(Come on…hasn’t Mark Hunt suffered enough?)

Tomorrow night in San Jose, Josh Barnett will face the greatest challenge of his post-PRIDE career when he meets Daniel Cormier in the finals of Strikeforce’s World Heavyweight Grand Prix. (FYI, we’ll be liveblogging the Showtime main card starting at 10 p.m. ET, so don’t make any big plans.) Barnett’s comfort-level in the cage and catch-wrestling expertise have led him on a four-year winning streak, and one more victory could earn him an improbable return to the UFC. In honor of this pivotal moment for the Warmaster, we decided to round up his five greatest submissions. Enjoy, and shoot us your predictions for Barnett vs. Cormier in the comments section…

(Josh Barnett vs. Semmy Schilt; UFC 32, 6/29/01)

Barnett’s first submission in the Octagon came against gigantic kickboxer Semmy Schilt, who had made his UFC debut the previous month by smashing Pete Williams. Wisely, Barnett avoids the standup game entirely, immediately taking the Dutchman to the mat. Schilt is absolutely helpless underneath the Babyface Assassin, and eventually gives up mount. Barnett waits for the right moment then attacks Schilt’s arm, giving up position in the process. It doesn’t matter — Barnett sinks the armbar at the 4:21 mark of the first round and establishes himself as a fearsome heavyweight grappler.

(It was like this, but even more terrifying.) 

It’s been a while since we’ve heard from former Strikeforce Women’s featherweight champion Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos. In the fallout of her sixteen second destruction of Hiroko Yamanaka and subsequent positive steroid test that saw her stripped of her title, “Cyborg” has been laying low, quietly awaiting her April 9th appeal and the chance to smash Ronda Rousey for her insolence.

In the meantime, it looks like the former champ has decided to broaden her training horizons, if you will, now incorporating a regular diet of Japanese game show hosts and comedians to satiate her overwhelming desire to kill. In fact, she recently appeared on the Japanese show Honoo no Taiikukai to demonstrate that she is just as strong without anabolic steroids coursing through her veins by taking on a…male Japanese comedian? Believe it or not, the match was surprisingly competitive for the most part, until Cyborg decided to go all Courtney Korpela on the poor bastard.

Join us after the jump for the full video, along with the Sergei Kharitonov/Mark Miller match from last weekend’s United Glory 15 card, and much more. 

United Glory announced today that it will be postponing its planned October “World Series” event until December and that the first show of the 2011-2012 kickboxing and MMA tournament, which will happen in Moscow, will feature Golden Glory standouts Semmy Schilt, Sergei Kharitonov, Siyar Bahadurzada and Errol Zimmerman.

(“Cormier has been fighting how long and he made how much?!” -Photo courtesy of Ric Fogel/ESPN.com)

Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix finalist Josh Barnett’s $150,000 salary accounted for 16 percent of the $942,150 payroll of Saturday night’s Strikeforce: Barnett vs. Kharitonov event in Cincinnati. The man Barnett defeated, Sergei Kharitonov and his fellow HWGP finalist Daniel Cormier both tied for the second best paid fighters of the night with $100,000 a piece for their efforts, followed closely by Muhammed “King Mo” Lawal who received a flat fee of $85,000 for his win over Roger Gracie, who got $80,000.

Newly-crowned Strikeforce middleweight champ Luke Rockhold netted $50,000 for his win over Ronaldo Souza, who took home $70,000 and no belt.

(Props: shosports)

In case you missed the action on Saturday night. After the jump: Full videos of Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov and Daniel Cormier vs. Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Check ‘em out while they last…

King Mo, during the UFC application process post-fight interview. Props: Showtime Sports

Last night, the real story behind “Barnet vs. Kharitonov had nothing to do with the heavyweight grand prix. It had nothing to do with the middleweight championship of a sinking organization. Last night, as with every other Strikeforce show since the promotion was purchased by Zuffa, was little more than an audition. It was about who will get a UFC contract when Strikeforce goes under, and who will have to go through TUF. The fans knew it, the announcers knew it, going as far as confirming the Belfort vs. Le rumor, and the fighters definitely knew it.

