Bloody Elbow

Join Bloody Elbow tonight for a LIVE discussion of the second episode of Primetime. It airs at 11:00 PM ET (dunno Pacific, you may get delayed) only on FX. If you miss the episode, there will be a replay next week on Fuel TV.

Though all the focus is being placed on UFC on Fox 2, there is a card next weekend headlined by a fight between Nick Diaz and Carlos Condit for the interim UFC welterweight title. The story leading up is that both men were at one time slated to face Georges St. Pierre for his welterweight belt but due to unforeseen circumstances, neither fighter received their shot. For Diaz it was missing two major press obligations related to UFC 137. Diaz' loss was Condit's gain as he was placed in the main eventing role.

Unfortunately, St. Pierre went down with an injury and Condit was placed in a hold pattern. Due to Diaz' amazing showing at 137 he was again given a shot at St. Pierre's belt only to have it snatched away again when GSP suffered a major knee injury. Because they can't have the belt on hold for over a year, the UFC has decided to bring back the interim belt.

SBN coverage of UFC on Fox 2

Hello and welcome back to another MMA card courtesy of the fine folks at HDNet. Tonight's offering is Maximum Fighting Championship 32: Bitter Rivals. The card was expected to be headlined by Antonio McKee defending his MFC lightweight belt against Brian Cobb. However, in the past twenty four hours, McKee has been stripped of his title after coming in an insane seven pounds overweight. Mark Pavelich was on Bloody Elbow radio and stated that no matter the outcome, McKee will be released from the promotion. Pavelich went on to state that if Cobb is not victorious, he too will be released from the promotion after coming in overweight as well.

The card is now headlined by a five-round non-title fight between Wilson Gouveia and Dwayne Lewis. Pavelich called it a superfight. I'm not sure about that but it will be a fun fight for sure.

Join us at 10:00 PM ET/7:00 PM PT for a discussion of MFC 32 only on HDNet.

NOTE: DO NOT TURN THIS INTO ANOTHER PROELITE THREAD. I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THAT KINDA THING AGAIN.

British middleweight Michael Bisping faces Chael Sonnen tomorrow night at UFC on Fox 2 in Chicago, Illinois. Tonight at the weigh ins, the voluble fighter flipped off the pro-Sonnen crowd when they booed him.

It seems to have cost Bisping a sponsor based on this tweet from MMA Elite:

It's interesting that MMA Elite also sponsors Quinton "Rampage" Jackson and Muhammed "King Mo" Lawal without complaint. Jackson is remembered for his energy drink fueled "rampage" that left him under arrest for hit and run and Lawal failed a post-fight drug test just weeks ago. Apparently sticks and stones will never cost you a sponsor but flipping the bird at fans will get you off the sponsor rolls pretty quick. What do you think?

UPDATE: MMA Elite has changed their tune:

SBN coverage of UFC on Fox 2

Name:	Magomed Abdurahimov
Nickname:	--
Age:	28
Height:	6'2"
Location:	Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russia

On December 24th in the Dagestani city of Makhachkala, a small, prestigious one-night mixed martial arts tournament took place at the Ali Aliev Sports Complex. No, this isn’t the cheap version of Warrior. Presumably, the event was a showcase of Makhachkala’s hometown hero and 2011 World MMA Scouting Report prospect Shamil Abdurahimov, who hadn’t fought for nine months since winning the Abu Dhabi Fighting Championships’ tournament crown, but it ended up being a coming-out party for his younger brother, Magomed Abdurahimov (2-0).

The 28-year-old Sanda specialist defeated Pro FC veteran Yuri Gorbenko in the semifinals of the four-man tournament, peppering the thirteen-fight veteran with strikes on the feet and cruising to a clear cut decision victory. The win wasn’t an eye opener by any stretch of the imagination, but it did give fans a sense of what Magomed brings to the table. Notably, he offers a style that is the converse of his brother’s focused ground attack.

Magomed’s Sanda roots were on full display, snapping off an extremely quick jab and a relentless mix of kicks to the legs and body. Gorbenko didn’t stand a chance, but his opponent in the finals, #3-ranked 2012 World MMA Heavyweight Scouting Report prospect Alexei Kudin, would provide a stiffer challenge. Shockingly, Magomed blasted Kudin with a couple of crisp combinations, nearly flooring Kudin with a three-punch combo that bloodied him in the first round. Kudin managed to make it a close contest on the scorecards, a split decision, but from my own perspective of the fight -- Abdurahimov clearly won two of the three rounds to win the tournament.

Magomed still needs to work on his defense, specifically on the feet. As his bout with Kudin dragged on, his hands got lazy, leaving his chin open for Kudin’s counters. His most glaring weakness could be his grappling chops, but we didn't get a sense of where he stands during his tournament run. His own brother Shamil could help him immensely in that department. With better wrestling and continued improvement of his takedown defense, there is no question that Magomed could continue his ascension and become the best prospect in Europe by the end of 2012.

All footage of Magomed Abdurahimov can be found at GFL.tv

Bloody Elbow Radio, presented by Bad Boy, will be LIVE! at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT for a special edition of the show. Join hosts Matt Bishop, Forrest Lynn and Matthew Roth as they preview tomorrow night's UFC on Fox, which is headlined by a light-heavyweight bout between Rashad Evans and Phil Davis, a middleweight eliminator clash between Chael Sonnen and Michael Bisping and a middleweight fight between Demian Maia and Chris Weidman.

