("You think you scare me, Whitemare? I bang Cris Cyborg. Voluntarily." Photo courtesy of the Strikeforce LA Live Weigh In Pics gallery on CombatLifestyle.com)

Q: Why are we watching a Strikeforce event on Showtime, in the middle of the damn week, ten days before a bigger Strikeforce event on Showtime?

A: Why the hell not?

The stakes are relatively low, but the matchups are promising. In the main event, Renato Sobral and Robbie Lawler slug it out in a moneyweight battle for a potential title shot down the road. Welterweights Evangelista "Cyborg" Santos and Marius "The Whitemare" Zaromskis meet in a guaranteed basher. Plus, Army Staff Sergeant Tim Kennedy defends his country’s honor against South African veteran Trevor Prangley, and KJ Noons returns to the cage against Conor Heun. Round-by-round results await you after the jump. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and let’s hope these fights end early so I can go to bed.

(Feelin’ lucky?)

Okay, I know it’s too early to do a Gambling Addiction Enabler on Strikeforce’s "Fedor vs. Werdum" show (June 26, San Jose), but I just had to pass along the squashtastic betting lines that have been released for the top four fights on the card. Check it out:

– Fedor Emelianenko -1000 vs. Fabricio Werdum +500
– Cristiane Santos -2500 vs. Jan Finney +1000
– Cung Le -400 vs. Scott Smith +275
– KJ Noons -500 vs. Charles Bennett +360

Let me try to put this in perspective. According to BetUs.com, if you place a $100 parlay bet on all four of the underdogs listed above, and they all somehow manage to win their fights, you would walk away with a profit of $89,150. A more modest $20 parlay bet would net you $17,830. 

(Hopefully, for KJ’s sake, that scale is bolted down)

Sherdog is reporting that June’s Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum  event has added double the firepower with the addition of a main card bout featuring former EliteXC lightweight champion KJ Noons and Charles "Krazy Horse" "Kid Kaos" Bennett. The fight will be a heavily anticipated rematch of their February 10, 2007 fight (video after the jump) that saw Bennett knock Noons out in the first round.

(Noons celebrates a TKO [via cut] victory over Diaz, which he is sure will shut Nick up for good. Yep, he’s definitely heard the last of this bit of business.)

KJ Noons may have temporarily abandoned his dreams of boxing greatness to return to MMA, but you can forget any hopes you had of seeing him jump right back in against Nick Diaz in Strikeforce. Noons’s first fight back will instead take place at Dream.13 on March 22, where he’ll face Brazilian lightweight Andre “Dida” Amado. For those of you who don’t know, “Dida” is a Muay Thai specialist who is 6-3-1 in his six-year career, and he’s coming off three straight losses, including a submission defeat to Gesias Cavalcante and a TKO loss to Eddie Alvarez.

In other words, this fight is not exactly a leap back into the shark tank of MMA. It’s more like easing into a hot bath filled with some mildly pissed off lake trout. But hey, maybe that’s what Noons needs to get reacquainted with all this kicking and kneeing and grappling stuff. It has been almost two years since his last MMA fight, a TKO victory over Yves Edwards. Maybe he needs to beat up a Brazilian in Japan, get comfortable again, and then it’s back to the U.S. to show Nick Diaz that he is totally not scared, homey. That’s how it would go down in our perfect world, anyway.

(Noons and Diaz on the same card again? Don’t be scared, homey…)

Though Marius Zaromskis line-jumped him for a Strikeforce welterweight title shot, Jay Hieron has made peace with the disappointment and is ready to move on with his career. "All good things come to those that wait," Hieron recently told MMA Junkie Radio. "Trust me, I’m going to make a statement in my next fight." If early reports are accurate, that statement could come against welterweight veteran Joe Riggs at Strikeforce: Miami (1/30), supporting the Diaz vs. Zaromskis headliner. Riggs was victorious in his last two Strikeforce appearances against Luke Stewart and Phil Baroni, and picked up a couple of wins last month in smaller promotions against two guys with losing records. Hieron is on a six-fight win streak, most recently scoring a unanimous decision against Jesse Taylor at Carano vs. Cyborg in August.

This month’s Strikeforce card is also expected to feature the MMA return of KJ Noons, best known for becoming EliteXC’s 160-pound champ after beating Nick Diaz via cut stoppage in November 2007 — then losing his belt when he refused a rematch. Noons hasn’t competed in MMA since his 48-second smoking of Yves Edwards in June ’08, after which he left the sport to take a few boxing matches. According to MMA Mania, his return fight will put him up against undefeated lightweight Billy Evangelista, who most recently won a decision over Jorge Gurgel at a Strikeforce Challengers event in November. If Noons can get past Evangelista, he’s a factor again. Will we eventually get to see a rematch between Noons and Diaz? Or at least another family vs. family post-fight brawl? Is there a statute of limitations on bitchassness?

(Noons vs. Diaz I.  Yeah, we’re assuming there’s going to be a II soon.)

It’s been over a year since K.J. Noons was stripped of his EliteXC title and accused of all manner of bitchassery by everyone from Nick Diaz to Jared Shaw, but he’s finally decided to sign with an MMA promotion and give this crazy sport of ours another try.  Sherdog reports that Noons has signed with Strikeforce and will make his debut in either December or January. 

