It's always nice to see mainstream media -- even if it's in the blog section -- cover mixed martial arts, the sport we greatly enjoy.

The New York Times recently published an interview with Jon Wertheim, a SI.com sports writer who also wrote "Blood in the Cage: Mixed Martial Arts, Pat Miletich, and the Furious RIse of the UFC."

In the interview, he covers topics ranging from the UFC and MMA's growth, his comparison of MMA fighters to tennis players, where MMA goes in the future, and a number of other topics in the interview.

Question
The U.F.C. has broken the barrier with mainstream advertisers. The same Bud Light spots that were seen in the Super Bowl are on Spike’s coverage of the U.F.C. Do you think the U.F.C. can get onto broadcast network TV or HBO, especially after what happened with Elite XC and CBS?
Answer

Most “upstart” leagues are so desperate for TV exposure that often they will essentially give the time to the networks. In this case, I think the future depends more on the U.F.C.’s desires and moods than on the networks’. Does the U.F.C. want to abandon/alter a successful pay-per-view model? And is the U.F.C. willing to let other folks control the production, run the broadcast, install their own objective commentators, et cetera? I think a deal with HBO is unlikely, for a variety of reasons — not least, HBO’s investment in boxing. But if U.F.C. continues growing and gradually losing its stigma, I think the programming angle becomes an interesting part of the story.

In case you're interested, there also is an excerpt from his book posted at the end of the interview.

Wanderlei Silva is preparing to make the long needed drop -- at least in my opinion -- from light heavyweight down to middleweight, with the fighter telling ESPN's Franklin McNeil his plans prior to UFC 94 on Jan. 31.

After signing with the UFC, he has gone 1-2 in the LHW division, beating Keith Jardine but losing to Quinton Jackson and Chuck Liddell.

Since then, he has confirmed his plans to drop in weight to numerous other members of the media, and most would agree that the middleweight division fits him better.  Most fighters competing at LHW cut significant weight to make the 205-pound weight limit, while Silva's walking weight is just 208 pounds.

"I think this is the technique," Silva recently told MMAWeekly.com.  "Yeah, I could try because every guy in my division have to cut to 205 and my normal is 208. I'm going to test now... I'm going to cut my weight. Maybe I go to fight in my next fight at 185," says Silva. Always toeing the company line, he's not ready to make a permanent move, adding, "I could fight in both divisions; I could fight 185 and 205."

And although he's willing to drop down to MW, like he told MMAWeekly, it's also highly likely he'll step back into the LHW division in the future.

I know Mike already wrote about this late last month, but I just wanted to bring the topic up again, as it's cold and rainy and wanted something to ramble about.  I'm curious to see who the UFC matches him up with for his first fight at MW.  Any guesses?

Affliction had its sophomore MMA event at the end of last month, and there has been a lot of talk that the company won't be able to afford to host a third MMA event again.  I'm not sure about Affliction's financial situation, so I won't speculate about whether or not the company will be able to promote another show. 

As a fan of MMA, I truly hope Tom Atencio and company will be able to find the cash to host another show, as I look forward to seeing Fedor Emelianenko fight Josh Barnett.  Fighting off all these rumors and speculation of Affliction Entertainment's operations must be mentally tiring for him, but he's going to have to get used to it even if there is a third event this summer.

"We're looking at three to four months when we'll do the next fight," he told MMAJunkie.com.  "The bottom line is we're here.  We're coming up on the next event, and we'll give the date pretty soon."

I've attended a lot of MMA events, ranging from local smokers all the way up to UFC and Pride events.  I've also gone to Strikeforce, EliteXC, and WEC events, so I'm used to seeing live events -- and there were some basic kinks that need to be fixed, but I think Affliction is willing to sacrifice more time, effort and money into having another event.

Although I highly respect Georges St. Pierre, B.J. Penn and Anderson Silva -- all of whom I've seen fight live -- it's just not the same when Emelianenko fights.  Each and every time he fights I truly believe I'm watching an MMA legend solidify his legacy, and definitely felt that when he fought Andrei Arlovski in January.

For the sake of better competition -- and the fact that the Day of Reckoning event was highly entertaining to attend -- I hope a third event will take place sometime this summer.

Until another possible Affliction event, there is a lot of great MMA for fans to enjoy in the UFC and other events.  As a reminder, don't forget that Diego Sanchez and Joe Stevenson headline UFC 95 free on Spike TV on Saturday, Feb. 21.