We'll preview the main card while Bishop provides the inside scoop from Friday's weigh-in and Q&A session. We'll also take your calls, emails, tweets and comments.

Bloody Elbow Radio is sponsored by Bad Boy. Get your brand new Demian Maia UFC on FOX walkout T-shirt only from Bad Boy at the brand new BadBoy.com. Follow them on Twitter and Facebook and tell them Bloody Elbow sent you.

How to listen:

Live/archived on the player below I iTunes I RSS feed I Direct download link

Want to get in touch with the BE Radio crew? Here's how you can do so:

Phone: (347) 202-0934
E-mail: bloodyelbowradio@gmail.com
Twitter: @mbish86, @sprewellrimz or @gotahemmi
BloodyElbow.com: Leave a question or comment in this post

For those calling in, you will first be picked up by our producer who will take your information and get what you want to talk about. You will then be queued. We will try to get to everyone as soon as we can. We ask that you call in around the time of the topic you want to discuss.

SBN coverage of MFC 32: Bitter Rivals

SBN coverage of UFC on Fox 2

It took five days but the UFC released a new Dana White video blog Friday, documenting the behind-the-scenes of Thursday's pre-fight press conference as we lead up to UFC On Fox 2 Saturday.

Some highlights of the nearly eight minute long clip:

• Behind the scenes with White going on Fox's Good Day Chicago with associate Marty Cordova struggling to take a video of him.
• White runs down how people can watch the prelims on Fuel TV and the main card on Fox.
• He explains how he's flying to Brazil for several days to film TUF Brazil and that they're working out how people in the U.S. get to see it.
• We get a look at a frantic few minutes before the press conference with White saying how he hates starting pressers late, some interaction with Chael Sonnen about shoes and opponents awkwardly standing next to each other as they're about to go out on the dais.
• There's plenty of presser footage including Evans and Davis verbally jousting about wrestling, Sonnen doing wacky promos with the fake belt and the usual square offs.

There is no mention or reference to any of the recent issues White has had with "the Internet." Watch the whole clip after the jump.

SBN coverage of UFC on Fox 2

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This op-ed is solely the opinion of the author and is not the official position of Bloody Elbow or Vox Media. See Vox Media's official statement on SOPA/PIPA

By now it's become pretty clear that the Ultimate Fighting Championship and president Dana White are in support of the Stop Online Piracy Act. But do they really understand the wider implications an act like SOPA has?

SOPA in a nutshell is legislation that will allow for the blackout of any website that has the ability to host multimedia content once it is accused - and not necessarily proven - of violating copyright and infringing on intellectual property. Which basically casts a net wide enough on every site that allows user generated content, such as Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Word Press, Blogger and so on. It also includes every site here at SB Nation.

Before SOPA sites like these that rely and thrive on user generated content - such as Dana White's video blogs, or the UFC bonus-incentivised twitter use by fighters - were protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe-harbor provisions (Title II, Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act) so they would not be held culpable for infringement by a third party (the users) if they were not actively engaging with the party in the violation / infringement, but were expected to respond promptly and accordingly when a claim was made e.g. ban users and remove the content in question.

Even this act has it's own problems, as mentioned earlier some sites like Youtube respond to big corporations that make a claim of infringement and remove content without verifying ownership. For example when artists P Diddy, Will.I.Am and Kanye West decided to collaborate on a song about Megaupload in response to the USA's Domain Name System (DNS) takedown of the 'rogue' file sharing website, Universal Music Group claimed an infringement and had Youtube take it down - even though UMG had no rights to the music or video as it was written, recorded and produced independently of their publishing rights and mechanical copyrights. UMG, part of the major entities at large in support of SOPA and PIPA, have the ability to censor opinion and protest on a platform like Youtube just by making a false claim of infringement or violation. The video and song is back up now, but this is what Youtube and sites like it currently has to deal with.

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Bloody Elbow will be providing live video and updates when all 20 fighters on the card step on the scale at today's UFC on Fox 2 weigh-ins from Chicago, IL. You can catch a live Youtube stream of the weigh-ins below the jump, or if that doesn't work for some reason, you can view it over at MMA Nation or Ustream. The weigh-ins begin at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT.

The main event is a five-round light heavyweight battle between former UFC light heavyweight champion Rashad Evans and top contender Phil Davis. Each fighter has to reach the light heavyweight non-title limit of 206 pounds.

Join us and share your thoughts as the weigh-ins unfold.

Main card:

Phil Davis (205) vs. Rashad Evans (205)
Michael Bisping (185) vs. Chael Sonnen (185)
Demian Maia (186) vs. Chris Weidman (185)

Preliminary Card:

Evan Dunham (155) vs. Nik Lentz (155)
Michael Johnson (156) vs. Shane Roller (156)
Jon Olav Einemo (253) vs. Mike Russow (251)
George Roop (145) vs. Cub Swanson (145)
Charles Oliveira (144) vs. Eric Wisely (145)
Joey Beltran (228) vs. Lavar Johnson (252)
Chris Camozzi (185) vs. Dustin Jacoby (185)

SBN Coverage of UFC on Fox 2: Evans vs. Davis

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