Despite Strikeforce’s best efforts to hype Josh Barnett vs. Sergei Kharitonov as a potentially close fight, we all knew what to expect: A repeat of Kharitonov vs. Monson, except with a far superior version of Jeff Monson. Because of this, it’s hard to be impressed with anything that Josh Barnett does at this point. The tournament’s biggest names and most intriguing matchups for Barnett- Fedor, Werdum and Overeem- were all removed well before last night. Barnett has become such an overwhelming favorite to win that when he wins, he’s simply living up to expectations. He was paired up against an opponent with weak grappling credentials, knew he would dominate the fight once Kharitonov was on the ground, and fought accordingly. At least the tournament was set up so that he would get to face a competent grappler in the finals.

(Dan Cormier does a dead-on impression of how his face is going to look after he gets hit with one of those fists. / Photo via MMAFighting.com)

Tonight, four big-ass dudes become two, and we mean that in the straightest way possible. Strikeforce’s lovably meaningless heavyweight tournament reaches its semi-final phase tonight at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cicinnati, Ohio, supported by a middleweight title fight and a compelling light-heavyweight feature between Muhammad “King Mo” Lawal and Roger Gracie.

Round-by-round results for the “Barnett vs. Kharitonov” Showtime main card will be piling up after the jump starting at 10:30 p.m. ET. CagePotato liveblog-mercenary Matt Kaplan will be handling business tonight, so please make him feel welcome, and refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

Man, it’s been a crazy week, huh? Between the UFC 137 lineup shuffle and the announcement of Alistair Overeem’s entry into the UFC, you may have forgotten that the Strikeforce Heavyweight Grand Prix Semi-Finals are going down tomorrow night at the U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati. We’ll be liveblogging the action starting at 10:30 p.m. ET, so don’t be a stranger.

MMAFighting was on the scene yesterday for the “Barnett vs. Kharitonov” press conference, and released the above highlight video. Skip to the 1:33 mark to see Daniel Cormier give away his gameplan against Antonio Silva; lots of laughs there. Later, King Mo says what everybody’s thinking: “I was hoping more people [would be] out here, more media, and more questions, but really I guess y’all don’t care about us that much. I’m just keeping it real. Me and Roger [Gracie] gonna put on a good fight, it’s gonna be a good card. I think people are gonna miss out on it because everybody’s worried about other issues instead of the fights this weekend. I’m just being real.”

Also on the card, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza defends his middleweight belt against Luke Rockhold — who hasn’t competed since February 2010 due to injuries — and Maximo Blanco makes his promotional debut against Pat Healy. The complete lineup is after the jump.

(If Aleks hadn’t gone and contracted Hep C, they could have sorted things out the old fashioned way. – vid courtesy of YouTube/Sakuraba78)

When Russians fight, they don’t beat around the bush.

In an interview he did over the weekend with Valetudo.ru in which he responded to claims from Aleksander Emelianenko that his brother’s loss to Dan Henderson over the weekend was the fault of Fedor’s trainers, Sergei Kharitonov called Lil’ Emel “a drunken, diseased drug addict who wasn’t raised properly and who was a mistake.”

“When I read his interview I laughed out loud. Although he is 30 years old and that’s certainly not the reason for laughter. Firstly, for guys like Aleks I am not ‘Serezha’ but rather ‘Sergei Valeryevich.’ Secondly, it’s about time for him to learn how to compress thoughts and, above all, to think before he speaks. He didn’t get a proper upbringing, I guess, but I don’t want to go deeper in it – he doesn’t deserve so much honor. He is a great trash-talker, but real fighters prove their strength in the ring. Aleks is a drinker, he is always brawling. Normal men like me or Fedor would never drink to alcoholic mania and fight in the street. But I often hear about Aleks getting into scraps like this in different corners of our country,” he says. “He rampages, harasses the waitresses and other girls, lies, cries on every corner that he is a champion of the world and the strongest man on Earth. I guess, this is some kind of a drug effect.”

