Growing up in the gang-infested town of East Paulo Alto California, Eugene Jackson used his fists to settle any conflicts he had. He soon realized that his punching prowess could be used to earn him some cash in addition to the street cred he had behind his name in EPA, so in the 90s he began fighting in MMA where he would fight 25 times, under the UFC, Strikeforce, IVC and IFC banners against guys like Wanderlei Silva, Joe Doerksen, Jeremy Horn and Ricardo Almeida.

Having retired with a 15-9-1 record after losing to Joe Riggs in Strikeforce back in 2007, Jackson decided he wanted to give local kids a leg up that he never had so he opened up a a non-profit gym for at risk youth with his own money in 2009. The facility, which was little more than a warehouse with some mats, heavy bags and a crudely thrown together collection of weights became a hugely popular community center where teens who might normally be enticed into gang-banging would hang out every day to hone their fighting skills.

Eventually city authorities demanded improvements to the building that he could not afford and he was forced to close the gym, but that didn’t deter him.

(Video courtesy of TheScore.ca)

A rumored June 10 bout between fast-rising Canadian welterweight Jordan Mein and DREAM 170-pound kingpin Marius Zaromskis was made official today as representatives from The Score Fighting Series confirmed the main event pairing.

Zaromskis will pose the biggest challenge of the career of the 21-7 Albertan, who defeated UFC veterans Joe Riggs (TKO) and Josh Burkman (decision) in his last two outings. “Young Guns” is hoping that a win over a fighter like Zaromskis will elicit a call from the UFC.

“I pride myself on being entertaining and putting on a good show for the crowd,” says Mein. “I know Marius will give me a great fight and test my abilities.”

(“Whitemare” vs. “Young Guns” will fight over who has the lamest nickname.)

A welterweight match-up between DREAM 170-pound kingpin Marius Zaromskis and fast-rising Canadian prospect Jordan Mein is in the works for the June 10 Score Fighting Series event in Mississauga.

Rather than sit out for seven months waiting for his May 14 non-title bout against Falaniko Vitale, Bellator middleweight champion Hector Lombard will look to defend his other strap later this month in Australia. The highly-touted 27-2 middleweight fighter, will defend his Cage Fighting Championship 185-pound title against UFC and WEC veteran Joe Doerksen Down Under at CFC 16 at Big Top Luna Park in Sydney March 25.

Born in Cuba, Lombard resided in Australia for several years after defecting from the communist country following the 2000 Sydney Olympics. 20 of his 27 wins have come by finish including his record-setting six-second knockout of Jay Silva that earned him the fastest KO in Bellator history. The ATT-trained fighter has not lost since 2006 when he dropped a unanimous decision to Gegard Mousasi at PRIDE Bushido 13 and has never lost a fight in Australia. The closest he came was a draw to Kyle Noke in the inaugural CFC show in 2007. Soon after the fight with Noke, Lombard, who was then a welterweight, was signed by the UFC and was slated to take on Karo Parisyan at UFC 78. Visa issues forced Lombard off the card and prompted the UFC to tear up his contract.

("So if you lose two in a row, you’re still OK, right?")

Despite logging a tough split decision loss to Dan Miller at UFC 124, Joe Doerksen yesterday had insult added to the injury of losing in front of his fellow Canadians in Montreal Saturday night when he was informed by the UFC that he was being let go by the promotion.

Fiveouncesofpain was first to report the New Bothwell, Manitoba native’s firing.

The loss was Doerksen’s second in a row since handing Tom Lawlor his second loss in a row in his Octagon return at UFC 113. He was submitted in his last bout at UFC 119 by C.B. Dollaway.

("Tough loss against CB." "Yeah. How’s your leg doing?"

The card for UFC 124 is filling in nicely with the addition of four fights reported by various sources today.

MMAFighting reports that Jason MacDonald will return to action following one of the most gruesome leg-break injuries in UFC history he incurred in his UFC 113 bout seven months ago in Montreal against John Salter.

MacDonald (24-14), who is on his second go-around in the UFC will be looking to make this stay in the Octagon a permanent one when he takes on Gracie jiu-jitsu black belt,  Rafael Natal (12-3) who lost by decision in his Octagon debut against Rich Attonito at UFN 22 in September.

Also on the card, according to MMAJunkie and MMADiehards will be MacDonald’s fellow Canadians Joe Doerksen and TJ Grant who will take on Dan Miller and Ricardo Almeida, respectively.

