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Eddie Sanchez Beats Brett Rogers by Split Decision

Filed under: HDNetBrett Rogers returned to the cage on Friday night for the first time since being released by Strikeforce, and it did not go well. At the end of a dull three-round contest, the judges awarded Eddie Sanchez a split-decision victory.

Th…

Filed under: HDNet

Brett Rogers returned to the cage on Friday night for the first time since being released by Strikeforce, and it did not go well. At the end of a dull three-round contest, the judges awarded Eddie Sanchez a split-decision victory.

The fight could have gone either way, and neither fighter did enough to really earn a victory. For most of the bout they were gasping for air, sweating profusely and not looking like they were in very good shape, but someone had to win and two judges scored it 30-27 for Sanchez, while one judge had it 29-28 Rogers.

After the fight, Sanchez did his best to talk up what had been a relatively uneventful fight.

“He caught me a couple times,” Sanchez said of Rogers. “He does have some power.”

Sanchez landed a number of leg kicks on the flat-footed Rogers, and eventually it was Sanchez who looked the worse for wear from all that leg-to-leg contact: Sanchez had a deep cut on his right shin and a swollen right foot from landing all those kicks to Rogers’ lead leg. But Sanchez said afterward that the injury to his lower leg hadn’t affected him.

“I really didn’t notice it,” Sanchez said. “It split open, I think, in the second round. With the adrenaline rush you don’t really feel it.”

Rogers, the former Strikeforce fighter who was released by Zuffa following three losses and an arrest on domestic violence charges, may not have anywhere to go from here. He has now lost four of his last five fights, he has been involved in trouble out of the cage, and his recent fights have been snooze-fests that left the fans booing. Those are three big strikes against him: Rogers’ career has just about hit rock bottom.

The Sanchez-Rogers fight took all the energy out of the building after what had been shaping up as an entertaining Titan Fighting Championships card. Some of the energy returned, however, when Dakota Cochrane turned in a solid showing in upsetting former WEC lightweight champion Jamie Varner. Of particular note on the Titan Fighting undercard, Andrew Whitney got things started on the HDNet broadcast with a sensational flying knee knockout of Laramie Shaffer. After Shaffer had won the first two rounds, Whitney exploded with a knee to Shaffer’s face at the start of the third, knocking him cold in one of the highlight-reel knockouts of the year.

It was disappointing that Sanchez and Rogers couldn’t provide such fireworks.

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HDNet to Broadcast Strikeforce Grand Prix Undercard Bouts

Filed under: Strikeforce, News, HDNet HDNet will broadcast the preliminary bouts for the Strikeforce World Grand Prix semifinals and finals, the channel announced in a joint press release with Strikeforce.

The channel will also televise the official w…

Filed under: Strikeforce, News, HDNet

HDNet will broadcast the preliminary bouts for the Strikeforce World Grand Prix semifinals and finals, the channel announced in a joint press release with Strikeforce.

The channel will also televise the official weigh-ins for both events.

For the September 10 semifinals, HDNet will televise four fights.

The bouts are Rafael “Feijao” Cavalcante vs. Yoel Romero, Mike Kyle vs. Marco Rogerio de Lima, Evangelista “Cyborg” Santos vs. Jordan Mein, and Amanda Nunes vs. Alexis Davis.

The event takes place in Cincinnati.

In the Grand Prix semifinals to be broadcast on Showtime, Josh Barnett faces off with Sergei Kharitonov while Antonio Silva takes on Daniel Cormier, who is replacing Alistair Overeem.

Overeem was removed from the competition due to management issues with Strikeforce parent company Zuffa, according to company executives. The two sides remain locked in negotiations about his future.

A date has not yet been established for the tournament finals.

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Maximum Fighting Championship Extends Deal with HDNet for Five More Years

This guy’s excited

Okay, so maybe Maximum Fighting Championship may not have the exposure or roster depth of the UFC. You know, just maybe. But unlike its major league counterpart, it does have a sturdy broadcasting deal. According to Sherdog, yesterday MFC and HDNet announced that they inked a new deal, extending their partnership for an additional five years. Their partnership, which began back in 2008, is now expected to carry on into 2016.

The promotion’s next event, MFC 31, will take place on October 14^th. The card will feature newly re-crowned lightweight champion Antonio McKee squaring off against Brian “The Bandit” Cobb, who is a member of Team Pain and Suffering. Go figure. Neither the location of the event or other bouts on the card has been announced yet, but you know where you’ll be able to watch it.

This guy’s excited

DVR Alert: Shark Fights on FUEL TV, It’s Showtime Amsterdam on HDNet

(The poster for tomorrow night’s “Shark Fights 16: Neer vs. Juarez” card — look for the broadcast soon on FUEL. Image courtesy of SharkFights.com)

As if you didn’t have enough MMA to deal with this weekend — what with Strikeforce Challengers tonight, Bellator 46 on Saturday night, and UFC Live: Marquardt vs. Story on Sunday night, not to mention Spike TV’s counter-programming efforts — we have another recommendation for your MMA viewing pleasure.