The World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts (WAMMA) plans to launch a new monthly poll to try and rank the best professional female mixed martial arts fighters in the world, it was announced today.

The rankings will be created for the following female weight classes: 125 pounds, 135 pounds, and 145 pounds.

WAMMA is probably best known for its monthly top ten rankings for male fighters, with Fedor Emelianenko serving as the WAMMA heavyweight champion, and Shinya Aoki serving as the current WAMMA lightweight champion. 

Emelianenko successfully defended his WAMMA heavyweight title against Andrei Arlovski at Affliction's Day of Reckoning last month, winning by first round knockout.  The WAMMA poll for male fighters is voted on by the media, but the organization has decided to change things around for its female poll.

"We are sure that the decision to conduct an industry poll for our female rankings will raise some eyebrows," WAMMA COO Mike Lynch said in a statement.  "However, after an exhaustive search, it was determined that while there are many knowledgeable experts on the field of female MMA, most of them have an industry affiliation.  Much like the NFL allows its players to vote in its Pro Bowl selections, WAMMA has elected to follow a similar model. We're going to allow the female fighting industry tell the world who its best fighters are."

Most casual MMA fans are aware of Gina Carano and Cris "Cyborg" Santos -- arguably the two faces of female MMA -- but most other female MMA fighters tend to compete in relative anonymity, so it should be interesting to see which other fighters are selected.

As a rather interesting aside, each WAMMA belt -- for the men at least -- costs around $4,000 to create, and the champions get a new title each time they defend.  The WAMMA ring Emelianenko received during the weigh-ins of Day at Reckoning cost $17,000, and no other rings will be given out to champions.

Jon Koppenhaver, legally known as War Machine, has been in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons as of late.  We know all of his exploits over the years:

He reportedly choked a man unconscious during a street fight in San Diego.

He was originally kicked out of the UFC for saying rather insensitive things about Evan Tanner's unfortunate death last year.  Once officially cut from the UFC, not surprisingly, War Machine went off on a tangent and launched a rather impressive whine session.

And things got especially bad when he posted a MySpace note with the subject "**** an Obama," which was an immature tirade that ended with, "I hope someone smokes that ****er and every president to come until they can actually give us a candidate that is truly one of the people."

His rant about President Barack Obama led Bellator Fighting to cut him from the organization, as his comments were seen as inappropriate and damaging towards the organization.

To cap it off, he was arrested after a scuffle inside the Krave Nightclub & Lounge in Las Vegas, and it's possible the punches he threw at nightclub security staff could have him face jail time for probation violation.

Despite all this, it seems someone may have finally got some sense into War Machine.

His latest post on MySpace starts out with the following passage:

"First, I need to admit that my comment regarding Obama was completely out of line. In all sincerity I do not wish any harm done to the President and I realize that it was a very stupid thing to write so I am publicly apologizing to the President and to his supporters."

He continues:

"Looking back now, I realize that if I ran an up and coming professional organization like Bellator, I wouldn't want my event associated with a "wild card" posting crazy (expletive) about the President either. I understand why they did what they did. I admit that. I'm still pissed that I can't compete in the tournament, but there is no one I can be pissed at other than MYSELF."

He's in Las Vegas training at Xtreme Couture, and it's possible -- assuming he stays out of prison -- that he still has a pro fighting future.  If he finally cleans up his act and starts acting maturely, and gets a few solid victories, are you willing to forgive him, or is he forever damned to be just another punk?

If some of you are morbidly curious -- and I know there are quite a few of you out there -- Sherdog.com will stream the Wargods/Ken Shamrock Production MMA event "Valentine's Eve Massacre" tomorrow night.

The headlining fight features Ken Shamrock and Ross Clifton.

Full fight card:

Fight Card:
Ken Shamrock vs. Ross Clifton
David “Tank” Abbott vs. Mike Bourke
Josh Haynes vs. Rafael Real
Kyacey Uscola vs. BJ Lacy
Mike Moreno vs. Gary Padilla
Buddy Roberts vs. Wesley “Cabbage” Correira
Isaac de Jesus vs. Ashe Bowman
Rick Reeves vs. Nathan James
Jennifer Tate vs. Jen Babcock
Zoila Frausto vs. Karina Hallinan
Darrin Freeman vs. TBA
Tonya Evinger vs. TBA

Shamrock is looking to become more involved in promoting MMA events and working with lesser known MMA fighters, so I'm rather curious to see how this goes.

