Kikuta vs. Yamamoto to Headline 'Grabaka Live! First Cage Attack'

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GRABAKA, the Japanese gym and now MMA promotion, will go old school for its first MMA card, announcing recently a main event between Japanese MMA icon Sanae Kikuta and former UFC title challenger Kenichi Yamamoto for the Oct. 15 event in Tokyo.

Both fighters are making rare in-ring appearances for this "Grabaka Live! First Cage Attack" event in association with DEEP. Kikuta, who will turn 40 in just over a week, has fought less frequently, having only accepted four fights in the past five years. Meanwhile, Yamamoto, 35, will be fighting for the first time in five years.

Kikuta (29-7-3), who began MMA in March 1996 and was a competitor on the second PRIDE card, is recognized as one of the sport's pioneers. In 2000, he founded the GRABAKA gym best known for developing future PRIDE stars Akihiro Gono and Kazuo Misaki. The former Pancrase and ADCC champion Kikuta made a stop last October on the star-studded DEEP 50 anniversary event, beating Lee Sak Kim by TKO.

Yamamato (5-9-1) has been far less successful in MMA, but can say he once challenged for the UFC middleweight title. Back in UFC 23 in November 1999, Yamamoto beat Daiju Takase and Katsuhisa Fujii in a single-night tournament to earn a title shot. However, Yamamto would fall short at UFC 29 via guillotine choke to Pat Miletich.

Other matchups official for the card are Yutaka Ueda vs. Ryuki Ueyama and Shigeyuki Uchiyama vs. Tomoaki Ueyama. If the name Shigeyuki Uchiyama sounds familiar, he was the guy who lost his ear in a Pancrase fight last year.

 

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UFC on Fox: How will ?The Ultimate Fighter? change?

Thursday's landmark announcement that the UFC has a new partnership with the Fox network included the news that the UFC's relationship with Spike TV will end after the upcoming season of "The Ultimate Fighter." The revamped show will air on Fox's sister network, FX.

Its home is far from the only change that will be made for the reality show that helped kickstart the UFC's popularity but has grown stale as of late. Instead of featuring a taped, edited show with taped fights, the fights will be shown live. Packages from life in the fighter house and training will be cut from the things that happened during the week leading up to each fight.

Also, fans will have a chance to help decide the fights, as they will get to vote on upcoming match-ups. The coaches will conduct their training camps over the 12-week period of the show alongside their fighters, and fight at the end of the season. Over the course of two seasons in a year, 24 live fights will be aired on Friday nights.

Of course, there are plenty of questions that will need to be answered about how the UFC will run the show. Will the finale still be an event, like it has been for the past seasons, or just be a part of the show? Will the fight-in shows still happen, or will the cast be decided by the time the show starts?

It also will ask much of both the contestants and the coaches. The winners of the show will be decided as much by their health and ability to withstand the rigors of the show as their fighting potential. Coaches will have to move their training camps to Las Vegas, where the show is taped. Plenty of fighters like to be cloistered off from the rest of the world during training camp, and the temptations of Sin City could be a bit much to handle during camp. That could limit the pool of fighters who want to serve as coaches.

But those are minor quibbles for a show that lost its must-watch edge years ago. The UFC promised a fresh start with Fox, and the changes to "The Ultimate Fighter" shows that they're headed in the right direction.

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You tell us: Guida or a title shot for Ben Henderson?

Ben Henderson's dominating win over Jim Miller gave the UFC a conundrum. With a win, Miller was expected to take on the winner of Gray Maynard and Frankie Edgar's October title bout. Henderson threw a gigantic wrench in those plans.

Now, what to do with Henderson? Though he was non-committal immediately after his fight, Henderson has since said he is open to either a title shot or a bout with Clay Guida, who has been on an impressive run since losing to Kenny Florian late in 2009.

Clay Guida for the Battle of Crazy Hair and a title shot: Henderson's one recent loss is to Anthony Pettis, a fighter that Guida beat in June. Guida has four wins in a row, with three ending in submissions. With both Guida and Henderson coming off big wins, it would make the most sense to match them up, with the winner getting a shot at the UFC lightweight title.

Give 'Smooth' the title shot now: The beating he gave Miller (who was on a seven-fight win streak), the win over Mark Bocek (in Henderson's UFC debut), and the close (until the Showtime kick) loss to Anthony Pettis mean that Henderson is ready for a title shot. He has been in title fights before and has delivered. Give him a chance to show that readiness in the UFC.