What we really want to know, however, is how long until the Noons and Diaz clans get to go at it again.  There’s some serious unfinished business there, and with Nick Diaz’s recent wins over Frank Shamrock and Scott Smith while Noons was off being a mediocre pro boxer, maybe "King Karl" can see fit to give Diaz a rematch and settle this thing once and for all, weight classes be damned.  Like the prophet said, "Thou shalt not be scared, homey."  Only if/when those two do get together again, maybe Strikeforce shouldn’t plan on doing it California.  MMA’s Rosa Parks still isn’t ready to make nice and give up his seat just yet.

After purchasing “select assets” including fighter contracts from Pro Elite last week, Strikeforce quickly went from a surprisingly successful regional promotion to a major player in the MMA scene almost overnight.  In this exclusive interview CEO Scott Coker talks about the deal and the acquisitions, as well as what his organization has planned for its new talent.

CagePotato.com:  Thanks for talking with me, Scott.  Since you purchased the fighter contracts, how has the transition been going?  Do you find that the fighters are eager to fight for Strikeforce now?

I’ll tell you, we’ve had about twenty or so, or about half of the roster, that we’ve reached out to as of this morning and had good conversations about scheduling and match-ups.  I think that, at the end of the day, a lot of these guys just want to get back to work and get back to fighting so they can continue their careers.  So I’d say the transition has been going well.

What about any fighters who might have been hoping to get free of their Pro Elite contracts and sign with the UFC?

I’ve only had that conversation with one fighter.  And we’ve had two or three conversations with that fighter since, and now I think they may be feeling a different way than they were before.  And I can understand the frustration that a lot of these fighters are feeling, because they’ve been out of work for a while.  Not everybody fought on the last show in October.  Some of them haven’t fought since June or July of last year.  

We dealt with that frustration at the very beginning and we understood where it was coming from, but a lot of these guys I’ve known for a long time, their managers are friends of mine, so I think the ice has all been broken.  And the fighter who was originally looking to go to the UFC is now saying, ‘Do you think I could fight by May?’  So I think they see what we’re doing and it’s going to be okay.

(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.

If there’s one thing I love about Cage Potato readers, it’s that ya’ll some sympathetic motherfuckers. Big props to reader BPD for creating and sending me this e-card. It brightened the shit out of my day. For that, BPD, I thank you. For those of you curious as to how you can waste your own time creating hilarious MMA-themed greeting cards, check out someecards.com. My creation, which is admittedly inferior to BPD’s, is after the jump. Feel free to include links to yours in the comments section.

(The fight that set off a shit-storm of events.)

Even though they’ve stripped him of the title, the door is not yet closed on KJ Noons’ relationship with Elite XC. The company reportedly gave Noons a Monday deadline to determine whether, and under what circumstances, he’ll continue to work for them. After all this drama it’s hard to imagine that we’ll be seeing Noons back in the Elite XC cage unless he gets a significant pay raise. Even then, you have to wonder what they would do with their ex-lightweight champ.

He refused to fight Nick Diaz even though it’s the only bout for him with any real heat at the moment. His manager, Mark Dion, said previously that the fight Noons really wants is one with Eddie Alvarez. Trouble is, rumors are now circulating that it will be Diaz who faces Alvarez for the vacant Elite XC title. Now that’s got to sting if you’re Noons. Not only does Diaz get more money, he also gets the fight KJ wants and maybe even his belt. What’s next, his bike?

If that happens, Noons can wait out the Diaz-Alvarez bout, hoping that Alvarez wins and he’ll finally get his shot at him. Even then, there’s still the sticky issue of money to sort out. If Diaz pulls out the victory Noons will be almost forced into a rematch with him for the belt that was his to begin with.

After everything that’s happened, however, it seems more likely that Noons is looking for the door at this point. He still has two fights on his contract, though he could decide to focus on boxing for a while in the hopes that Elite XC will crumble and he’ll be free and clear to sign a new MMA deal when they do. That is, assuming there is an organization who will be willing to pay him what he thinks he’s worth even after he’s been out of the game for a while.

Sounds like refusing a much-hyped rematch on network TV maybe wasn’t the best career move after all. Weird.

(A champion no more.)

Just when KJ Noons was starting to focus on the boxing career he wants so badly, Elite XC has decided to lighten his luggage for him by stripping him of the lightweight title. From a release sent out late last night:

“We are stripping KJ of his championship belt for refusing to defend against Diaz,’’ Lappen said. “It’s a very unfortunate situation but we cannot have belt-holders who refuse to fight the top contenders. We want champions who will fight anyone, anytime, anyplace. That’s the mentality all champions should have.

“I feel very bad for KJ because I like him a lot on a personal level and have always thought he could be a big star. He’s charismatic, has a very exciting fighting style and is a top level fighter. So I’m obviously disappointed that he has chosen to take this stance.

“I don’t understand why he would turn down a chance to be a headliner on CBS on Oct. 4. KJ then turned down the fight again when we offered him a headlining spot on our next SHOWTIME date against Nick. From my view, it is a fight against a top-named opponent in Diaz (someone who beat the No. 1 fighter in the world in his weight class), a fighter KJ has bad blood with and most definitely a fight the fans really wanted to see. It seemed like a great opportunity for KJ to me.