Being a member of the Gracie family obviously adds a lot of pressure to compete in Brazilian jiu jitsu tournaments and bring home trophies and championships to a family full of BJJ successes.

How do you think Kyra Gracie feels? 

She's the only female in the Gracie family who holds a black belt, and has to continually live up to high expectations from both her family and fans.

"I started to feel this pressure in a Pan-American Championship, when I was still a blue belt," Gracie said during an interview with Tatame.  "The truth is that when women fought no one stopped to look.  And I think that, as (a) Gracie, people wanted to see whether I was good or not."

The full interview is available in the February magazine edition of Tatame, where she discusses her family legacy, MMA, idols, plans for the future, Master Helio Gracie's death, and the death of her uncle, Ryan Gracie.

Ken Shamrock is 45 years old and just a former shell of who he used to be 10 years ago.  Despite numerous calls by hardcore MMA fans for him to simply hang up his gloves and walk away, the "World's Most Dangerous Man" is not yet ready to give up.

"This is my life," Shamrock said in an interview with MMAJunkie.com.  "I helped build a lot of things in this business.  So these guys that stand out there and say I shouldn't do this and I shouldn't do that, they're basically telling me I need to get out and be unhappy."

I remember watching Shamrock fight in UFC 1, UFC 5, UFC 6, and UFC 7, and admired his fighting style as being one of the first people who could actually submit opponents.  As of late, however, I also remember watching Tito Ortiz, Kazushi Sakuraba, and Rich Franklin dismantle Shamrock while even Robert Berry was able to knock him out last year.

If he wants to continue fighting, then I don't think I'm the right person to try and tell him to simply give up something he's been doing since 1993.  And there are a couple more fights the 45-year-old looks forward to before he finally calls it a career: 

Aside from fighting this weekend against Ross Clifton in a freakshow MMA fight this Friday night, he wants to eventually fight a rematch with his adopted brother Frank Shamrock.  I honestly don't like his odds against Shamrock, and would expect him to get smashed through the ground.  If not Frank Shamrock, he'd like an opportunity to fight Tank Abbott, a bout that would likely be a train wreck that people would be curious to see.

Aside from fighting, I'm glad to see Shamrock try his hand at promoting smaller shows and up-and-coming fighters.  Friday night's "Wargods: Valentine's Eve Massacre" is a joint venture between Wargods and Ken Shamrock Productions (KSP), Shamrock's latest attempt at producing shows.

"We're going to be putting on a lot of shows.  We've got four lined up already.  We've got one down in San Diego, Fresno, one in Reno, and then another one back in Fresno."

Ken Shamrock is out of his prime?  Okay.  Fine.  But until he's ready to hang up his gloves for good, I'm willing to sit back and watch as he tries to make KSP a successful business for future shows.  Whether you love him or hate him, he's done quite a bit for the sport, and it looks like he wants to continue to promoting shows.

I'll gladly admit I'd rather see him put all of his focus in promoting and teaching his students, and letting the new generation of fighters continue to get better -- but we'll see what happens after this weekend.

Phil Baroni (13-10) has publicly said he'll make his return to MMA at a May Strikeforce event that is scheduled to take place in Seattle.  The scheduled bout will take place in the welterweight division, and it's unknown who Baroni's opponent will be.

"I've started my training camp at Xtreme Couture in Las Vegas... I'm very happy to be fighting in Strikeforce for Scott Coker again," Baroni said on a post on the UG forums.

Since dropping from middleweight to welterweight, Baroni has a three-fight win streak against the likes of Olaf Alfonso, Ron Verdadero and Scott Jansen.  Prior to his move to 170, he lost three straight, a slide started by Frank Shamrock submitting him in a middleweight title fight during StrikeForce Shamrock vs. Baroni in 2007.

Strikeforce had eight shows in 2008, but after a recently announced deal with Showtime, the organization hopes to have 16 live televised MMA events this year.

Strikeforce's April 11 event is continuing to take shape now that the ProElite/EliteXC deal has been finalized, which has left fans optimistic for solid MMA shows in the United States outside of the UFC.

