that spit” speech. Inspiring.)

The last time we devoted blog space to Ultimate Fighter coach Al “Stankie” Stankiewicz, some of you complained that we were applying a double-standard by encouraging his drunken antics and denouncing those of Jesse Taylor and Junie Browning. Fair enough, but what you have to remember is this: when a young, strong professional fighter gets drunk and violent, it’s called assault. When a crazy old man who goes by the name “Stankie” does it, it’s hilarious. Why? Because he’s old. The rules are different for old people. The rest of us just have to accept that.

It’s kind of like when you go to a family Thanksgiving and your racist grandfather makes a remark about “those thieving, hot-blooded Latins.” There’s no point in getting upset, and you know he’s just talking about Desi Arnaz anyway. So you do what any minimally functioning family does. You pass the potatoes and pretend it didn’t happen.

Today’s Stankie story comes yet again from Ryan Bader, who seems way more interested in telling these tales than any other cast member, God bless him. This time, it was our very own blogger, Efrain Escudero, who found himself pulled into the mysterious world that Stankie seems to inhabit all by himself:

Stanky had this thing with Efrian Escudero. He liked Efrian a lot but really wanted to spar him. Stanky always told him that he would kick his ass if they boxed. So one day we told Stanky his dreams were going to come true. Nogueira told him he could spar Efrian in straight boxing if he wore the chest/rib protector. They would spar in the ring, with full walkouts and the whole hooray. I would corner Efrian and the rest of the team would be behind Stanky. This made his day, if not year — well, probably decade.

Kyle overheard Stanky while he was hitting the speed bag warming up talking to himself. Stanky was muttering out loud to himself, “Stanky, one last hoorah. This is it, old chap! You’re back in the game! Back in the fire! Do this and you can finally put down the gloves.”

Read More ADD COMMENTS (662) DIGG THIS

(Don’t expect to see these two fight for a looooooong time.)

— Golden Boy no longer plans to hold hybrid boxing/MMA cards with Affliction. As Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer explained the change-of-heart to ESPN.com, “We want to get to know the MMA market better and truly evaluate if there are synergies between the two sports. We are planning to do some focus groups where we will ask boxing and MMA fans how they would feel about it. Once we get the results of that, then we’ll be in a much better position to decide which strategy to apply.” Affliction’s MMA-only fight card on January 24th will still be co-promoted by Golden Boy.

— Though EliteXC’s fighters are currently in legal limbo because their contracts may be considered company assets in bankruptcy court, the regional promotions that Pro Elite swallowed up over the last two years could be immediately free to operate again. As Dave Meltzer reports:

Most deals [with Pro Elite] included putting the former owners under contract as executive consultants (and then not listening to them), giving them some cash as well as company stock, at the time worth millions and now worth almost nothing. The deals were structured as such that if Pro Elite went bankrupt, all could go back to promoting using the names they developed. King of the Cage, which was the only group profitable underneath the Pro Elite banner, is expected to continue running events as soon as possible. Cage Rage, a U.K. based group whose losses were so staggering they greatly sped up the demise of Pro Elite, is likely not to last much longer.

(All that wisdom, and no primetime TV slot on which to garble it…yet.)

Right away we knew that Al “Stankie” Stankiewicz (aka: Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira’s boxing coach) had a certain magic about him. From his crazy motivational sayings to his semi-coherent ramblings about sardines, the man is straight up charismatic. But the more stories about him that trickle out, the more it’s starting to seem like he is being criminally underused in this season of The Ultimate Fighter. The latest Stank-tastic tale comes from TUF 8 cast member Ryan Bader, who paints a portrait of Stank as a lovable old card getting the most out of his affiliation with Nogueira:

I have a funny story about Al Stankie, who is our older boxing coach. After practice the coaches would go grab something to eat — most of the time without showering and in full Team Nogueira garb, which (I’m pretty sure) they were not supposed to be doing. Stankie had on a rashguard, full TapouT velour red warm-up, a TapouT beanie and a couple long gold chains. They went to The Palms to watch the Lakers vs. Celtics game. Stankie is a big Lakers fan, and when a Celtics fan expressed some joy about his team scoring, Stankie walked over and slapped the guy — with all of our Brazilian coaches looking on in horror. Before the other coaches could grab him, he yelled out, “I am with the heavyweight champion of the world! You want some?” Those of us that saw this understood that this could be Junie’s relative, and maybe that is why he wasn’t kicked off the show yet. Stankie is a great man, and Spike TV should give him his own show.

There are many stories that involve Stankie that I will try to give to you each week. We would all gather around Dan Valverde, one of the assistant coaches, and he would tell us the stories of what Stankie did over the weekend.

Bader also described Stankie as “drunk and funny as ever” when he and Nogueira showed up at the house to try and squash the prank war, which might at least partially explain the disrespect shown by many of the Team Mir fighters.

As for the suggestion that Spike TV should give Stankie his own show, we’re all for it. The fact that Brooke Hogan has her own show and Stankie doesn’t, well, let’s just say it’s a sign that this nation has lost its way.

(TUF 3 castmember Josh Haynes finishes off Sean Salmon with a leglock at “Night of Combat II.” Photo courtesy of Sherdog.)

Revenue numbers are in for last Saturday’s “Night of Combat II” show in Las Vegas, and it looks like Superfights MMA and KC Concepts took a bath on it. Only 1,063 tickets were sold at the 9,000-seat Thomas & Mack arena, bringing in a live gate of $32,405 — which didn’t come close to covering the disclosed payroll of $160,500. (Comped tickets brought the total attendance up to 1,735 spectators.) Here’s what the fighters took home:

— Hector Ramirez ($20,000, including $5,000 win bonus) def. Rick Roufus ($15,000)
— Jay Hieron ($20,000) def. Chris Kennedy ($8,500)
— Mike Pyle ($20,000) def. Brian Gassaway ($15,000)
— John Alessio ($15,000) def. Gideon Ray ($15,000)
— Josh Haynes ($10,000, including $5,000 win bonus) def. Sean Salmon ($7,000)
— Jonathan Mix ($3,000) def. John Halverson ($3,000)
— Patrick Gonsalves ($1,500) def. Shawn David ($1,500)
— Elena Reid ($1,500) def. Stephanie Palmer ($1,500)
— Ryan Hess ($1,500) def. Ian Omalza ($1,500)

“I know the house wasn’t full,” co-promoter Kim Couture told MMA Mania. “But I put this on for the guys and as long as they had fun it was worth it. I’d like to think we’re going to do more shows.”