“Personally, I do not think it was a smart career move, but I’m sure he sees it differently. KJ has two more fights remaining on his contract, so we are still looking forward to having him fight for us again soon, but not as our world champion.’’

Aside from the awkward phrase “top-named opponent” — which seems like the worst possible way of saying that a guy isn’t ranked in the top ten but people know him anyway — Elite XC actually makes a firm case here. Even if Noons doesn’t feel that Diaz deserves the shot, and even if he isn’t satisfied with the money he’d get for it (at the rate he agreed to when he signed the contract), the fact is that it’s the fight that both the Elite XC brass and the fans most want to see.

If you want to be the champ, that’s the fight you’ve got to take. If you go out and beat Nick Diaz on network TV, that can only help your popularity and your fight purses down the road, right? For whatever reason, Noons doesn’t see it that way. Enjoy your boxing career, young man.

KJ Noons has a brilliant plan for the future of his fighting career. Are you ready for this? Instead of fighting Nick Diaz for the Elite XC lightweight title in front of millions of people on CBS, he’s going to fight some nobody in a boxing match that is not on network TV. That will show those bastards at Elite XC.

In an interview with MMA Weekly Noons claims that Elite XC breached his boxing contract — which was one of the two contracts he signed with them — by not offering him any fights, thus leaving him free to pursue boxing matches on his own. His MMA contract with them is presumably still valid since they did offer him the Diaz fight, which he continues to disparage on the basis that Diaz would make more money than him for the fight:

“Tell him to put his money where his mouth is. Put his money up if he wants it so bad, if he’s such a warrior,” Noons stated about Diaz. “He was just (expletive) about how much he got paid on this last CBS card. He’s getting paid 3 times more than me, how do you think that makes me feel?”

“If Dana (White) is listening, I wouldn’t mind fighting his brother too. I’ll get them both (expletive) plastic surgeries.”

He just had to bring up Nate, didn’t he? Maybe the plan is to make the Diaz brothers talk so much smack they cancel each other out, like some sort of shit-talking wave interference theory.

Nate Diaz really started this after his Fight Night bout when he suggested that “somebody” should stop being a “weak-ass punk” and fight his brother. Personally, I assumed that Nate was referring to British punk rocker Johnny Rotten, but now that I think about it Noons’ interpretation really makes more sense.

(Nick’s just going to proofread this sucker before sending it out.)

Did Elite XC hold some kind of writing workshop for their fighters’ and their fighters’ camps recently? Maybe one with a special seminar on “Shit-talking statements and rebuttals”? Because suddenly it seems like everyone under the Elite XC banner is putting pen to paper to bash someone else. Not that we’re complaining.

The Gracie camp — home to Nick Diaz — is the latest to get in on the act. KJ Noons’ statement listing his grievances with Elite XC made mention of Diaz several times, and you didn’t think he was going to be able to do that without waking the beast, did you? We’re a little disappointed that this is coming from Diaz’s camp and not Nick himself, who has been known to do some really great work in the ‘stream of consciousness’ field of shit-talking, but we’ll take what we can get.

On Noons’ claim that Elite XC failed to promote his boxing career, as promised:

1) Earth to KJ; you don’t have a boxing career. No one in the boxing world knows who you are. 2) Another MMA company would have paid you less and not given you a title shot, especially when you were 1-1. 3) If you will not fight Diaz due to a breach of contract by EliteXC then why would you fight Alvarez for the same terms?

On Noons’ insistence that Elite XC isn’t promoting him, instead asking Diaz to sign baseball cards for the DVD of their fight:

1) Nick Diaz, Jake Shields and Frank Shamrock were flown in to shoot an instructional trailer on grappling for the CBS show. The signings were an after thought. You weren’t flown in because you aren’t a grappler. We are sure they will fly you in if they need an instructional on whining. 2) Your contract was for Showtime. Diaz and Shields both signed longer deals for CBS. Nathan Diaz signed a special long term contract for Spike TV etc…This is a business not Burger King, you can’t have it ‘your way’.

(Backstage at ShoXC.)

KJ Noons thinks he has it bad in Elite XC, he should talk to some of the fighters on the last ShoXC card. The California State Athletic Commission released the full disclosed payout for the August 15 event, and there isn’t a fighter on there who cracked $10,000. The list of people not to try and borrow money from looks like this:

Jared Hamman ($8,000) def. Po’ai Suganuma ($5,000)
Fabricio Camoes ($6,000) def. Sammy Morgan ($4,000)
Rosi Sexton ($3,260) def. Debi Purcell ($4,000)
Ray Lizama ($6,000) def. Keith Berry ($2,000)
David Douglas ($3,000) def. William Jacobson ($800)
Lucas Gamaza ($3,000) def. Kenny Johnson ($2,000)
Jesse Brock ($3,000) def. Josh Rave ($1,000)
Robert Vargas ($2,000) def. Ralph Lopez ($1,000)
Katrina Alendale ($1,500) def. Melanie La’Croix ($1,000)

Underpaid: Pretty much everybody, though if we’re going to get specific we could point to Rosi Sexton, who made less than the opponent she defeated, or poor (literally) William Jacobson, who was the only fighter on the card pulling in less than four figures. Let’s hope Jacobson has another job and was just dabbling in MMA to make enough money to buy that really nice ping pong table he’s had his eye on.