Gilbert Melendez (14-2), who is a former Strikeforce lightweight champion but lost the title to Josh Thomson, is scheduled to fight on the April 11 card.  The event will take place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., which has served as the home for many Strikeforce events. 

Melendez's contract was up in the air but was one of 40 contracts purchased by Strikeforce from ProElite.

According to Graciefighter.com, Melendez's opponent will be announced in less than two weeks.  Although he's been out of action since a 2008 loss last June to Thomson, he's been training with the likes of Nick and Nate Diaz and Jake Shields.  He's 1-2 in his last three fights, with one victory against Gabe Lemley and losses to Thomson and Mitsuhiro Ishida.

During a conference call, Strikeforce promoter Scott Coker said a rematch with Ishida is possible, or a clash with former UFC fighter Jorge Gurgel could take place in April.

Even though a report published by Tatame indicated Urijah Faber would fight Wagnney Fabiano in a 145-lb. clash for the WEC, sources close to Faber say it simply isn't true.

In the Tatame interview, Fabiano said his next fight would be April 5 in Chicago and Faber was a possible opponent -- on the contrary, says the anonymous source, who points out Faber isn't scheduled to fight this April.

It's extremely likely Faber will be selected to headline the WEC card in June when it takes place at Arco Arena, which is in Sacramento, Calif.  "The California Kid" has only two fights left on his current WEC contract, and would like to re-negotiate before fighting for the featherweight title he lost to Mike Brown last November.

Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos has reportedly signed a world-exclusive, four-fight deal with Strikeforce, and Gina Carano is now in talks to also sign a deal with the organization.

"Santos will fight on one of our next two cards," Strikeforce Director of Communications Mike Afromowitz told Sherdog.  The next Strikeforce event will be on April 11 in San Jose, and the next show after that one could be in May.

Carano has been invited to fight on the April card, and it's likely the two sides are trying to work out money issues -- Carano was paid just $25,000 for her victory against Kelly Kobold in October.

It'd be a tragedy to see Cyborg sign with Strikeforce and Carano sign with a different organization, even though that seems rather unlikely at this point.

Assuming they both end up on the April card, they won't be fighting each other, though it's a matchup that will obviously take place in the future if they both are victorious.

Although Hermes Franca and Joe Lauzon have had a very public war of words leading up to Lauzon's fight with Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 17, it's likely they'll both have different opponents before they finally get into the cage to fight one another. 

Franca pulled out of the Lauzon fight due to a torn ACL, and will likely be on the sidelines for a better part of 2009 -- so a possible fight between Lauzon and Nate Diaz could take place while Franca continues to heal.

"I like Nate a lot, and I like Manny a lot," Lauzon said after his victory against Stephens.  "If the UFC wants me to fight one of those guys, I'd guess probably [I'd want] more so Nate than Manny.  I think a lot of people were waiting for that fight.  When I was in [The Ultimate Fighter] house, I was looking forward to that fight.  No one really wanted that fight.  I was like, 'I'll fight Nate.'  I thought he was one of the better guys in the house."

While the UFC will be able to market a fight between two talented, young fighters of the future, Franca will have surgery and patiently wait to heal up.  Once he's ready to train full-time and get ready for a fight, it seems he has his sights on an old foe who beat him via unanimous decision during UFC 73 stacked in 2007.

"I would like to face Sean Sherk again, I think we have a lot of work to finish," Franca said during an interview with Tatame.

This news creates two rather interesting questions:

If a fight between Lauzon and Diaz takes place, who would you put your money on? 

Once Franca recovers and is ready to fight again, would you want to see him fight Sherk again, or should he fight Lauzon?

I'd honestly rather see Franca fight Lauzon as opposed to another fight with Sherk, who I believe would be able to grind out a unanimous decision yet again.  Until Franca is ready to fight again, I'd love to see the UFC make a Lauzon vs. Diaz fight take place sometime this spring or early summer.

Joe Lauzon, who takes on Jeremy Stephens at UFC Fight Night 17, is now in Tampa preparing for his main event fight with Hermes Franca's replacement.

Rather than try and stand and trade for three rounds, I expect Lauzon to get the take down and spend time punishing Stephens on the ground.  And now that he doesn't have to worry about facing Franca on the ground, he should be able to open up a bit more with his ground and pound.