United Glory announced today that Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem is slated to compete in its next event scheduled for October in Moscow, Russia.

According to the poster for the event, “The Reem” will be joined by fellow Golden Glory fighters Sergei Kharitonov and Siyar Bahadurzada on the card.

VidProps: BloodstreamMMA100/YouTube

Strikeforce is forging ahead with this crazy “Grand Prix” gimmick — no telling how they came up with a concept like that, but props to them — and the semifinals could go down in September. If everything goes according to plan, the event should be packed with good matchups. Let’s take a look.

The heavyweight GP will continue with Alistair Overeem squaring off with Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva, and “War Master” Josh Barnett against “The Russian Concussion” Sergei Kharitonov. Those two fights alone would be enough to carry a card, but Coker and company want to make it worth your while to watch, so they’ve continued to put together bouts with an eye on producing a blockbuster.

Every other bout currently rumored for the show features a current or former champion for the Strikeforce banner, including a title match for current middleweight champ “Jacare” Souza.

(Props: Ariel Helwani)

“You know what, it was not the most exciting, but in terms of from where I was at, it was perfect. Basically, I put him on ground, and after I started feeling him out, feeling his energy underneath me, I knew that he had a lot of umph, he had a lot of guts, he had a lot of gusto, so any opening, any transition, any big movement, it was going to be met by a lot of explosive force.

We could then end up in some scrambles, spend energy I don’t want to, it’s unnecessary, so instead, get him bucking, get him using that energy. And I have quite heavy hips, which is a very common staple of catch-as-catch-can [wrestling], wearing people out — not just with strikes or submissions or holds — but with your overall body positioning.

Mark Miller wastes no time knocking out Nikolaj Falin. Props: MMATKO

Chances are that you knew about the United Glory Tournament Finals that took place yesterday in Moscow. It featured some pretty intriguing fights, was available on YouTube and cost less than ten bucks. Of course, many of you figured you could save your money and check Cage Potato this afternoon for some highlights and a quick list of results. Don’t worry, we got your back as usual.

The welterweight tournament, which began in October of 2010, came to an end with a scrap between Golden Glory teammates Tommy Depret and Siyar Bahadurzada. To those of you who have concerns that two teammates fighting each other would lead to a boring fight, relax and take notes. Tommy Depret gave current SHOOTO light heavyweight champion Siyar Bahadurzada trouble in the opening round, but once the second round started, this fight was all Bahadurzada. Bahadurzada used his superior hands and clinchwork to get finish off Depret. Yes, we have a video of this after the jump.

(Video courtesy of YouTube/FightGameTV)

Just a friendly reminder that Golden Glory is hosting the last round of its 2010/2011 United Glory tournament Saturday afternoon in Moscow, so if you’re looking for something to do to kill some time before UFC 130, you can check out the pay-per-view on YouTube for $7.95 USD.

(Fedor Emelianenko vs. Antonio Silva)

(Sergei Kharitonov vs. Andrei Arlovski)

(Somehow, “Ostentatious Jacket of Crushing Defeat” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. PicProps: Strikeforce)

If Saturday night truly turns out to be Fedor Emelianenko’s swan song in mixed martial arts, the saddest part will be that we had to watch him go out on a live Strikeforce broadcast that can only be described as a terrible abortion. I mean, holy shit that was bad. From Gus Johnson showing up dressed as a beautiful woman to the horribly awkward interviews with Fedor/Gina Carano to the dreadfully anticlimactic end to the main event to the announce team desperately trying to close the show ad-libbing about Sergei Kharitonov – “He looked like a young Fedor!” Johnson said (Editor’s note: No, he didn’t) — it pretty much couldn’t have been any worse. And that doesn’t even begin to consider the fact that Emelianenko lost to a guy who just almost lost to Mike Kyle.