Overpaid: There are no Rockefellers on this list, not even anyone who can reasonably afford Rocawear. Though I guess if it’s all relative, Ray Lizama’s six grand is pretty decent for a guy who is just over .500 for his career.

KJ Noons became the latest Elite XC fighter to release an official statement, as he finally dished on what’s been keeping him from taking a fight with Nick Diaz on the October 4 CBS show. Noons sent his screed to MMANews.com, and it is full of fun little quips and nuggets about life in Elite XC. Noons’ grievances range from the financial to the probably merely perceived to the petty, but he puts it all out there with enough attitude and anger to make up for all the time he let Jared Shaw run his mouth without consequences. Among his complaints:

In the Elite XC’s DVD where Diaz and I fought there are two (2) baseball cards of Diaz and Kimbo. Hello! I won the fight and Elite XC’s promoting Diaz after I beat him? Or how about the day Elite XC flew Diaz in to do a signing on the DVD where he lost. Wow, that must have been uncomfortable Nick? Signing a DVD, and it is a fight that you lost. Why wasn’t I flown in for the signing?

[...]

Consider when Elite XC gives a couple thousand tickets away at their CBS show in Stockton.
Elite XC gives me a hard time about comping me one extra ticket for my cousin that helped me train for my fight. I only get four tickets per show. I am the main event in Honolulu, my home town! I did not ask for any tickets for my family and friends and they gave me a hard time about one extra ticket!

Or how about when Elite XC brought Diaz into the ring after my last victory in Hawaii to disrespect me and my family.

Chuck Champion (President Elite XC) threatens me, my family and my manager with lawsuits and how he’s going to sue me. HAHA. Pretty hard to sue a guy who does not make jack with your company. I’m glad $kala disclosed how much I make, which breached the confidentiality clause of the contract. I will break down the real numbers for you. I am the defending world champ, I have been the main event for Elite XC three out of four times on Showtime. In almost two years I have made approximately $83,000?

Of course, Noons then goes on to tread familiar ground for fighters, explaining that he has to pay his trainers and managers and (gasp!) taxes with that money, so he figures he’s really only making around $300 a week, and his friends who are bus boys make more than that (he really said that).

The Diaz situation rears its ugly head in all of this, and it seems that their request to have Noons face him in a rematch on CBS was what really set “King Karl” off:

(“Yeah man, so this is like, one of the *actual tires* that came off of Rampage’s truck. No shit. Got it off Craigslist.” Photo of The Grim by Esther Lin.)

Nick Diaz and Brett Rogers won’t be sitting on their hands waiting for their arch-rivals KJ Noons and Kimbo Slice to become available — MMA Junkie reports that both fighters have been scheduled to appear at EliteXC’s November 8th event, which will be broadcast on Showtime. Their opponents haven’t been announced yet, but EliteXC’s Jared Shaw confirmed that Joey Villasenor will also be part of the event; rumor has it that he could face Robbie Lawler for the middleweight title.

Speaking of the Showtime card, FiveOuncesofPain reports that EliteXC wants to add Eddie Alvarez to the lineup, and build up to a fight for the vacated lightweight title if him and Nick Diaz win their fights and KJ Noons continues to be a problem. Side note: Before Diaz competes again for EliteXC, he’ll head to Japan to battle Hayato “Mach” Sakurai at DREAM.6 (September 23rd; Saitama, Japan) for DREAM’s welterweight title. In other EliteXC news…

— A fight between Cristiane “Cris Cyborg” Santos and Yoko Takahashi has been officially added to the undercard of Saturday Night Fights III on October 4th. If time permits, the match will be shown on the broadcast on a tape-delay basis. Cyborg vows to improve on her last performance by knocking Takahashi out three times in the first round.

— EliteXC’s heavyweight champ Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva has released a longer statement about his steroid bust. Some highlights:

(Have you seen me?)

First Nick Diaz implored him not to be scared, homey. Then Jared Shaw went looking for him on the back of a milk carton. Now even Fabricio Camoes is getting in on the K.J. Noons bashfest. Maybe the force of public opinion will be enough to force Noons into a fight after all. You just have to wonder how much longer he can stand criticism like this:

“I’m waiting, I’m looking forward to fight him (KJ Noons). Inside EliteXC everybody had the chance and lost, but I’m here. I’m with six victories, two inside Elite and want to face him… I came to get his belt…I don’t know if he’ll accept a fight with me. They offered Nick Diaz and he didn’t wanted. The event is negotiating to try to put me to fight, I hope he accepts it”, said Fabricio [Camoes].

“The champion of the event picking the opponents… The champ has to fight whoever the event wants. Nick Diaz has qualities to steal his belt, and I want to get into this battle too. If you have the belt, you need to be prepared to fight everybody. Every fighter that goes to EliteXC wants to fight for the belt, nobody signs a contract thinking about fighting the worst opponent.”