Lauzon also admits his game plan has changed now that he's fighting Stephens:

“With Hermes I would have to take him down because he has great defense and he’s real good on his feet. You don’t want to get caught with anything. So the plan would be to take him down. Once you take him down, then you have to deal with a black belt in jiu-jitsu. I just think that once you take him down Stephens isn’t the same caliber as Hermes. I’m sure he’s very good. I’m not knocking him at all. I just think it’s a different kind of fight.”

Regardless of the outcome of the fight -- which I believe will be a Lauzon victory by TKO in R2 -- I definitely want to see Lauzon and Franca fight at some point in the future.  They both want to fight one another, and now that they've spent the past week or two arguing with one another on Internet MMA forums, they've inadvertently hyped up a future fight.

This is Lauzon's second main event fight, with his first time in the spotlight against Kenny Florian at UFC Fight Night 13 last April.  Many MMA fans, even while rooting for Lauzon, understood that Florian -- the No. 1 contender for the lightweight title -- would be too much for Lauzon.

Lauzon agreed:

“I’ll fight who they want me to fight, whatever the UFC thinks,” said Lauzon. “I thought the Kenny fight was a little too early, but they wanted it and we did it. I wasn’t going to say, ‘I’m not going to fight him.’ Maybe I was right and it was too early. But I’ll do whatever they want me to do and I’m ready to do whatever. I think no matter who I’ll fight it’ll be a competitive fight. Maybe I won’t win them all, but whoever I go and fight it’s going to be a good fight.”

A lot of MMA fans are now on the Jon Jones bandwagon after his impressive performance against Stephan Bonner at UFC 94 on Saturday night.  He's a young man who many will follow in the years to come, with high hopes of Jones continuing to head to the gym and work hard while his career progresses.

There are a number of young up and comers fighting in the UFC, Affliction and other organizations, which should help excite fight fans for years to come.

I'm going to take a step back and talk about another young talent who suffered a loss during his first major MMA event.

Kiril “Baby Fedor” Sidelnikov suffered a rough TKO loss to Paul “The Headhunter” Buentello during Affliction Day of Reckoning, but proved he is a fighter we should pay attention to in the future.

It was Buentello’s reach advantage — using the jab — that helped him keep the advantage against the young Russian, who ate shot after shot while Buentello did a great job mixing it up while on the feet.  He attempted just one poor shot which Buentello was able to stuff easily, then resorted to try and trade with Buentello on the feet.

Despite the loss, Sidelnikov showed that he’s a fighter of the future, with Buentello even confirming the thought during the post-fight conference.  The in-ring experience the older fighter brought helped him, as Sidelnikov was unable to answer on the feet.  The fight was ended at 4:18 in the third round via TKO, with ring-side doctors electing to stop the fight due to cuts.

“I consider myself as a young up and coming fighter,” Sidelnikov told FightSport magazine.  “I will take every opportunity I can to reach the top of MMA.  I think that I can be in the top five in five years.  Then I will only be 25."

Sidelnikov’s short MMA career of a few years has seen him record a 5-3-0 record, although he has been involved in combat sambo and mixfight for several years now. 

"I really like exchanging punches and making reversals on the ground.  And last but not least ground and pound."

He’s an excellent sambo practitioner but enjoys standing and exchanging — a tactic that he will likely need to leave behind against experienced fighters such as Buentello.  Members of Emelianenko's camp say Baby Fedor has good takedowns and strong sambo, so he'll need to use those skills rather than stand and bang if he wants to succeed.

I was impressed with Baby Fedor’s performance as he showed an impressive chin while fighting a very experienced opponent.  He’s just 20 years old and is one of Fedor Emelianenko’s main training partners, so his future is likely extremely bright.  I think Affliction should have found other opponents for both fighters, and having Baby Fedor try and fight Buentello simply was too soon.

Cutting down to light heavyweight may not seem that appealing to Baby Fedor at the moment, but it’s a move that could make sense for him later down the road.  Regardless of where he fights next, I’ll look forward to seeing him develop inside the cage.  He's undersized at heavyweight, and may not be strong enough to battle the larger, more experienced fighters in the HW division.
It also didn't help that this  fight was his first attempt at fighting three five-minute rounds, as M-1 Challenge rules have two five-minute rounds with the possibility of a bonus round. 

Despite the loss, I can't wait to see who M-1 or Affliction pairs him up against in the future.  With fighters like Jones, Sidelnikov and others, MMA fans have a lot to look forward to in the future.