Fedor Emelianenko hints at Strikeforce contract renewal, still no interest in UFC

Two months removed from his first loss in nearly 10 years, Fedor Emelianenko is confident his future – and a contract extension with Strikeforce – soon will be finalized.

The former PRIDE champion recently suffered an upset submission loss to fellow top-10 heavyweight Fabricio Werdum at a June Showtime-televised event.

Although no return date or opponent have been determined, Emelianenko (32-2 MMA, 1-1 SF) recently said his management team and Strikeforce officials are ready to move forward.

"So far I feel very comfortable fighting, very good with my fighting, and I'm planning [to fight] as long as I can physically," he recently told m-1global.com, the official site of M-1 Global. "As far and I'm concerned we should discuss the possibility of signing another contract for four to six fights."

Emelianenko is the chief asset of M-1 Global, which has taken co-promoter status in the fighter's Strikeforce bouts. Emelianenko has one fight left on his current contract, though both Strikeforce and M-1 Global want a new deal in place before his next fight.

On that front, M-1 Global Director of Operations Evgeni Kogan sees progress.

"The relationship between ourselves, Strikeforce and Showtime is a good one," he said. "We had a great event in June in San Jose, and we look forward to more good events with our partners. ... [We] are in talks to extend the contract for Fedor and at the same time to settle on who, when and where he is fighting next. These talks are going smoothly, and we are hopeful of a full resolution very shortly."

So what exactly is in store for his next fight?

Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker initially told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that he was open to Werdum vs. Emelianenko II, though the original meeting in June was supposed to determine a No. 1 contender for champ Alistair Overeem, who recently topped Brett Rogers for his first title defense in more than two years. However, in a recent interview, Coker said Werdum will sit out the rest of 2010 to undergo long-needed elbow surgery. Overeem may be on the sidelines until Werdum returns.

Regardless of what the future holds for Emelianenko, one thing now seems very unlikely: a move to the UFC, the world's top MMA promotion.

Emelianenko's team and UFC officials have negotiated without success in the past, and though each side occasionally hinted at future possibilities, both recently have shut the door in wake of the Werdum loss.

As MMAjunkie.com reported soon after Emelianenko's defeat, UFC president Dana White said he is "done playing the games" and no longer plans to pursue the Russian.

Emelianenko echoed the sentiments.

"For now [we work] with Strikeforce, and we are concentrating on that," he said. "The contract is not over yet. So for now we don't have any interest in the UFC."

Maia vs. Miranda set for UFC 118 main card, Miller vs. Salter official for prelims

Demian Maia (12-2 MMA, 6-2 UFC) is set to face Mario Miranda (10-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) on the main card, and Dan Miller (11-4 MMA, 3-3 UFC) officially meets John Salter (5-1 MMA, 1-1 UFC) on the preliminary card of this month's UFC 118 event.

Maia initially was slated to fight Alan Belcher in the UFC Fight Night 22 headliner, but as MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) first reported, he took the fight with Miranda after "The Talent" underwent eye surgery due to a detached retina.

Miller, meanwhile, replaces Phil Baroni (13-12 MMA, 3-6 UFC), who suffered a collarbone injury, on the card.

The UFC recently made both fights official for UFC 118, which takes place Aug. 28 at the TD Garden in Boston. The night's main card airs on pay-per-view, and two preliminary-card bouts air on Spike TV. Miller vs. Salter, though, is slated for the untelevised preliminary card.

Maia fights for the first time a UFC 112 title loss to middleweight champ Anderson Silva in April. Maia, who took the fight as a replacement for injured Vitor Belfort, suffered a lopsided unanimous-decision loss (though the fight is more memorable for Silva's bizarre in-fight taunting and refusal to engage in later rounds). Prior to the defeat, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt posted a 6-1 record in the UFC and picked up four "Submission of the Night" bonuses.

He now meets Miranda, who impressed in his most recent outing when he spoiled Canadian veteran David Loiseau's return to the UFC. The UFC 115 TKO victory followed a disappointing UFC-debut TKO loss to Gerald Harris, who handed handed Miranda his first professional defeat at UFC Fight Night 21 in March. Miranda fought his way into the UFC with an impressive 11-0 record that included nine stoppage wins.

Miller, the brother of UFC lightweight Jim Miller, is a former IFL middleweight champ who splashed onto the UFC scene with consecutive wins over Rob Kimmons, Matt Horwich and Jake Rosholt that pushed his win streak to nine fights. He's he since posted consecutive decision losses to contenders Chael Sonnen, Maia and Michael Bisping. Family issues further compounded his troubles, though Miller never bowed out of a fight. Despite the losses, a source close told MMAjunkie.com after the third straight loss that Miller would, in fact, get another fight.