Honestly, Noons needs to break his silence soon. Otherwise he risks going down in MMA lore as the champion who wouldn’t fight. It’s one thing to have Nick Diaz call you out. All that means is that you have a pulse. But when mid-level guys like Fabricio Camoes start implying that you may or may not be a total pussy, then you’re about one step away from being called out by Rue McClanahan.

For his own sake, Noons should at least let everyone know why he doesn’t want to defend his belt, whether it has to do with money, choice of opponents, or general disdain for Elite XC. Something, please. Even if he said he was quitting fighting to study jazz tap, that would still be better than nothing. We don’t want to say that he’s a punk, but he has been displaying some very punk-like qualities as of late.

Perhaps the most talented of the unsigned IFL fighters out there — featherweight champ Wagnney Fabiano — may have finally found a new home. Tatame reports that the Brazilian has signed with the WEC, supposedly to fight in the bantamweight division. That already seems a little fishy, and then you add in this garbled quote from Fabiano that mentions WEC featherweight champ Urijah Faber, and it seems like there might be a slight mistranslation problem:

“My objectives is to grown in the event and get the title. Let’s start with a tough and focused work. It won’t chance anything in my life, I’m always serious and go to any event to win. My goal is to fight for the belt and do my best”, said the athlete, that analyzed the champion, Urijah Faber.

“Faber is the best of the world now. To beat him, I think you have to be in a good shape. He’s an expert fighter and he has a good gas, it’s complicated to beat a guy like him. You have to set a good game plan and be calm and watch the elbows, because if you hits you can change a whole fight.”

Well, I’m officially confused. Either Fabiano is planning to drop down to 135 pounds and the remarks about Faber were just for kicks, or Tatame has it wrong and he’s really signing on as a featherweight. With the WEC hurting for challengers to Faber’s throne, the latter seems more likely.

- In other news, MMA Rated reports that the KJ Noons-Nick Diaz bout that Elite XC had hoped to add to their October 4 event on CBS is now officially off. Elite XC VP Jared Shaw said the organization was unable to come to terms with Noons’ agent, Mark Dion, and added that throughout the entire process no one from Elite XC was able to personally speak with Noons. Shaw said they wouldn’t be stripping Noons of the lightweight title just yet, but expressed hope that he would “wake up and smell the Hawaiian coffee.” That’s the kind of remark that should convince him to come around.

(Grow some bushido, y’pansy.)

“I guess they were trying to get Aoki, but he’s got no bushido. I don’t think Aoki wants to fight me. He’s got no warrior spirit. He’s from Japan, who would have thought?” — Jake Shields issues his own “Don’t be scared, homey” to Shinya Aoki, who allegedly turned down an offer to fight EliteXC’s welterweight champ.

“This is the flaw with American fans. On the one hand, the American fan is incredibly intelligent and gets the game and understands what’s going on, but literally the other hand is, the other 50 percent of them are morons who have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.” — Frank Trigg on the superiority of Japanese MMA fans.

“To be honest he was really slippery and I don’t mean that like technically-wise, he was really slippery. I don’t know, I don’t want to speculate and say that something was used or whatever but he was just hard to hang on to and that was from all the positions. Even when I had him in like a headlock or a guillotine everything was just really slippery…all I know is I’m good at keeping those positions and I know the difference between sweat and something else and it felt like something else but who knows. (Jokingly) Maybe it’s Albolene left over from the day before from the weight cut!” — Kenny Florian politely accuses Roger Huerta of being a filthy, greasy cheater.

“I would say the only guarantee K.J. has is to pull up a chair and watch the event and get comfortable on that chair because he’ll be sitting for a little bit.” — EliteXC VP Jared Shaw on K.J. Noons’s options if he declines the fight with Nick Diaz.

(You thought the fight was messy…)

Three KJ Noons stories in one day? It feels like that episode of “The Twilight Zone” where everyone looked like pigs except for the one blonde girl, only instead of everyone looking like pigs they’re all talking about KJ Noons, which is even crazier. I don’t know who would be the blonde girl in this analogy, but you get the point.

Insane though it may be, this is too good not to report. You remember the deadline put forth by Jared Shaw? Where he said KJ Noons had until 5 pm today to agree to the bout with Nick Diaz, and if he didn’t he would face the dreaded “public opinion” as a consequence? Well, get your opinions ready, because according to Noons’ manager, Mark Dion, they aren’t concerned in the least with Shaw’s ultimatum:

“The update on [the deadline] is nothing is going to happen with it,” Dion said. “That’s what’s going to happen with that. I don’t care about how many threats [Shaw] wants to pull. We’ll be doing a press conference if EliteXC doesn’t see the light here pretty soon and if Shaw doesn’t stop talking [expletive].”

“As far as Nick Diaz, he’s not the No. 1 contender out there,” Dion said. “To [EliteXC] he is. He’s the number one (for getting) eyeballs to (watch) them. They’re pushing on eyeballs versus a career move for a champion like KJ. KJ is really not the one who gets anything out of the fight. Diaz does and so does ProElite.”

“We’ll do a press conference to discuss everything,” Dion said. “But there’s nothing in it for KJ unless [EliteXC] finally wakes up a little bit. That’s why we’ll have a press conference. I don’t like to talk and beat a company that’s already beat down. I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully they’ll see the light.”

