FOX deal with the UFC announced tomorrow? Report says GSP, Evans and Edgar all headed to L.A.

All signs point to something big going down in Los Angeles tomorrow. FOX has announced a major press conference set for 1 p.m. PT in Los Angeles. Is FOX revealing a new deal with the UFC?

Sports Business Journal broke a story on Tuesday stating FOX  won the sweepstakes to lock up the UFC for the next 7-8 years.

UFC president Dana White is already in Los Angeles and MMAWeekly reports that some of the promotion's biggest stars are heading to the Golden State as well:

[...] names including UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre, lightweight champion Frankie Edgar and current top light heavyweight contender Rashad Evans.

If you're a longtime fan of mixed martial arts, the potential deal that would place the UFC on several FOX-owned channels, has to get the juices flowing. The sport has come a long way.

Bloody Elbow is covering the potential deal from every angle.-

- Will the UFC's decision-making be altered?

- What could FOX deal do for the future of MMA?

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Almost, Arto, Dadd, Trep, Tucker, PJ, Paradox, and Hawk Videos

Lewis Marnell stars in the new Almost commercial. Arto Saari and friends skate his backyard pool for Gravis. Get a Perspective on Keelan Dadd. Check some raw clips from Paul Trep. Nick Tucker has some crazy tricks in this Grizzley X Diamond commercial. Joe Krolick has some classic clips of PJ Ladd from 2000. Filmer Erik Sandoval has a Paradox Experience. Tony Hawk does a vert demo in NYC.

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FOX Promises to Roll Out Red Carpet for UFC's Nov. 12 Network Premiere

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The first domino fell just two weeks ago, when the UFC and FOX announced a landmark, seven-year deal that would put the world's biggest MMA promotion on network television for the first time.

Now, the second has fallen, after the UFC announced on Friday that its FOX debut, set for Nov. 12 in Anaheim, California, would host a heavyweight championship bout between Cain Velasquez and Junior dos Santos.

The blockbuster matchup officially signals the arrival of UFC on the worldwide sporting landscape, and FOX executives say they will utilize all the resources at their disposal to ensure a massive audience turns out for network's premiere MMA offering.

And in fact, it may feel like a Hollywood premiere, all the way down to the pre-fight presentation.

"One thing we will be doing is launching the UFC on FOX with a Super Bowl-style red carpet and tailgate party with every star in Hollywood and every dignitary that we need to get out there to launch this thing," FOX Sports media group co-president and COO Eric Shanks said. "It will be a la Super Bowl tailgate and Super Bowl red carpet with a huge party outside before the event."

Promotion for the event will begin immediately on FOX television properties. UFC president Dana White said he's already been blown away with the network's proactive approach through the early days of their deal, noting that they were already promoting the UFC on FOX partnership with in-program advertising just hours after their original announcement was made on August 18.

"We've never been treated like this," White said. "We've never been happier."

Shanks said that beginning with Saturday afternoon's college football and Major League Baseball programming, promotions would air for the Velasquez-dos Santos clash.

"We're jumping on this thing and we're making it as big a deal as we can," Shanks told MMA Fighting. "Guaranteed we'll be promoting it across all of our sports and entertainment properties as well."

Though the broadcast is only scheduled for one-hour, FOX is expecting to have a "mini pre-game show" and then head straight into the fight. Depending on the actual length of the scheduled five-rounder, the network will either pump in a taped fight or show highlights of the entire card during the broadcast. That decision, however, is yet to be made.

FOX executives declined to set a ratings expectation, though White said he is expecting to blow the old MMA ratings records out of the water, and FOX Sports chairman David Hill agreed. A match held on EliteXC's CBS May 2008 show holds the all-time record for viewers, with 6.51 million fans watching Kimbo Slice defeat James Thompson via TKO. UFC's highest-rated all-time fight came in September 2009, when 6.1 million tuned into Spike to watch Roy Nelson defeat Slice via TKO.

With a major championship fight to promote, both the promotion and network know the job in front of them: making sure as many eyes as possible are on what may be the most important fight in UFC history.

"We knew these guys were going to deliver," Shanks said. "And we're going to deliver for them to bring a huge audience to it that night as well."

 

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Brazilian crowd set a high bar for every UFC crowd hereafter

In most post-fight press conferences, UFC president Dana White compliments the crowd and the city that they've just visited. It's a smart business move to lavish praise on every city the UFC visits, whether they have packed the place or not. Even if the UFC never returns, White does want that city's inhabitants to continue watching fights.

But when he called the crowd in Rio de Janeiro the best crowd he's ever been around, it was not empty rhetoric. Even through my television, it was clear that the fans in Brazil would make UFC 134 unlike any event the UFC has ever produced.

It started with the very first fight. Usually, the preliminary fights take place in a half-filled stadium, with only the fighters' loved ones truly invested in the bout. There were no Brazilians in the opening bout, but the crowd still went nuts for Ian Loveland vs. Yves Jabouin. They even chanted the name of a popular soccer player who happened to be black, like Jabouin.

The chanting never stopped. Yahoo! Sports Brazil's Fernando Zanchetta gave us insight on some of the chants that popped up over the course of the evening, which spanned from the beautiful to the profane.

The chants included, "I am Brazilian, with great pride, with love" (sou brasileiro, com muito orgulho, com muito amor) which really makes "U-S-A, U-S-A" pale in comparison. Next, was, "Uh, will die, uh, gonna die!" Zanchetta said that this is used to frighten foreigners. Finally, they had a special one for Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's win. "Ih, [expletive that rhymes with ducked]... Minotauro appeared'  (ih, fodeu... Minotauro apareceu)."