It now comes against Salter, an NAIA national wrestling champion who also owns a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. The 25-year-old went 4-0 in just a seven-month pro career before he signed with the UFC. In his promotional debut, he then suffered a hard-fought third-round TKO loss to Harris at UFC Fight Night 20. Then, a UFC 113 fight was cut short when opponent Jason MacDonald suffered a nasty leg injury that left him with a dislocated ankle and multiple leg fractures. Salter, nonetheless, earned the TKO win.

The UFC 118 fight card now includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view)

•Champ Frankie Edgar vs. B.J. Penn (for lightweight title)
•Randy Couture vs. James Toney
•Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard
•Demian Maia vs. Mario Miranda
•Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike TV)

•Joe Lauzon vs. Gabe Ruediger
•Nik Lentz vs. Andre Winner
PRELIMINARY CARD
•Gerald Harris vs. Joe Vedepo*•Dan Miller vs. John Salter
•Nick Osipczak vs. Greg Soto
•Amilcar Alves vs. Mike Pierce

Paul Daley meets Jorge Masvidal at Shark Fights 13

British welterweight Paul Daley now has an opponent for his first North American appearance since his controversial post-fight punch at UFC 113.

After signing with the Texas-based Shark Fights promotion this past month, Daley (24-9-2) will take on American Top Team standout Jorge Masvidal (20-5) at Shark Fights 13, which takes place Sept. 11 at the Civic Center Coliseum in Amarillo, Texas.

Shark Fights confirmed the news today in an official release.

"Choosing the right opponent to face a high-level contender like Daley was not easy," stated Shark Fights matchmaker Brent Medley in today's release. "When we heard that Jorge Masvidal wanted to return to the welterweight division after several grueling weight cuts from 185 (pounds) to 155 (pounds), he became our clear choice."

Masvidal, who's fought for almost every major MMA promotion with the exception of the UFC, moves back to 170 pounds after serving a large portion of his career at lightweight. He most recently fought overseas in Japanese startup ASTRA and won a split decision over veteran Naoyuki Kotani.

On American soil, Masvidal is undoubtedly trying to erase the memory of his most-watched fight. The fighter was choked out by Toby Imada with an inverted triangle in the semifinals of Bellator Fighting Championships' first lightweight tournament this past year, and video of the loss was seen hundreds of thousand of times on the Internet. Imada won "Submission of the Year" at the 2009 World MMA Awards for the rare choke.

Meanwhile, Daley returns to action after jetting to Australia in the wake of his controversy. He took on Daniel Acacio at "Impact FC 2 - The Uprising: Sydney" and elbowed Acacio into submission in the third round.

The British fighter has yet to learn his fate regarding the punch that cost him a spot in the UFC. Wad Alameddine, Daley's manager, this past week told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that the Quebec Athletic Commission will today conduct a hearing to address the incident, in which Daley slugged Koscheck after the final bell of UFC 113's co-main event fight.

Alameddine is confident that a possible punishment won't interfere with Daley's obligation to Shark Fights.

"We've been given a few ideas on how long a suspension Paul's likely to get, and where the suspension is likely to be enforced," Alameddine said. "The more we understood the scenario, and the more we've spoken to the commission about what we should and shouldn't be doing, the more we've felt re-assured that come the hearing we're not going to have any problems competing anywhere, really."

Shark Fights 13 is headlined by a light heavyweight bout between UFC veterans Keith Jardine and Trevor Prangley.

Bellator sues UFC, alleges "tortious interference of contract" of Jonathan Brookins

The legal battle between the Bellator Fighting Championships and the Ultimate Fighting Championship has taken an unexpected turn.

While Zuffa, LLC – the parent company of the UFC – recently filed suit in Nevada against Bellator due to an alleged theft of "trade secrets and confidential Zuffa documents," Bellator officials have now fired back with a suit of their own.

MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) has learned that Bellator Sport Worldwide, LLC today filed suit against Zuffa in a New Jersey court and alleges that "The Ultimate Fighter 12" cast member Jonathan Brookins (11-3 MMA, 1-0 BFC) joined the Spike TV reality series while still under an exclusive contract for Bellator.

Brookins and his manager Mickey Dubberley were also named as defendants in the suit.

A WEC veteran, Brookins is perhaps best known for a November 2008 loss to Jose Aldo, the current WEC featherweight champion. According to the suit, Brookins signed an "exclusive promotional contract" with Bellator in March 2009.

Brookins debuted with Bellator in April 2009 with a submission win over Stephen Ledbetter in a non-tournament affair. Brookins followed up those fights with a pair of wins under the G-Force Fights banner. Bellator's suit contends they signed off on each of the two fights outside of their promotion.

However, Bellator contends when it came to an appearance on "The Ultimate Fighter," Brookins did not seek permission. In fact, the complaint states that Brookins manager actually lied to Bellator about his client's status.