Looks like the relationship between KJ Noons/Mark Dion and Elite XC/Jared Shaw just went from unfriendly to straight-up hostile. Dion just had to go and mention that Pro Elite is struggling. That’s like bringing someone’s mother into the argument. Now this thing is personal.

Strangely, it seems as if Jared Shaw’s strategy of openly insulting Elite XC lightweight champion KJ Noons in the press isn’t compelling him to play nice with the organization. Weird. Even the ultimatum — and everyone loves being issued an ultimatum — hasn’t convinced him to sign the bout agreement. So what is Noons planning to do?

According to a report from MMANews.com, nothing much for the time being. But it doesn’t sound as if Shaw’s remarks are helping any:

“A few things will be settled over the next few days,” Noons told MMANews.com “but for now we’ll just let Jared Shaw go off on his little rants and let him have his fun, this isn’t bothering me.”

“I just need a couple more days to get this stuff worked out and then I will be able to say my piece and clear my name of everything that is being said and everything that is going on.”

That doesn’t exactly sound like a man who’s eager to sign a bout agreement. That sounds more like a man looking for a way out. Apparently he isn’t moved by Shaw’s threat to make him “face public opinion.” Maybe he realized that if Jared “$kala” Shaw hasn’t been destroyed by public opinion yet, it’s not quite the all-powerful force it’s being made out to be.

(Noons: More elusive than Machida? Photo courtesy of Combat Lifestyle.)

Jared Shaw has had enough. The EliteXC vice president told MMA Junkie that KJ Noons has been given one more day to accept an October 4th title fight with Nick Diaz. “A bout agreement has been sent to KJ Noons,” Shaw said. “He has until 5 (p.m. PT Thursday) to accept it, or he can face public opinion.”

In a longer interview with MMA Junkie posted yesterday evening, Shaw strongly criticized Noons and his management for their unwillingness to commit to the Diaz fight. Some highlights:

“I’m sitting here and I’m drinking from a carton of milk right now. And the EliteXC lightweight champion KJ Noons’ face is on the back of this milk carton because he’s missing in action. I can’t seem to find him.”

“Since day one [Noons' manager] Mark Dion has been insinuating that EliteXC has been out to get KJ Noons. I just can’t figure that out. When a guy appears on the very first card — and the very first fight gets knocked out in the very first round off the very first punch — and we’re there to hold his hand and pick him back up and put him right back on television in a main event on ShoXC? And then when he’s 1-1, get him right back into a main event situation for the world championship against Nick Diaz, the legend who beat Gomi, how are you going to say that we’re not trying to help your kid? What more opportunity could we give the kid?”

When Nick Diaz rails on about how KJ Noons is ducking him, we generally chalk it up to Nick being his usual abrasive self. Turns out it’s not just trash-talk — EliteXC has been desperately trying to set up a rematch between the two 160-pounders for its October 4th show on CBS, but Noons’s management isn’t even returning EliteXC’s phone calls. Said Jared Shaw:

“I don’t understand it. This fight on CBS is maximum exposure and the opportunity for maximum sponsorship dollars, way more than he could make on Showtime. At this point, I question his management…For some reason (his camp) is not coming straight out and saying no, but they are making it very difficult to make it happen. His manager doesn’t want us talking to him directly. Who knows what K.J. even knows about the situation, but his management is holding us hostage…K.J. signed a contract. All we want is for him to honor that contract, fight on October 4th on CBS, and prove that he’s the champion we think he is. Right now, he’s not representing us as the EliteXC champion.”

You may recall that Noons previously had major contract disputes with EliteXC related to him appearing on CBS cards, so there’s surely more to this story, as much as Diaz would like to believe that Noons is simply terrified of him. But whatever Noons’s motives are, avoiding this fight seems like an offense worthy of a belt-stripping. EliteXC needs the heat from this matchup to boost their third CBS card, which is a do-or-die moment for the organization in some ways. If Noons can’t fulfill the responsibilities of a champion, he’s basically useless to them. Besides, wouldn’t KJ want to prove that his cut-stoppage TKO over Diaz last November was more than a bullshit technicality? Is he cool with being a paper champ?

(‘Where’s my money, homey?’)

In a new post on Graciefighter.com, a media outlet which might be slightly biased in favor of Nick Diaz, Stockton’s favorite son is said to be looking for a fight and an overdue paycheck. The site claims that Diaz passed his drug test for “Elite XC: Unfinished Business” — good news, assuming it’s true — but he is still waiting on his fight purse for his last bout in Dream. He beat Katsuya Inoue back in May, though the site says he hasn’t received “a cent” in payment for his work.

Can you really do that if you’re running a major MMA promotion? I’d hate to think of what happens if you don’t pay one of the Diaz brothers for a fight. Something tells me it involves you waking up wrapped in duct tape while they stand over you with their middle fingers in your face. Terrifying.

It’s a shame, too, since Diaz is supposedly hoping to face off against Hayoto Sakurai in September if he can’t convince KJ Noons to give him a rematch for the Elite XC title at the organization’s next big show on October 4. All this waiting around means Diaz doesn’t have a fight lined up for August, and since he seems to want to fight at least once a month, in between triathlons, he’s slated to put the gi back on and do some jiu-jitsu tournaments. Say what you will about Nick Diaz, he does work, son.