Even still, we’re going to avoid going full-on, tearful retrospective for a bit here. Though the man himself hinted that “maybe it’s time to leave” during his postfight interview it could have just been the initial depression and lingering effects of so many blows to the head talking. Give Fedor some time to get back to the Sport Palace and whip up on some pre-pubescent sambo white belts – and let Vadim Finkelstein start dropping hints about how that mortgage ain’t gonna pay itself – and it’s possible we could see “The Last Emperor” take at least one more bite of the MMA apple. No matter what though, we’ve likely witnessed the last of him as a top heavyweight, maybe even as a relevant one. For a lot of us, that’s a frightening reality, but one we must confront. Here are 10 questions that come immediately to mind about about our Fedor-less future …

(“He is not human. He is like piece of short, balding iron.” PicProps: Tapology)

As we all discovered when a recent Gambling Addiction Enabler questioned our collective manhood about betting on the Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix, former Pride/Dream/K-1 slugger Sergei Kharitonov is currently paying off at fairly epic +2000 odds to win the whole shebang. Now, if we didn’t believe this tourney was headed for chaotic disaster and/or we thought there was a chance in hell those shady internet bookies would make good on a sizable bet, we’d actually consider Kharitonov something of a steal at those odds. Especially since he’s coming out of the weak-sauce side of the bracket and – as he reminds us in a new interview with Tapology.com this week – he’s already beaten two of the so-called favorites.

“People like to think they are experts on things they think they know,” Kharitonov says. “I beat Alistair (Overeem) and (Fabricio) Werdum and (accomplished) that at a time when my stand-up skills were not 25 percent (of) what (they are) now. You do the math.”

In fact, the Russian-paratrooper-turned-Golden-Glory-kickboxer says a bunch of totally badass stuff to Tapology. Stuff that only becomes more badass when you imagine him saying it in monotone, heavily-accented English like a certain 1980s movie villain we could mention. Case-in-point, Kharitonov’s message for first-round opponent Andrei Arlovski: “I will break you.” That’s right, he said it.

(Remember when Sergei Kharitonov sent Alistair Overeem‘s lifeless body through the ropes at K-1 Hero’s 10? No? Then you really need to watch these videos…)

In our excitement for Strikeforce’s potentially insane heavyweight tournament, one point seems to be getting lost in the narrative — namely, that these guys have already fought each other many, many times before. Five of the eight competitors (Werdum, Arlovski, Overeem, Emelianenko, Rogers) have previously faced at least three other fighters in the tournament field. Fabricio Werdum has actually fought everyone except Brett Rogers and Josh Barnett, and only Barnett himself has managed to go his entire career without bumping up against anybody else in this year’s bracket.

All told, there’s eleven twelve fights worth of shared history among the Strikeforce HWGP competitors, dating back over five years. To help you study for the quarterfinals next month, we’ve posted them all below in chronological order…

UPDATE: We originally forgot to include Fabricio Werdum’s decision win over Antonio Silva. So actually, there have been 12 previous meetings, not 11. The video has now been added. 

(Sergei Kharitonov def. Fabricio Werdum via split decision; PRIDE 30, 10/23/05)

(Alistair Overeem def. Sergei Kharitonov via TKO, 5:13 of round 1; PRIDE 31, 2/26/06)

(Image courtesy of Strikeforce via MMA Convert)

Strikeforce has just released the bracket for their clusterfuctacular heavyweight tournament, which should clear up some of the conflicting reports about who’s fighting who. What it doesn’t specify is when these fights are taking place. We know that Emelianenko vs. Silva and Arlovski vs. Kharitonov are both happening February 12th in New Jersey. Overeem/Werdum and Barnett/Rogers are tentatively slated to go down in April, exact date and location TBA. And the semi-finals and finals? Your guess is as good as ours, bro. With a little bit of luck, this entire dirty business will be settled by the time President Trump takes office.

