Tim Sylvia

('This guy's totally rich or something, right? Right?')

Wouldn’t you know it, the same day we dance on Tim Sylvia’s MMA grave, his name pops up in the news again, this time to say he may have either a very legitimate or very ridiculous fight in the works.  According to Sylvia’s manager, Monte Cox, Big Tim is in talks to head to Japan for a New Year’s Eve fight and Cox says he’s “pretty confident that he is going to fight there.”

What they don’t know is whether he’ll fight for Dream or Sengoku, but apparently Dream contractees Alistair Overeem and Hong Man Choi have both been discussed as possible opponents.  That means that he might get a real fight against the Strikeforce heavyweight champion (who, again, is avoiding fighting in the U.S. like he’s got some kind of Roman Polanski-esque legal troubles over here), or he’ll do the typical NYE freak show fight against Choi.  Those are two very different potential futures for Sylvia.  You’d hope that he would rather go the serious route if given the choice, but as we’ve seen in the past, Sylvia is not above taking a bout that makes no sense at all.

What do you say, would you rather see Sylvia in an absurd fight against Hong Man Choi, just to keep the New Year’s Eve tradition intact, or does Sylvia-Overeem really get your heart pumping?  Side question: if he does fight HMC, what are the odds that he joins Jose Canseco and Bobby Ologun on the “Techno Goliath’s” list of MMA victims?  Just saying, this is the guy who couldn’t close the deal with a hard-drinking strip club bartender on Blind Date,  so you better believe he knows how to screw up a sure thing.

(Sherman's the guy on the left. Get used to that face, you'll be seeing it again next month. Photo courtesy of osirisshoes.)

MMA Mania passes along the full lineup for Adrenaline MMA IV (September 18th; Council Bluffs, Iowa) and while we've already covered the Tim Sylvia/Jason Riley main event, we now know that UFC light-heavyweight Houston Alexander will be taking on Sherman "The Tank" Pendergarst (11-14) in the co-main event. Alexander's three-fight losing streak may be a major bummer — and the reason he has to take a tune-up fight outside of the UFC — but Pendergarst has lost his last five matches, and has only won two of his last twelve. Competing mostly as a heavyweight, the Tank has suffered KO/TKO losses against such notables as Shane Carwin, Antoni Hardonk (at UFC 65, Pendergarst's only Octagon appearance), Justin EIlers, and Tim Hague, and was one of the unfortunate fighters to experience the YAMMA pit first-hand; he lost to Alexey Oleinik by submission.

In other words, this could be just the sacrifical lamb that heavy-handed Houston needs to get his confidence back. Then again, eight of Pendergarst's 11 wins have come by submission, meaning that Alexander should still be on high alert. So, dude with no ground game (Houston) vs. a guy who gets knocked out a lot (Sherman) — who will be able to impose their gameplan?

The full lineup for Adrenaline IV is after the jump...

With the cobwebs finally clearing from his devastating knockout loss against Ray Mercer, Tim Sylvia will try to regain some semblance of respect against Jason Riley at Adrenaline MMA's fourth event on September 18. Riley holds a 6-1 professional record, and went 4-0 as an amateur. All of his fights have taken place in Ohio, and he became the NAAFS heavyweight champion after knocking out Justin Black in April.

In other words, he has nowhere near the kind of high-profile, big-show experience that Tim Sylvia does. But you'll never go broke underestimating the Maine-iac. After all, this is a a guy who weighed in at a morbidly obese 310.6 pounds for his last fight in June, and will now have to get back into legitimate fighting shape just one month from now. Will Sylvia snap his three-fight losing streak, or will Riley make his name off of the former UFC heavyweight champ?

According to NWI.com, Adrenaline IV will go down at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and is likely to feature former UFC vets Jeremy Horn and Houston Alexander — even though Alexander hasn't been officially released from his UFC contract yet.

(Photo courtesy of MMA Mania.)

Getting knocked out in two consecutive high-profile fights has to be a devastating blow to a fighter's confidence. And the idea of Tim Sylvia banging your ex-girlfriend, sure, that would make anybody want to throw up until they died. But we weren't expecting this troubling bit of news from a fighters.com article posted yesterday:

Is steroid use an epidemic in MMA? Or are most of the fighters who have tested positive simply the victims of inept athletic commissions, shady nutritional supplements, and tainted goat meat? After Josh Barnett’s latest chemical misadventure took down Affliction, we decided to round up every steroid bust in the sport since early 2002, when the Nevada State Athletic Commission began testing MMA fighters for performance-enhancing drugs. The results…may shock you.

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JOSH BARNETT (Pt. 1)
Caught: 4/22/02, following his TKO victory over Randy Couture at UFC 36.
Tested positive for: Boldenone, Nandrolone, and Fluoxymesterone
Punishment: A six-month suspension from the NSAC and the loss of his UFC heavyweight title. Barnett fought the steroid charge, and didn’t compete again in the U.S. until PRIDE 32, four and a half years later. (See: Belfort, Nastula)
In his own words: "I am a fighter, not a lawyer. I am innocent, and I should be fighting right now."
Repeat offender: Barnett actually tested positive once before, for two different anabolic steroids, following his submission via strikes victory over Bobby Hoffman at UFC 34 in November 2001. Josh was let off with a warning (which went unheeded, apparently) and the incident was never officially reported — but according to Sherdog’s Mike Sloan, Barnett’s first positive steroid test is what inspired Nevada to begin regularly testing UFC fighters for performance enhancing drugs.

TIM SYLVIA
Caught: 10/7/03, following his first-round knockout of Gan McGee at UFC 44.
Tested positive for: Stanozolol
Punishment: $10,000 fine and a six-month suspension from the NSAC. Sylvia voluntarily vacated his heavyweight title following his positive steroid test.
In his own words: “[A]fter I fought Ricco [Rodriguez], I was in for a long layoff. I decided to try some things and maybe change my physique a little bit and get in better shape. But whatever I used, it came back positive. I don’t know how that happened. I did it so long ago and I was way off it before I fought McGee. I think they found it in my fat cells. I guess it stays in there for a while, huh?...I heard what Josh [Barnett] had used, so I used something different and I was only using it to trim my physique. I thought that what I was using, it was going to be out by the time I fought McGee. I fought Gan and apparently it wasn’t out.”