(Props: Five Ounces of Pain)

(Photo courtesy of Complex.)

When we last saw Nick Diaz, he was whipping Muhsin Corbbrey at EliteXC: The Return of the King, and advising KJ Noons not to be frightened. Diaz gets back into the cage this Saturday at the second installment of EliteXC’s “Saturday Night Fights” (CBS, 9 p.m. ET/PT), and while he won’t be settling his grudge with Noons, he’ll be facing the very tough Thomas Denny in front of a rabid hometown crowd at the Stockton Arena. The always outspoken Cesar Gracie-trained fighter recently chatted with us about the origins of his bad attitude, why MMA fights should be held in a ring, and why steroids should be legal.

***

CAGEPOTATO.COM: Are you disappointed that you’re not fighting KJ Noons on Saturday?
NICK DIAZ: Sure. I want to get that fight over and done with as soon as I can. But I gotta handle the Denny fight first, because if I don’t win it won’t look too good on my part, as far as a future fight with KJ goes. But KJ doesn’t want to fight me — he likes to pick his fights. I figure the only way he’ll fight me is if they make him do it, so I gotta be the guy in line.

Have you seen anything in Thomas Denny’s game that concerns you?
Well, everything concerns me. He’s a good fighter. But I’m ready for this type of guy. I know I train harder than him. I don’t have time to run a school and teach kids; he seems to have time to do a lot of things. It’s a lot to have on the table if you’re trying to be a professional fighter too.

The California State Athletic Commission is notorious for pulling fighters at the last minute — you went through it yourself back in March. How are you dealing with the CSAC this time so that you don’t have to experience that again?
I don’t have an issue with them. It was a big misunderstanding — the commission apologized and we’re all cool. It cost me a lot of money, but let’s get past it. I’ve forgotten about it pretty much.

So your medical marijuana card won’t be a problem this time?
No, not at all. It was never a problem before. I planned on testing clean in the last fight, and I’m going to test clean in this fight like all the other fighters, so that’s not even an issue. You get some of your freedoms screwed with, with the commission being as tight and all. But they own the shit and they run the shit. They’ve been manipulating us from the beginning. We’re not stupid, and I feel like we should stand up for our rights. If guys want to do steroids in this sport, then power to ‘em. I don’t do steroids, I’m not into chemicals or needles, it completely freaks me out. I don’t even do Advil. But if these guys want to do steroids, I would like them to do steroids.

The UFC’s reluctance to put on female fights became a topic for discussion on Tuesday’s Elite XC conference call. Shayna Baszler and Christiane Cyborg, who will square off on the CBS portion of the card, each had different though equally telling responses:

QUESTION: When asked if he has any interest in setting up any female divisions in the UFC, Dana White politely questioned the depth of talent. What is your response to that?

Shayna Baszler: I don’t care what Dana White has to say. If he wants to question the depth of talent; that is just going to give companies like EliteXC one more thing to tap into that he’s not. He wants to question the depth of the female division, but every fight, every female fight that ProElite has put on has been a showcase of women’s talent and has been “fight of the night” type material. If he wants to give that avenue to others to pursue, then, fine. The more the merrier. I don’t care. I just want to fight the best. I don’t know, if he wants to question that, then I’d question the talent of his heavyweight division.

Cristiane Cyborg: I’d love to fight Dana White to show him how tough women are.

Oh, snap! Ok, not really. He never questioned their toughness, which makes me think Cyborg misunderstood the question, and there is probably just as much reason to question the depth of women’s MMA as there is to question the depth of the UFC’s current heavyweight division, so we’ll rule that one a tie for the moment.

(‘I’m fighting who, now? You sure?’)

Remember when Nick Diaz and KJ Noons (along with KJ Noons’ dad) got into it after the last Elite XC event in Hawaii and it all seemed like a staged confrontation designed to build up a rematch between them for the July 26 show on CBS? And then remember how Elite XC announced that the event would be in Stockton, Ca., Diaz’s hometown, but instead of Noons, Diaz would be fighting Thomas “Wildman” Denny? Remember how weird and completely counter-intuitive that seemed?

Yeah, well, apparently Denny couldn’t believe it either. As he told MMA Rated, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense:

I was really surprised. I kinda think everybody agreed with that, you know the little thing that happened, the little eruption afterwards or whatever. Nick is a showman. I don’t know if you know; he means it all the time. But he comes off as kind of a jackass and a lot of people don’t think he has a lot of class in the sport, and that little eruption that happened afterwards and flipping people off and whatever, I thought, “Man, yeah, they’ll definitely book that”. But I guess Noons wants some time off and wants to take the fight serious, where Nick wants to fight as much as he can.

Good work, Elite XC. Even your fighters are baffled by your decisions.

Denny is doing his part to turn up the heat in advance of his bout with Diaz though, and he didn’t stop at calling Diaz “kind of a jackass.” No, he’s just getting started.

(Let the search for an opponent begin.)