(Personally, I think that getting all these guys together for a single-night tournament is the only way you can insure that the semi-finals and finals will actually take place, but we’re trying to stay positive here. For what it’s worth, Scott Coker is adamant that Josh Barnett’s licensing issues will not bar him from competing in the GP.)

(Alistair Overeem vs. Todd Duffee. Fight starts at the 3:41 mark and ends 19 seconds later. Good night Ireeeene.)

Full results from today’s New Year’s Eve event in Saitama, Japan, are after the jump, along with a few must-see videos courtesy of ZP420MMA. Note: Bob Sapp apparently backed out of his IGF slap-fight-rules bout with Shinichi Suzukawa at the last minute.

(Surprise, Strikeforce may be making a mistake with matchmaking.)

I never thought I’d ever speak out against a grand prix tournament, but because the proposed Strikeforce heavyweight tournament has so many question marks surrounding it, I’m almost hoping it doesn’t happen.

When Scott Coker mentioned earlier this year that Strikeforce was either going to piss or get off the pot when teasing its fans with heavyweight fights that never seem to come to fruition because of those crazy Russians for whatever reason, I thought he meant it.

What Sco-Co should have said was, "We’ll likely milk the current roster for whatever we can and if we can make the fights fans want to see, then we will, but we likely won’t."

According to Tatame, the California-based promotion is planning on stretching the tournament over three events and will likely anchor Strikeforce’s foray into pay-per-view TV — a move necessitated by the fact that it’s unlikely that CBS will be having them back on network TV in 2011 and the costs of greasing the pockets of M-1 Global for each Fedor-featured event are likely more than most Russians make in their lives.

Man, did FEG fire all the guys responsible for their awesome posters of the past?  (PicProps:  K-1′s Official Site)

Heads up for those of you who forget such things: K-1′s World Grand Prix Finals are going down tonight/tomorrow/whatever in Japan, and will air live on HDNet Fights at 2am EST.  Eight heavyweights from six countries (including at least one guy you should damn well be familiar with) will meet to do bodily harm to one another in the name of entertainment, and to determine whom you would least like to meet in a bar while hitting on his girlfriend. 

A rundown of the brackets and the rest of the card are after the jump….

("I used to be an AFC like Shinya. Now that I’ve learned the Mystery Method, I pull more tail than Hayato.")

DREAM’s 2009 welterweight grand prix kicks off April 5th at DREAM 8, and four of the tournament matchups have just been announced, along with a few features in other weight classes. The event will be headlined by a rematch between Shinya Aoki and Hayato "Mach" Sakurai; Sakurai previously won a decision over Aoki at a Shooto event in August ’05. Check out the current lineup below, and keep in mind that the opening round kicks off ten days from now, and only half the field is assembled. Not that this is the first time that DREAM hasn’t had all their GP participants locked down before the opening round, but this is really pushing it…

I don’t see how the winner of Aoki/Sakurai doesn’t just pwn the fuck out of this field, which is easily the weakest of any DREAM GP to date. Shirai and Ikemoto are local jobbers, and UFC/WEC-castoff John Alessio is only slightly better. High just got owned by Jay Hieron at Affliction: Day of Reckoning; too bad the Thoroughbred isn’t available for this tournament. And while Andre Galvao is a stud when it comes to jiu-jitsu, he’s underexperienced in MMA. There’d better be some big names attached to those last four spots, or the tourney could be a gigantic bust.

And the other bouts on the card aren’t much better. The Kharitonov/Monson clash could be entertaining, but of the six men in the other non-GP bouts, only Minowaman and Ninja have winning records. Seriously. DREAM is hoping for a big ratings resurgence when they return to a decent time-slot, but it’ll be hard to get fans interested — especially in the U.S., where once again, HDNet is airing the event days later on tape-delay.

