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Fronted by Luke Thomas. Note: while McCarthy is an employee of the athletic commission, it will be interesting to see how Zuffa treats him given their falling out.

via www.mmaontap.com

Both Sherdog and MMAontap are reporting on the return of Big John McCarthy to the cage.  McCarthy is apparently scheduled to officiate "selected bouts" at the Strikeforce event in San Jose, CA, on november 21.

According to MMAontap's article, McCarthy has had his officiating license renewed in California, but no information is yet available about whether he will apply for reinstatement in Nevada.

With the distractions brought on by the officiating in recent MMA events, it is great to see the best in the business coming back.  Big John *should* be the one in the Octagon for the Couture/Lesnar match, and hopefully whoever does get that one won't do anything to detract from the event itself and the subsequent discussion can focus on the event and not the officiating.

Welcome back, Big John.

Fronted by Kid Nate.

Mayhem Miller on his ProElite blog:

Wow, wtf. Kimbo loses a fight and its like Jesus fell off his damn dinosaur.

Mayhem thinks Kimbo is like Santa -- if you accept what he is and why you watch, you don't care about things like his actual MMA skills or legitimacy of the opponents, you just want the dude with the beard to hand out more presents.

I'm not a Kimbo fan, but I am a Mayhem fan.  And that first line made me spit my Diet Mountain Dew all over some pretty important paperwork.

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Fronted by Kid Nate

"Live from Omaha, Nebraska . . . "

I have to admit that I never thought I'd see the day where the UFC would come calling in Omaha, Nebraska.  There's a decent "local" scene, with events like Ring Wars and Victory Fighting Championship, and there's a good number of local gyms that do MMA training.  There have been a handful of local guys who've made it to the bigger promos -- Houston, Ryan "Tap-Out" Jensen, Jake Ellenberger (Bodog/IFL), etc.  But to see Dana White, Joe Silva, Arianny Celeste, Rogan, Goldberg, and the rest of the UFC gang come to Omaha was just more than I could have expected.  But last night, here they were.

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Fronted by Luke Thomas:

via www.evantanner.net

The former location of Evan's personal blog (before the one on Spike) has been transformed into a memorial site for fans and friends to gather and share thoughts, memories, and comments.

Evan Tanner dot net:

As many of you already know, Evan passed away in the desert on Monday, September 8th.  We have set up the site so that his many friends and fans can leave comments, and come together in this time of great loss.  We'll miss you Evan.

Fronted by Luke Thomas.

According to FightTicker the two have been offered a spot against each other on the November card that will feature Couture/Lesnar.

MMARated.com is reporting that a light heavyweight bout between Rampage Jackson and Wanderlei Silva has been offered to both fighters for UFC 91.The show will be held on November 15th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas,NV.

The show's main event between the returning Randy Couture against Brock Lesnar has had the MMA world abuzz this week and the addition of this fight could only help draw even more PPV buys to what may already be a record number when all is said and done. The card will also feature a lightweight bout between Kenny Florian and Joe Stevenson and a possible matchup between TUF season 7 winner Amir Sadollah and Nick Catone is also being rumored.

Silva has two previous victories against Rampage in the now defunct Pride organization.

It will be interesting to see which Rampage shows up. Will it be the man who rose to glory to defeat Chuck Liddell or will it be the disturbed man we have seen lately? I personally hope that Jackson can work through all of his troubles and give us a performance that could lead to "Fight of the Night" honors.

This could make for a great start to a huge card.  It'd be really interesting to see if Rampage can really be in the right mental state to take a fight with Silva by November, given all of his problems of late.  But if it goes, that'd be two huge fights to look forward to.