Elite XC officially announced its July 26 event in a press release sent out to the media today, noting that the card will feature three title fights: Robbie Lawler-Scott Smith for the middleweight title, Jake Shields-Nick Thompson for the vacant welterweight title, and Antonio Silva-TBA for the newly created Elite XC heavyweight title. Because nothing says ‘this belt isn’t very important‘ like announcing a title fight with only one participant a month out from the fight.

The Silva bout, along with two others, will air live on Showtime. The other two title fights will air live on CBS alongside two other bouts.

Said Pro Elite Executive Chairman Doug DeLuca, “One venue, two networks and seven exciting world class fights adds up to an entertaining and memorable mixed martial arts event in prime time.”

That one venue is the Stockton Arena in Stockton, Calif., home to such sports teams as the Stockton Thunder and the Stockton Lightning.

As you may have guessed, the Nick Diaz-Thomas Denny bout is one that Elite XC is relying on to drive ticket sales, and it is expected to be one of the four bouts featured live on CBS. We had originally hoped that Diaz would face Elite XC 160-pound champ KJ Noons on the card, but after Noons’ father’s negative remarks about the Diaz brothers and the city of Stockton, it’s may be best for that not to happen.

There’s also word that CBS is using its increased financial stake in the company to try and influence matchmaking. CBS apparently felt there weren’t enough stars on this card and MMA Payout claims it has sources attesting to “significant internal pressure” to put a big name like Gina Carano on this event in order to generate more fan interest.

According to GracieFighter.com, Nick Diaz will no longer be fighting Hayato “Mach” Sakurai at DREAM.5 (July 21st; Osaka, Japan) for the league’s vacant welterweight title, due to contractual obligations with EliteXC: “Apparently EliteXC has other plans for Diaz and the July date might conflict with their plans.” You could probably figure out what those plans are, but for the record, sources have informed FiveOuncesofPain that a rematch between Diaz and K.J. Noons for EliteXC’s 160-pound title will be added to the next “Saturday Night Fights” broadcast on July 26th.

Though the event was initially rumored to be held in St. Louis, it looks like that idea is being scrapped, as several major sporting events (including a monster truck rally; go figure) are already scheduled to take place in the Gateway City around that time. Now, the buzz is that the Diaz/Noons bout will take place somewhere in Stockton, California, the city that spawned those rotten Diaz brothers. Obviously, it’s a wise move from a marketing standpoint — just as EliteXC’s “Street Certified” event featuring Kimbo Slice was a hit in Kimbo’s hometown of Miami, and “Shamrock vs. Le” did bang-up business in San Jose, Nick Diaz’s rabid civic pride could translate into a wild sellout crowd in Stockton, which would be a perfect backdrop to a live television event (providing that there are no riots in the arena, of course).

At this point, EliteXC: Unfinished Business (working title) will still be headlined by the middleweight championship rematch between Robbie Lawler and Scott Smith, as well as Jake Shields vs. TBA for the vacant welterweight belt.

(Photo courtesy of Complex.com)

From the OC Register’s “Keep Punching” blog, via MMA Mania:

“I’m trying to fight (Hayato) Sakurai, I’m trying to fight K.J. Noons, I’m trying to fight Anderson Silva, I’m trying to fight everybody. I’m trying to fight Georges (expletive) St. (expletive) Pierre. I’m trying to fight … I didn’t mean to call Georges a (expletive), but I ain’t got no problem getting there and fighting the best people in the world. Georges is a nice guy. I’m trying to fight Jon Fitch, I’m trying to fight Silva, I’m trying to fight K.J. Noons, I’m trying to fight everybody. I’m trying to fight Takanori Gomi, Sakurai, I’m trying to (expletive) everybody up. (Expletive) this (expletive). This is (expletive) gangster (expletive) warfare. I don’t give a (expletive). You know what I mean?

I don’t mean to sound like … this is … you know … people need to grow up and be mature enough to handle this (expletive). If they can’t and their eyes are not old enough to handle my cuss words and to handle the reality ofo what my life is really about, then don’t (expletive) watch. Because I’m tired of hearing about this and that about how I’m a (expletive) punk and I’m this and that and I’m (expletive) stupid because I didn’t go to school and I don’t know how to talk without (expletive) cussing and say the F-word every five minutes. If you can’t handle it, then don’t listen to me. I don’t give a (expletive).

I’m here to fight. I’m not trying to be a movie star. I’m not trying to wear a (expletive) suit like K.J. Noons. I’ll save my money to buy some (expletive) weed. You know what I mean? I’m trying to enhance the quality of my living. That’s the same reason why I will fight people, I will get high, because that’s a higher quality of life. You know what I mean? I don’t (expletive) do drugs and I don’t do no (expletive). You know what I mean? I’m trying to enhance the quality of my living. Whatever is going to do that. I’m not down for (expletive) chemicals. You know what I mean? I’m down for whatever is going to do it. If fighting and whatever else I do and saying (expletive) you, and being able to do that and still make money, you know, sounding ignorant.

“People are going to think I’m ignorant. But you know what … it’s actually … who is ignorant when you are not the one who understands this sarcasm? You know what I mean? You are just not up to par on how people talk these days or something. Open your eyes and look at the real (expletive) world. Look at the world I live in. That’s all I’m saying.”

And so on, and so on, and (expletive) so on…