ESPN

Okay, Dana Jacobson of ESPN.  We know you're not an MMA reporter, so the sight of Fedor Emelianenko's name on the teleprompter was probably pretty jarring.  But seriously?  Umalenenko?  How do you look at a name that starts with an E, contains no U's, and come up with that?  You didn't want to maybe ask someone beforehand how it was pronounced?  Brett Rogers was sitting right there, and chances are he's heard the name enough by now to help you out, even though "The Grimm" is too much of a goddamned gentleman to make you feel bad about it. 

If you saw the "Fight Camp 360" episode, there's really no new information on Rogers here, but it is interesting to listen to him talk about fighting Fedor as if he is not an extreme underdog.  I can't decide if he just needs to tell himself that it's going to be as simple as going in there and banging, or if he truly believes it.  He says he has no other option but to win, and yet almost no one expects him to.  If he does pull it off, could this be the greatest upset in MMA history?

Semi-related: Yeah, Strikeforce and CBS are putting a lot into promoting the Fedor/Rogers bout, and this ESPN appearance is proof of that, but what about the other fights on the card?  That's exactly what Ariel Helwani and I discussed, among other topics, on this week's roundtable discussion over at MMA Fanhouse.  Be a doll and check it out, won't you?

ESPN "First Take" brought Shaquille O'Neal's personal trainer on so he could talk about the Diesel's MMA training and mention the name of his gym and its website no less than a dozen times.  The interviewer here seems oddly amused by her own ignorance of MMA, and really presses this guy to give her odds on the possibility of a Shaq vs. Chuck Liddell fight in the UFC.  Let me put it to you this way, lady: there's about as much chance of that fight happening in the UFC as there is of you taking over for Larry King when he finally retires/dies.  Got it now?

According to Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza’s manager, they’re planning on a fight “for the title” at Dream.9 on May 26.  Nothing is confirmed yet, Jacare’s manager told Tatame, but right now it looks like it will be a rematch between Jacare and “Mayhem” Miller for Gegard Mousasi’s vacated middleweight belt.  If true that would make for a tight turnaround for Miller, who’s slated to take on Kala Hose in Hawaii at Kingdom MMA on April 18.  Call it making up for lost time.  Or maybe he's just assuming that it won’t take much out of him to whup on Hose in front of his Hawaiian peeps.

- As we saw earlier today, Dana White’s threats to step back from the limelight might be the slightest bit hollow, but ESPN plans to actually make him talk on video when they send their E:60 crew to Montreal for a story on his recent video blog controversy.  The piece will allegedly seek to compare White to the heads of other major sports organizations, asking what would have happened to them had they gone all nasty on a female sports reporter and her anonymous sources.  We just hope E:60 has learned from their past mistakes.  If they ask him about steroids, the interview’s over.

- Spike TV sent out another ‘in your face!’ press release today to announce that Saturday night’s replay of UFC 94 was the “#1 program among Men 18-34 in all of television (cable and broadcast) during its time period.”  The replay peaked at 2.4 million viewers for the main event and averaged 1.9 million over the three-hour broadcast, which, as Spike is kind enough to point out, bested HBO’s Winky Wright/Paul Williams bout, which drew a measly 1.5 million viewers.  What you’re wondering is, did they mention how it compared to Strikeforce’s viewership?  They did not.  But they know you’re thinking about it anyway.

- Remember the rumored bout between Mark Coleman and Stephan Bonnar?  The UFC made it official for UFC 100 today, but relegated it to the “may not be broadcast” prelims.  On one hand, that’s a hell of a place to end up after such a great career (talking about Coleman, obviously. I said great career, not one great fight).  On the other hand, if there’s one UFC card where you can feel okay about being pushed to the prelims, it’s that one.

(Chambers is the one who looks like he'd give himself the nickname "Hollywood.")

Bellator Fighting Championships – also known as one of the organizations to fire War Machine – announced via press release their announcing teams for both English and Spanish broadcasts.  The Spanish portion will be done by former King of the Cage champ Manny Rodriguez and some guy known as George X (ed. note: you can do that? just change your last name to an "x"? that’s awesome).  

Getting the nod for the portion that most of us will be able to understand is the duo of Jon Anik, from ESPN’s “MMA Live,” and Jason Chambers, from The History Channel’s “Human Weapon” series.  

Chambers actually used to be an MMA fighter, competing as Jason “Hollywood” Chambers, though his most notable fight was a loss to Thiago Alves at an Ironheart Crown event in Hammond, Indiana back in 2004.  He tapped due to strikes in the first round.  Fun fact: those rape charges against him were dismissed, so he’s available, ladies…

If you're curious how you can watch these guys to see if they might possibly rival Tito Ortiz's genius on the mic (no way), the Spanish-language version will run on ESPN Deportes and the English one will be on Bellator's website.  Poor Jon Anik.  What's the guy got to do to get on an actual TV?

(I'm sure it looks great on the wall next to Fedor's prized "Wizard of Oz" commemorative plates.)

As you would have noticed if you weren’t so busy watching videos of midgets fighting on the internet, “MMA Live” has begun incorporating rankings from WAMMA recently.  This has the guys from Bloody Elbow in a twist because they just partnered with USA Today to feature their “meta-rankings,” and because they generally hate WAMMA.

I’m one of WAMMA’s rankings pollsters, so I can understand some frustration and confusion with some of WAMMA’s moves.  Naming Shinya Aoki champion, for instance?  I love the Man in Tights as much as anyone, but he’s not the world’s best lightweight and everbody knows it. 

WAMMA seems intent on giving out fairly meaningless titles to the best fighters not in the UFC, and that’s kind of dumb but it's also not really hurting anybody.  And just because WAMMA's executives make some stupid decisions and appear in hilarious photos from time to time, it's not any reason to invalidate the actual rankings, which the executives have nothing to do with.