Paulo Thiago's appearance also set the crowd into a frenzy, and deservedly so. In addition to being a fighter, Thiago is a member of BOPE, Brazil's version of special forces. Much as Tim Kennedy and Brian Stann are cheered in the U.S. for serving the country, Thiago is revered there. The crowd chanted "skull" in Portugese, which is BOPE's symbol.

But the crowd hit their apex during the main card, when three Brazilian stars won with KOs. Nogueira's win put them into a beer-throwing frenzy that continued with Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Anderson Silva's wins.

What should U.S. crowds learn from this? We can step it up a notch. Chants, cheers, arena-shaking yells -- let's learn from our Brazilian friends. Everything except the beer-throwing. There's no good reason in the world to waste a perfectly good beer.

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Jack Shields passes away, son Jake facing tough decision with UFN 25 in less than three weeks

A rough month for the mixed martial arts world just witnessed another sad passing. Jake Shields' father Jack passed away on Monday.

"lost my father manager and one of my best friends today!! R.I.P jack you will be greatly missed and loved by many" ? Jake Shields

Jack, 67, was a huge part of Jake's rise over the years. At age 23, the fighter was on the verge of breaking through, but a lack of solid management was holding him back. His father had a little experience working in the music promotion business so he offered to help out.

"Jake asked me to manage him after that and I said, 'I'm sure there's someone down there who knows the business a lot better than I do. I'm all the way up here in the mountains. There's got to be someone closer to you who knows this business,'" Shields told AOL.com back in April. "Six to eight months later he sent me a contract that somebody wanted him to sign and then I took over. It was terrible. I had to [delete] the whole thing and write a new one."

The younger Shields has always been one of the more polite, grounded fighters in the game. It's clear he got that from his father. Jack said being around his son also made him a better person.

"Jake is somebody who fights cool. Before the fight he stays relaxed and he'll be back there joking. I've been back there with other people ? I'm not going to name them, but friends of ours who fight ? and some of them work themselves up to get mad and angry before they go fight. Jake doesn't do that. He's totally relaxed and totally confident. That relaxed confidence tends to wash over me, and I usually go into the fights relaxed and confident as well," said Jack.

In a pivotal welterweight title, Jake is scheduled fight Jake Ellenberger on Sept. 17 in New Orleans at Ultimate Fight Night 25.

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Rampage Jackson on 'Spygate': Jon Jones Can Watch Me Train, He Still Won't Stop Me

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Just days after accusing his future foe's camp of spying on him in his UFC 135 training sessions, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson told MMA Fighting on Thursday that he is unconcerned by the possible presence of a mole, and that he has yet to remove anyone from his camp.

Appearing on The MMA Hour from his camp in Denver, Jackson detailed the circumstances that led him to question if he had a traitor in his midst relaying secrets to UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones' camp. Jackson said he had a similar feeling in 2010 when he prepared for his bout with Rashad Evans, but had no problems while preparing for recent bouts with Lyoto Machida and Matt Hamill.

Jackson said that in recent days, at least one comment made by Jones on Twitter reflected the goings-on in his camp. As a result, Jackson decided to put his team to the test, faking a hand injury at the end of a sparring session.

Within four hours, he says that UFC matchmaker Joe Silva had called his manager Anthony McGann, to ask about his hand. Jackson said that Silva told him Jones' manager Malki Kawa had raised concern about the hand, saying he had read about it on Twitter.

Jackson, though, says that his team searched Twitter and couldn't find a single mention of a hand injury. In fact, he says they searched the entire web and couldn't find any information about a potential hand injury in this specific camp.

Despite his ongoing belief that someone fed the information to Jones' camp, Jackson has not made any changes to his training team.

"I have a few ideas who the mole is," he said. "There's a bunch of people it can be. I don't want to point fingers. I'm not saying who it was. But whoever it is, I hope they believe in karma."

Jackson said he wasn't accusing of Jones or his camp of intentionally sending a spy into his camp, but that it seemed clear someone was sending them information nonetheless. Jones and Kawa have denied any allegations of wrongdoing, though both declined invitations to appear on The MMA Hour to give their sides of the story.

Given the high-profile nature of the fight, the "Spygate" issue isn't likely to subside anytime soon, even though Jackson seems ready to turn the page, even saying he was "kind of flattered" that such lengths are being taken.

"At the end of the day, I don't care," he said. "I'm very confident in this fight. You guys have no idea. A lot of people have counted me out in this fight, and I love it. I'm happy. It's like when I fought Chuck Liddell to get the title. No one counted me in. I'm OK with it. Jon Jones can set up camp and watch me train, for all I care because he won't be able to stop what I'm going to do to him."

While Jackson's camp is private, he has brought in a group of fighters to help him prepare, and he believes it's possible one of them could have ties to Jones' team. He said when each sparring partner arrives, he asks them not to release any information about the camp in any way, including social media platforms, a requirement he said he feels he has the right to ask since he is paying them.

As for the fight itself, Jackson says all the pressure is on Jones as the new champion to defend his belt and continue his forward momentum while in the spotlight. He also says he won't be frozen by fear of failure, an issue that sometimes gets the best of even the world's top athletes. He also said that even if Jones comes hard at him, he's shown he can stand up to some punishment before returning fire. Whether there's an infiltrator in his camp or it's mole-free, Jackson said on September 24, he'll be ready.

"I don't care about this spy in my camp," he said. "He, she or it can keep watching me, whoever it is. I'm training hard. I'm very confident. It ain't no secret that I'm going to try to throw these hands on Jon Jones. I'm pretty sure one, two, or three of my punches are going to land. I'm going to make them count every time they do. I'm just training my ass off for anything."

 

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