"We've been offering the fighter fights, and hindsight being 20-20, we were lied to by his management saying he was injured and couldn't accept fights," Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney today told MMAjunkie.com. "We find out afterward he was filming and fighting on 'The Ultimate Fighter' – that he made the show and was in the house."

While the new suit would seem either completely unrelated to – or perhaps in retaliation to – Zuffa's recent filing, Rebney has a different idea.

"It was odd to us, and struck me as odd, that what happened last week happened with the UFC," Rebney said. "It was a disconnect for me. I didn't understand it. The UFC admitted freely it had never viewed the alleged proprietary documents. I assumed there was something under it. The moment we were made aware that he was on 'The Ultimate Fighter' and had made it in the house and had been taped on the show and had been sequestered for a number of months, our attorneys starting calling immediately. He's called a number of times to the UFC legal team and has gotten no response – not one returned phone call. The whole situation struck me very, very odd.

"It's one thing to have documents in your hand to be able to point to and say, 'This is our document. This is proprietary.' But to not have anything in hand and to take the actions that were taken, for lack of a better term, it seemed like a pre-emptive strike."

Dubberley, who was not aware of the suit when contacted by MMAjunkie.com, contends Brookins did nothing wrong and had been verbally released from his deal by Bellator matchmaker Sam Caplan.

Rebney strongly disagrees.

"That is a complete and total fabrication that couldn't be further from the truth," Rebney said. "Sam has been repeatedly trying to get Jonathan to accept fights. We've been told he was injured. We were lied to.

"We wouldn't release Jonathan. We count ourselves fortunate to have signed him. ... At Bellator, we function as a professional organization. If and when we release fighters, we do so on paper. We don't do so verbally. We follow a pretty standard form of practice in this industry. That is a ridiculous comment at it's most basic level."

Bellator's suit requests exemplary damages on the counts of tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, breach of contract (against Brookins), fraud, business information misrepresentation and fraudulent concealment.

UFC officials weren't immediately available for comment when contacted by MMAjunkie.com.

WEC boss Reed Harris says first DVD a hit, but company not rushing growth

When World Extreme Cagefighting officials first announced they would be holding a pay-per-view event, many MMA pundits didn't know what to expect.

That event, "WEC 48: Aldo vs. Faber," wound up as one of the most entertaining in the promotion's history and was a decided hit with pay-per-view buyers according to company officials.

With that event now on DVD, WEC general manager Reed Harris told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) it's performing well in retail outlets, as well. But the unbridled success of the April fight card hasn't changed the philosophy of the fight promotion.

"The first step was doing the show, and the WEC pay-per-view in Sacramento was an absolute success," Harris said. "The DVD has been selling really, really well. It's got some behind-the-scenes stuff, which is interesting, but also it's got obviously the (Urijah) Faber and (Jose) Aldo fight.

"The whole event, it put WEC on the map. We were on the map before, but a lot of new eyeballs came to the show."

Those new eyeballs saw an entire night of entertaining fights, but Aldo walked away as perhaps the biggest star after handily defeating Faber with a steady diet of damaging leg kicks. Faber, "The California Kid," has long been the posterboy of the organization. So how did Harris feel about the destruction of one of his most marketable athletes?

"Actually, I think it kind of helped our business because now we have two guys instead of one," Harris said. "Jose Aldo is considered pound-for-pound one of the best fighters on the planet. That's never a bad thing for an organization to have that guy as our champion.

"Obviously, Urijah Faber, I don't really think he's lost a lot of stock. He's still very, very popular."

Faber was scheduled to drop to bantamweight for a fight in September, but injury forced him out of the contest. Despite the setbacks, Harris said he doesn't believe Faber will play any less of a role in the promotion moving forward.

"Obviously we were going to have [Faber] on this upcoming card, and he got injured, but the demand is there. People are saying to me, 'Gosh, we really wanted to see him fight, especially now at 135 (pounds).'

"The thing I've learned from doing this so long is that it's not good to put all of your apples in one basket. Diversify – and that's what we're trying to do as an organization. I think it's worked out pretty well."

Pretty well, indeed. The WEC now has more recognizable stars than at any time in the company's history. In September, WEC 51 will see Aldo, former champion's Miguel Torres and Jamie Varner, and "Fight of the Year" candidates Chan Sung Jung and Leonard Garcia all featured on the main card. It's the type of talent-laden card that could facilitate a return to pay-per-view, but despite the success of the first venture – both in buys and DVD sales – Harris insists the company won't run away from it's Versus-broadcast roots.

"[Another pay-per-view show] is on the horizon, but we put a lot of effort into that Sacramento show," Harris said. "We had kind of decided internally, I think, that once we did that, we'd see how it went, but for the end of this year, we'll just keep it as is. We still have a commitment to Versus, so we'd actually have to add a show to do that, and we just didn't feel we were really in a position to do that.

