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MMA NOTES-
UFC veteran George Roop will return to the cage November 14th to face Matt Dell for his RITC featherweight title at the Desert Diamond Casino in Tuscon, AZ. Roop and Dell fought in February 2007 with Roop winning a split decision. Now Dell has the belt and is looking to avenge his first loss.

November 14th will mark Team Rampage assistant coach Hector “Sick Dog” Ramirez’s return to the cage after a year long layoff. In his first bout after season 10 of “The Ultimate Fighter” Ramirez faces UFC veteran Lodune Sincaid at Called Out MMA in Ontario, CA, at Citizens Business Bank Arena.

Bellator FC middleweight champ Hector Lombard will return to action Nov. 20 to defend his Cage Fighting Championships title in Sydney, Australia. UFC veteran Kalib Starnes will challenge. Lombard, 31, was set to defend his CFC title for the fifth time, against Starnes on Oct. 9 in Queensland, but in September suffered a cut and concussion in training which forced promoter Luke Pezutti to postpone the event to November.

The “UFC’s Ultimate 100: Greatest Fights,” a collection of the MMA promotion’s 100 greatest fights as decided on by a fan vote, will soon be available on DVD. Unlike the five-part Spike TV series, which showed just clips of the 100 contests, the new DVD collection will offer all 100 fights in their entirety. Anchor Bay Entertainment, the current distributor of UFC DVD’s, today announced that the eight-DVD set will be available on Nov. 10 for a suggested retail price of $99.97 (you can pre-order UFC’s Ultimate 100 on DVD at Amazon.com for $55.99).

“HDNet will continue to showcase the premiere MMA promotion in Canada to millions of fans in North America,” announced Andrew Simon, the CEO of HDNet Fights. HDNet and Maximum Fighting Championship have extended their agreement to continue broadcasting MFC events exclusively on HDNet into 2010. The multi-fight deal will commence on December 4 with the HDNet broadcast of MFC 23 live from the River Cree Resort and Casino in Alberta, Canada.
source: gerweck.net

REMOVED!
Brock Lesnar vs. Shane Carwin has been removed from the UFC 108 page on UFC.com. Not a good sign. Todd Duffee is also off UFC 107, so another one bites the dust.
Sources: wrestlingobserver. com, f4wonline.com

UFC 98 Evans versus Machida and Hughes against Serra.

UFC 98 is fast approaching with just a week to go until May 23rd when the UFC return to Las Vegas and live PPV cage fighting action. The original plan for the main event was all set to decide the UFC Heavyweight championship between Interim champ Frank Mir and defending champion Brock Lesnar in his first title defence but as we all now know that fight is rescheduled for UFC 100 in July.  So we have a little longer to wait but the double main event heading UFC 98 looks wicked.

First off in the top slot Rashad Evans defends the Light Heavyweight crown against challenger Lyoto Machida. For Rashad this will be his first defence of the title against Machida, a very worthy contender. Machida is undeated in the octagon boasting a unique style of countering his opponents attack coupled with a fantastic ability to avoid taking punishment from his attacker. Evans versus Machida the Karate master will be interesting seeing as they are stylistic so different where Evans is a superb wrestler and excellent striker. Can Evans overcome Machida’s strategy or will Lyoto continuing his winning streak and add the UFC Light Heavyweight belt to his trophy cabinet?

Check out this highlight preview video at youtube.com to wet your appetite for their light heavyweight championship showdown next weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBzYdPq59kw

The co-headliner for UFC 98 will be the long-delayed welterweight
bout between Matt Hughes and Matt Serra. This one is a grudge match dating back to season 6 of The Ultimate Fighter where Serra and Hughes were the opposing coaches of the welterweight fighters. These guys just do not like each other, it’s as simple as that. Each fighter are two totally opposite characters. Hughes is the Mid-Western famer’s boy with Christian values, then we have Serra a loud mouthed Italian American hailing from New York. It’s fair to say both fighters need to prove themselves in this fight to climb back up to the challengers position for another shot at Georges St Pierre’s Welterweight belt. As with Machida and Evans here again Joe Silva and Dana White have booked another clash of styles which is what makes an exciting fight when you have wrestler against a BJJ submission specialist.  Personally I would love to see Serra take the victory due to how Serra comes across as a nice guy and Hughes is the villain you love to hate.

Follow the build up to Matt Serra versus Matt Hughes at UFC98.
If you enjoyed watching Serra on TUF 6 you will love this, he’s a great little character. Serra is a down to earth engaging guy you would want to go for a beer with.

Matt Serra UFC 98 Video Blog – Day 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb4bK8K2sUQ

Matt Serra UFC 98 Video Blog – Day 2, taped on 5/6/09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvrkaRUTcCM

Matt Serra UFC 98 Video Blog – Day 3 Matt Serra UFC 98 Video Blog – Day 3 (Last Day, taped on 5/8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhuCp5BUDo4

See Serra and his trainer make media appearances on TV and radio,
including a phone in to Setanta Sports Ultimate Talk from the gym.

Here is the finalised event card in full.

Main Card Bouts:
-Rashad Evans (16-0-1) vs. Lyoto Machida (14-0)
-Matt Hughes (42-7) vs. Matt Serra (11-5)
-Dan Miller (11-1) vs. Chael Sonnen (21-10-1)
-Sean Sherk (33-3-1) vs. Frankie Edgar (9-1)
-Drew McFedries (7-5) vs. Xavier Foupa-Pokam (20-10)

Preliminary Card Bouts:
-Brock Larson (25-2) vs. Chris Wilson (14-5)
-Yoshiyuki Yoshida (10-3) vs. Brandon Wolff (7-3)
-Tim Hague (9-1) vs. Patrick Barry (4-0)
-Phillipe Nover (7-1) vs. Kyle Bradley (13-6)
-Andre Gusmao (5-1) vs. Krzysztof Soszynski (17-8-1)
-George Roop (10-5) vs. David Kaplan (3-3)

You can watch UFC 98 live on Setanta Sports in the UK or on pay per view in the USA.

MMA blog by Dynamite Duane

duane@bluraymma.com

www.myspace.com/dynamite_duane