Last week, FUEL TV kicked off a weekly Friday-night broadcast highlighting Shark Fights‘s best recent events. Tonight starting at 9 p.m. ET/PT, they’re airing highlights from Shark Fights 15, which featured the controversial draw between Joey Villasenor and TUF 11 castmember Chris Camozzi, and Dave Branch vs. Jeremy May. Coincidentally, Shark Fights is also holding their 16th event tomorrow night in Odessa, Texas, featuring interim welterweight champion (and UFC vet) Josh Neer taking on Bellator/MFC standout Jesse Juarez.

Also? Tonight at 11 p.m., HDNet is airing the It’s Showtime 2011 Amsterdam card from last month, which was headlined by accused coke-smuggler Hesdy Gerges vs. Chris Knowles. In other words, this is one of the busiest weekends in the history of combat sports. Enjoy, and please stay hydrated.

(The poster for tomorrow night’s “Shark Fights 16: Neer vs. Juarez” card — look for the broadcast soon on FUEL. Image courtesy of SharkFights.com)

Rashad Evans Says Jon Jones “Couldn’t Let It Go,” Meanwhile He Detailed Nightclub Confrontation to ProMMARadio and Will Again to HDNet on Friday!

Rashad Evans gave ProMMARadio a detailed version of his “Surrender” nightclub confrontation with Jon Jones last weekend in Las Vegas, and below is a transcript of the incident according to Evans *Note: my god, he.

Rashad Evans gave ProMMARadio a detailed version of his “Surrender” nightclub confrontation with Jon Jones last weekend in Las Vegas, and below is a transcript of the incident according to Evans *Note: my god, he seems to have memorized the incident word for word.

You can read Evan’s account below or wait for his appearance on HDNet this Friday night where he “SETS THE RECORD STRAIGHT ON RECENT CONFRONTATION WITH JON JONES” according to a press release from HDNet’s Inside MMA. Poor HDNet were probably thrilled to book Evans and get his side, but for a guy who says Jon Jones “couldn’t let it go” (which apparently started their confrontation) he sure seems eager to talk about it.

“I saw Jon this past week at the fighter summit and we were at the same location. He pulled me to the side and he said ‘Rashad, I need to talk to you, I think things are getting out of control.’ I thought it was pretty mature for the young guy instead of just ignoring me,” told Evans.

“First thing he said was ‘I just wanna be the first to tell you is I’m gonna destroy you, I’m gonna annihilate you and I’m gonna show the world you’re overrated. I’m gonna punish you and you’ll be my first highlight reel knockout’ and I just started laughing.

“You brought me out here to tell me you’re gonna destroy me? Let’s not even talk about how stupid that sounds. Why would you wanna come way over here to say that in private. Furthermore, how did you even come up with that? He’s like ‘Rashad, remember when I was catching you with knees and elbows in training’ but I said ‘I was simulating Bader. I wasn’t trying to beat you, Jon. I was simulating Bader and what he might do.’

“I told him, ‘Do you remember when I held you down and I was slapping you and punching you in the face and you were underneath me and you couldn’t move and then you looked me in the eye and said ‘Ok, can we get up now?’ and I said ‘No Jon, if you quit now, you’ll quit in the fight. You gotta earn your way up.’ So we fought some more and you couldn’t move some more and you said ‘can you help me?’ and I said ‘No, you have to earn your way up’ and we go for a little bit longer and you still can’t get up so you roll on your back to let me choke you out thinking I’d let you up and be satisfied with that but I didn’t. I continued to make you work up.’

“I said ‘do you remember that?’ and he said ‘yeah, I remember that’ and I said ‘that’s why you don’t want to fight me’ and he was just lost for words for a second and then he told me, ‘Rashad, you just motivating me. You don’t know what you started’ and it just went like that and it just ended when a couple people from our parties separated the two of us. He couldn’t let it go.”

HDNet Offers an Honest Assessment of Bobby Lashley

Filed under: MMA Media Watch, HDNet

The worst thing a TV announcer can do is lie to the audience. That’s true in any sport, but mixed martial arts has a particularly egregious history of announcers hyping up fighters at the expense of the truth: When a promoter wants to make one fighter or another into its next star, there are far too many announcers willing to overstate the fighter’s abilities and mislead the viewers into thinking they’re watching a better fighter than they are.

So it was refreshing on Friday night to hear the HDNet announcing team of Michael Schiavello and Frank Trigg tell the audience the truth about Bobby Lashley, who was fighting in the main event of a Titan Fighting card: Although the easy thing to do would have been to hype up Lashley as Titan Fighting’s biggest star, Schiavello and Trigg instead offered a frank assessment of Lashley and told the audience the truth about who he is: A big, muscular former wrestler whose physique looks impressive but whose MMA skills are limited and whose cardiovascular conditioning is atrocious.