Gegard Mousasi vs. Melvin Manhoef

Zelg Galesic vs. Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza

The conclusion of Dream.6′s middleweight Grand Prix, plus more, after the jump.

Props: MMA Scraps

Armenian-Dutch fighter Gegard Mousasi put in a career-making performance at today’s DREAM.6 in Saitama, Japan, earning quick stoppage victories over Melvin Manhoef and Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza to win the middleweight grand prix. In his first fight of the night, Mousasi easily dominated Manhoef, quickly scoring a trip-takedown, then securing the mount and clamping on a triangle choke when Manhoef reversed the position. Manhoef attempted to slam out of it, but was forced to tap at the 1:28 mark. Meanwhile on the other side of the bracket, Souza enjoyed a similarly brief win over Croatian Zelg Galesic. After getting a double-leg takedown, Souza passed from guard to mount and snatched an armbar when Galesic tried to buck.

Both men moved into the GP finals relatively fresh — not that they needed to be. When Mousasi and Souza finally met in the last fight of the night, it seemed like Mousasi was in over his head, as Souza first slammed him then began to drop punches from half-guard. But Souza made the fatal error of standing up, and Mousasi caught him with a Hail Mary upkick that knocked Jacare out cold as he began to dive in for a punch.

DREAM.6′s non-tourney featured matches went pretty much as expected, with the stars beating up on the cans. Shinya Aoki returned to his flamboyantly winning ways, hopping on the back of WEC castoff Todd Moore and finishing him at the 1:10 mark with a neck crank. Jimmy Ambriz should be applauded for lasting over two minutes with Sergei Kharitonov, who battered The Titan with vicious strikes until Ambriz was forced to tap on the ground. After abusing him for most of the first round, Yoshihiro Akiyama submitted karate practitioner Masanori Tonooka (1-2), who, let’s just say, is no Lyoto Machida.

The only real surprise (and disappointment) was how the heavyweight feature between Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic and Alistair Overeem played out.

(Another one of Mirko’s zany practical jokes?)

Yesterday’s Dream.6 press conference got off to a fun start after news that Mighty Mo Siliga has had to pull out of his bout with Sergei Kharitonov with an injury suffered in training. That’s when Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic stepped up to offer his services, despite the fact that he’s also scheduled to take on Alistair Oveerem on the same night. Was this just another attempt to get under Oveerem’s skin in their ongoing war of words, or could it be that Cro Cop is trying to make up for lost time?

At least it sounds like a sincere offer:

“Well I’ve just heard that Mighty Mo is not going to fight since he is injured,” said a serious Filipovic. “We are all professional fighters. I’m ready to jump in, in his place. If Dream agrees, I’m ready to fight two fights tomorrow. It doesn’t mean that I underestimate Alistair, I would like to fight him first –- the fourth fight against him and the eleventh fight against Sergei. Sergei definitely trained hard for this and I’m sure he doesn’t want to go home without a fight.”

Oveerem felt a little slighted by the offer, as you might imagine, telling reporters, “I think after I fight Mirko, he will never fight again.”

Thankfully, Sergei Kharitonov stepped in to talk some sense:

(“We’ll see who is bag of douche.”)

Dream’s sixth event — which goes down September 23rd in Saitama, Japan — may just feature its most compelling card yet. The show’s centerpiece is the semi-finals/finals of the middleweight grand prix, where Melvin Manhoef, Gegard Mousasi, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, and Zelg Galesic will do battle to crown a single champion. A welterweight strap will also be on the line, decided by the long-awaited match between Nick Diaz and Hayato “Mach” Sakurai. And now it looks like two big-name heavyweight bouts will be part of the action as well.