Now, it's your turn to try some UFC matchmaking. What would you do with Henderson?

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Phil Baroni, Yoshiyuki Yoshida on Weight for Inaugural ONE FC

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With one exception, all fighters were on weight for ONE Fighting Championship's inaugural event including UFC veterans Phil Baroni, Yoshiyuki Yoshida and former WBA World super featherweight champion Yodsanan Sor Nanthachai.

The Ultimate Fighter season five contestant Andy Wang was the sole fighter to have trouble on the scales, coming in at 163.1 lbs - 4.1 lbs over the 159-pound weight limit. It is assumed at this stage that Wang's opponent, Carlos Gracie, Jr. Brazlian Jiu Jitsu blackbelt Zorobabel Moreira, will take 15 percent of Wang's purse and the bout will be contested at a catchweight. The bout was initially set at 155 lbs but it is believed that Wang requested the bout be moved to 159 lbs in the weeks leading up to the fight.

The first event for the Singapore-based ONE FC is set to take place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Singapore and will be broadcast on ESPN StarSports through Asia and streamed online to the rest of the world. The full weigh-in results are after the break.

ONE FC 1: Champion vs. Champion. Sept. 3 at Singapore Indoor Stadium, Singapore
A Sol Kwon (155 lbs) vs. Eduard Folayang (155.9 lbs)
Phil Baroni (175.3 lbs) vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida (174.8 lbs)
Mitch Chilson (145.5 lbs) vs. Eric Kelly (142.4 lbs)
Gregor Gracie (169.37 lbs) vs. Seok Mo Kim (169.7 lbs)
Andy Wang (163.1 lbs) vs. Zorobabel Moreira (158.9 lbs)
Eddie Ng (159.6 lbs) vs. Yuan Chun Bo (154.3 lbs)
Radeem Rahman (125.2) vs. Susovan Ghosh (125.2 lbs)
Vuyisile Colossa (160.7 lbs) vs. Ma Xing Yu (155.2 lbs)
Daniel Mashamaite (136 lbs) vs. Yodsanan Sor Nanthachai (135.1 lbs)
Soo Chul Kim (135.5) vs. Leandro Issa (136.5)

 

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Velasquez vs. Dos Santos Will Headline First UFC on Fox Event

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UFC heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez will defend his title against Junior dos Santos on network television.

UFC President Dana White announced on Friday that Velasquez vs. dos Santos will be the main event for the first UFC on Fox event, on November 12 in Anaheim, California.

"We deliver -- we deliver to the fans and we deliver to the partners and in my opinion we're delivering again," White said. "We're going with the most prestigious championship in all of sports -- the heavyweight title."

Velasquez vs. dos Santos had previously been scheduled to take place on November 19, as the main event of the UFC 139 pay-per-view event in San Jose. But the UFC wanted to hit a home run with its first Fox fight, and so it decided to take the heavyweight title bout off pay-per-view and onto network television.

"This is like us getting Ali-Foreman," Fox Sports Chief Executive David Hill said.

So the Velasquez-dos Santos bout won't just be the first UFC main event on network television, it will also be one of the best fights that MMA fans have ever been able to watch without having to buy a pay-per-view. This is a huge development for the sport, and White said it will be the most-watched fight in MMA history.

Velasquez vs. dos Santos is a five-round title fight and will be the only bout televised live during the hourlong Fox show. It's possible that some of the undercard fights could still be shown on tape delay, but White said he isn't sure yet how the UFC will air the undercard fights on the November 12 event.

"We'll figure that out -- we haven't figured that out yet," White said. "We always get the fights to the fans one way or another so we'll figure this out, too."

Velasquez has been sidelined with a shoulder injury since winning the heavyweight title from Brock Lesnar in October, but he has said recently that he's 100 percent healthy and ready to defend his title. He'll get a very tough test from dos Santos, who is undefeated in the UFC and one of the best strikers in the sport.

White said both Velasquez and dos Santos are thrilled at the opportunity to have their fight taken off pay-per-view and put in front of a larger audience on network TV.

"It was the easiest conversation I've ever had," White said. "It took literally three and a half minutes to get both deals done. They couldn't be more excited."

 

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