"The September card I think we could have done a pay-per-view with and been successful, but we have a commitment to Versus, and you can't just take. You have to give. We're giving them a dynamite card, and they understand that. They know that we're providing them over and above what we committed to them."

And over-delivering on expectations has become the WEC's hallmark. So while stars like Faber may struggle, Harris is always ready with a few more options, such as Faber's Team Alpha Male teammates Joseph Benavidez and Chad Mendes, who will feature heavily at next week's WEC 50 event.

"I am so proud of the guys – the fighters – which is really at the end of the day what we look at," Harris said. "It's not really our thing, it's how did the fighters do. I'll tell you, nine times out of 10, we're really happy with what they're doing.

"[WEC 48] was a great event. It's kind of catapulted us."

UFC 118 weigh-ins to air live on Spike TV

The UFC's fighter weigh-in ceremonies for this month's UFC 118 event will be aired live on Spike TV.

UFC officials today announced the plans via Twitter.

A featuring a lightweight title fight rematch between champion Frankie Edgar and the man he beat for the belt, B.J. Penn, UFC 118 takes place Aug. 28 at Boston's TD Garden. The weigh-ins take place one day prior.

Spike TV also recently aired the weigh-ins for July's UFC 116 event. That broadcast drew an impressive 645,000 viewers.

THe UFC 116 weigh-in broadcast was considered a one-time special, though Spike TV officials told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that strong ratings could warrant a return to the network.

The cable station already features a variety of UFC-related programs, such as "The Ultimate Fighter" reality series, "UFC Prelims" PPV-teaser specials (including one for UFC 116), live event broadcasts, same-day delayed shows (such as UFC 120), "Countdown" preview shows, "Primetime" pre-event specials, and highlights shows with "UFC Unleashed" and "Best of PRIDE."

The full UFC 118 card includes:

MAIN CARD (Pay-per-view)

•Champ Frankie Edgar vs. B.J. Penn (for lightweight title)
•Randy Couture vs. James Toney
•Kenny Florian vs. Gray Maynard
•Demian Maia vs. Mario Miranda*•Marcus Davis vs. Nate Diaz
PRELIMINARY CARD (Spike TV)

•Joe Lauzon vs. Gabe Ruediger
•Nik Lentz vs. Andre Winner
PRELIMINARY CARD
•Gerald Harris vs. Joe Vedepo*•Dan Miller vs. John Salter*•Nick Osipczak vs. Greg Soto
•Amilcar Alves vs. Mike Pierce

Nick Catone to undergo surgery on re-injured shoulder and back, return date unknown

UFC middleweight Nick Catone (8-2 MMA, 2-2 UFC) is nursing multiple injures and is unsure of when he'll be back in the cage.

As MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) reported Monday, the fighter was forced to withdraw from a scheduled fight with Tomasz Drawl (17-3-1 MMA, 3-2 UFC) at UFC Fight Night 22 on Sept. 15 and was replaced by Dave Branch (6-1 MMA, 0-1 UFC).

Catone will on Thursday undergo surgery for a long-running shoulder injury which derailed his preparation for Drwal. Additionally, he will get an epidural shot next week for his back, which he first injured in April.

"I just need to get healthy, man," he said today. "I've been fighting through workouts and trying to take a day or two off here and there, and it's just been getting worse and worse. I'm pretty bummed out about it because this is two in a row now that I've missed."

Catone said his shoulder trouble began 18 months ago. After masking the pain with multiple cortisone shots, he realized he couldn't wait any longer to fix the problem.

"It's just at the point where it's affecting my training," he said. "I've got no strength in it."

Cortisone is a powerful anti-inflammatory drug used for a variety of injuries and is commonly used by athletes.

The New Jersey native said he will undergo physical therapy after the procedure but couldn't pinpoint a specific date in which he'll be ready to return.

Meanwhile, he is scheduled to get the epidural shot – similar to a cortisone injection – to address pain from three herniated discs in his back. That injury forced him to withdraw from a scheduled bout with John Salter at UFC 113.

Prior to the Drawl booking, Catone expressed interest in dropping to the welterweight class, but the UFC had other ideas for his immediate future.

After training through the serious injuries, Catone said the the procedures are a clear sign that he needs to start training smarter and not harder. He won't get back in the octagon until he feels healthy again.

"The fans like to see you get back in there, but I'm not even close to 100 percent," Catone said. "Getting in there (at) 75 percent is not going to do me any good. I think it's to the point where I've got to start getting smarter with my career.

"I don't really take a lot of time off. When I first initially hurt my back with the three herniated discs, I was back in training two weeks later - just pad work and stuff, nothing crazy, but I just don't think I gave it enough time."