Over the weekend, PRIDE vet and reigning Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem revealed that he would be facing Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic at Dream 6. Overeem and Cro Cop have been getting their trash-talk on lately — who isn’t these days? — with the Demolition Man calling Filipovic a “douche-bag” who ducked him in favor of fighting cans. Cro Cop hasn’t fought since March, when he earned his first post-UFC victory with a 56-second TKO rout of Japanese can Tatsuya Mizuno. Since then, Overeem has competed and won twice, scoring a quick knockout of Tae Hyun Lee at Dream 4 in June, and an almost-as-quick submission of Mark Hunt at Dream 5 in July.

This month’s Dream card will also feature the return of Russian PRIDE standout Sergei Kharitonov, who hasn’t fought since his TKO victory over Alistair Overeem at a K-1 HERO’s event last September. Kharitonov will be facing Siala-Mou “Mighty Mo” Siligia, the Samoan-American K-1 mainstay who defeated Justice Smith last month at the K-1 World GP 2008 in Hawaii. Mo is just 3-0 as a mixed martial artist, and hasn’t done the MMA thing since last June, when he beat down Ruben Villareal at K-1 Dynamite!! USA.

(Joe Riggs won’t be fighting tonight. Sucks, buddy. Photo courtesy of MMAWeekly.)

Yesterday, we passed along a Sherdog report that claimed Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva had agreed to face Sergei Kharitonov in an EliteXC heavyweight title fight. Awesome matchup, right? Unfortunately, EliteXC’s Jared Shaw refutes it, telling FiveOuncesofPain “That fight is 100 percent not happening.”

When asked about whether an opponent was in place for Silva, Shaw indicated that one has been selected that is worthy of fighting for a title but that a deal was in the process of being finalized.

Worthy? Possibly. As worthy as Kharitonov? Probably not. But J. Shaw wasn’t quite finished peeing on our parade. Regarding previous reports that Kimbo Slice was slated to face Brett Rogers in October, Shaw said “A fight could possibly take place between Kimbo and Rogers within the next 12 months,” but nothing was official yet. And as for rumors that Gary Shaw was on his way out of EliteXC, Jared denied those as well:

“I’m not gonna lie to you; the Tim Russert episode really struck a cord with Gary. He has an extensive travel schedule and is a workaholic much the way Tim was… And (the) truth is he’s getting up there in age. So Gary is at a point now where he just can’t keep up the constant back and forth to California from his home (in New Jersey). And so he’s just taking a step back in his life, not in the company (and) not being pushed. Just taking some time to be healthy and enjoy everything he’s built from the ground up. The creator rarely gets to smile at his artwork because he’s so busy making more.”

According to Sherdog, Antonio Silva has verbally agreed to fight Russian PRIDE standout Sergei Kharitonov for EliteXC’s vacant heavyweight crown at “Saturday Night Fights” on July 26th, pending approval from the California State Athletic Commission; the CSAC previously blocked Silva from competing at K-1 Dynamite!! USA last June due to a pituitary gland tumor, but “Bigfoot/Pezao” underwent surgery last summer to have it removed.

Kharitonov holds a career record of 15-3, with notable wins over Fabricio Werdum, Alistair Overeem, and Semmy Schilt. If the matchup comes together, it would certainly alleviate some of the concerns we’ve had regarding the EliteXC heavyweight title’s legitimacy, considering that Kharitonov is more talented and deserving of a belt than any other heavyweight currently on their roster. So keep your fingers crossed, and you might just see Silva vs. Kharitonov headlining the three-fight Showtime card that will lead into the CBS broadcast.

In other news…

One of Kharitonov‘s best performances, from PRIDE Total Elimination in April 2004. What was expected to be mainly a grappling match between Sergei and Ninja turned into a wild slugfest, with both fighters throwing leather until Rua’s legs give out at the 1:58 mark. (Also check out Kharitonov’s butter-smooth judo toss at 0:50.) We can’t wait until this dude steps into the ring with Mirko…