Following his controversial split-decision loss to Aaron Simpson at UFC Fight Night 20, Tom "The Filthy Mauler" Lawlor was ready to bounce back to the W column against fellow TUF vet Tim Credeur at UFC 113 (May 8th, Montreal). But an injury has forced "Crazy" Tim off the card, and now Filthy Tom will be facing Dirty Joe — Joe Doerksen, who has a 1-5 lifetime record in the UFC, but is getting another shot after racking up five straight wins in promotions like Sengoku and King of the Cage. We sent our friend "Skanky" Remington Reed to track down Lawlor at his gym in Orlando, The Jungle MMA & Fitness, and discuss how he copes with tough losses, the method behind his memorable cage entrances, the runaway success of his "Lawlormania" t-shirt, his weather-based prediction for Machida vs. Rua II, and the question everyone else has been afraid to ask: Between him and Seth Petruzelli, who’s gayer? Enjoy… 

- ESPN Radio’s Ball Park Frank talks with Randy Couture about a number of topics in this video (props to Steve Cofield), but perhaps most interesting is Couture’s assessment of Kimbo Slice‘s upcoming match with Ken Shamrock. As Couture astutely points out (around the 2:55 mark), a quick KO of Shamrock does more to affirm his over-the-hill status than it does to prove Kimbo’s worth as an MMA fighter. At the same time, if Kimbo goes back and forth with Shamrock will that only serve to prove that he’s not the fighter “Buzz” Berry is? Best case scenario for Kimbo is he looks good, Shamrock looks good, Kimbo wins via late KO. That’s also the least plausible scenario.

- Travis Lutter tells MMA Rated there is absolutely no truth to rumors he might be headed back to the UFC. Though it was originally reported that he might face Joe Doerksen in the Octagon, Lutter says neither he nor UFC matchmaker Joe Silva knew where the rumor came from, which means it’s back to the small time for Lutter. He did have a prediction for the Anderson Silva-Patrick Cote bout, though: “Cote is going to get murdered.” Come on, Travis, don’t sugar coat it.

- CBS executives say they will show five fights from ‘Elite XC: Heat’ on Saturday, even if it will probably cause them to run over the allotted two-hour space. Some fans wondered whether CBS had cut “Ninja” Rua-Benji Radach from the broadcast when the bout wasn’t mentioned in recent promos, but Executive VP Kelly Kahl says the fight is still on and will lead off the CBS portion of the card. That means Elite XC will have to keep its general dicking around to a minimum and still hope for a couple quick finishes to keep from going over. It’s something you’ll want to keep in mind if you’re planning on DVR-ing this sucker.

Joe “El Dirte” Doerksen has become the latest UFC middleweight — after Kalib Starnes and Travis Lutter — to be released from his fight contract as part of the league’s roster cuts. Doerksen’s recent TKO loss to Jason MacDonald at UFC 83 brought his UFC record to 1-5 (and 38-12 overall). As he told Sportsnet.ca:

“(The UFC officials) made it very clear they’re very happy with the way I fight and they want me to come back. But they need me to go put a couple of wins together (first)…I’ve come and gone several times over my career and I’m sure I’ll be back again. It’s not really devastating news. It’s just the cycle I have to go through….I’m just going to go out and do what I always do, put five or 10 wins together and come back and try again. At the end of the day, I know the fight was very well received by the fans and that’s the most important thing to me personally.”

Doerksen has scored notable wins over Lee Murray, Denis Kang, Chris Leben, and Ed Herman outside of the UFC, but seemed to be cursed inside the Octagon. After losing his UFC debut against Joe Riggs at UFC 49, he came back to submit Patrick Côté at UFC 52, but then picked up two more losses against Matt Lindland and Nate Marquardt. Doerksen won six straight fights outside of the UFC before Zuffa took another chance on him, putting him up against Paulo Filho for the vacant WEC middleweight title (which he lost), then giving him UFC fights against Ed Herman and MacDonald (both of which he lost).

No matter how gently the UFC let Joe down, it’s hard to imagine someone with his Octagon track record being given another shot unless he can put together a monumental win streak. Good luck out there, brotha…

As previously reported, Jason MacDonald picked up the $75,000 Knockout of the Night bonus for his handling of Joe Doerksen at UFC 83. In case you haven’t seen it, the video is above (and if the vid goes down, there’s an animated gif of the fight’s end after the jump). MacDonald put on a brave performance, white-knuckling through a deep kimura attempt by Doerksen in the first round, before taking Doerksen down early in the second and clubbing him with elbows until the fight was stopped.

Well, sort of stopped. Check out the 8:37-8:46 mark — it looks like Mazzagatti tries to stop the fight, but MacDonald presses on and throws three more punches into the face of Doerksen, who’s clearly unconscious by that point. Big John (or even Big Dan) would have thrown MacDonald across the cage, but Mazzagatti can only ineffectually flap his arms. Maybe it was bad sportsmanship by “The Athlete,” maybe bad reffing is to blame; in any case, I don’t think this chaotic moment should have earned anybody 75 large.