WEC fighters that re-signed a contract with the organization in the past four months will be transitioned to UFC in accordance with the recent merger. However, (with some fighters) their pay-scale will remain the same.
Some ZUFFA fighters/employees knew about the WEC/UFC merger as late as November 2009.
Heavy rumor here, but after being on the run for weeks, Badr Hari has turned himself into authorities and will serve as an informant in exchange for protection/amnesty from the government. Rather large rumor to bite into, though.
Starting this past June, so pretty raw stuff emerged from M-1 Global including not paying some fighters, dipping out of promotional obligations, shady negotiations with Strikeforce to obtain all preliminary spots for Strikeforce: Fedor vs. Werdum (which was agreed upon by both organizations, but didn't pan out because M-1 Global didn't get the passport paperwork submitted in time) and their main investor reportedly backing out of funding the organization. It's important to note that all of those thing are true, and M-1 Global realizes that they necessarily don't have the best reputation in the MMA world. As of recent, they've alleviated most of these problems (paying fighters...etc) and are attempting to 'clean-up' their reputation. Only time will tell if it works out.
M-1 Global was negotiating with Showtime in order to place some of their Eastern European and Russian M-1 Global shows on the network.
Jason Statham is starring in a movie called 'Safe' that is currently being shot in New York. A lot of MMA fighters will be featured in the action movie which is scheduled to come out next year.
Going forward, the UFC will have three ring girls which will include WEC's Brittney Palmer.
Bas Rutten made a year-long deal with Strikeforce to have CAMMO fighters participate in the organization's unaired preliminaries.
A promoter based out of North Texas has showed some interest in hosting an Aaron Tru vs. Bloodstain Lane bout.
A Pakistani pirate site who was accused of streaming PPV events by ZUFFA has transitioned to a Swedish hosting company which will thrwart ZUFFA's effort to shut it down. Once again, 'you can't stop the internet, baby'. Kegray
If anyone would do some research on Doug Creutz of Cowan & Company, the analyst that claimed EA Sports MMA was 'dead on arrival', then you might reveal a lot of interesting ties to some companies he's involved in.
Pretty cool story, but just before ZUFFA purchased Pride FC, the Japanese MMA organization was nearly purchased by the G4 network. The deal was just a couple of days from being made just before it was announced that ZUFFA purchased the organization.
I'm sure you've heard about this, but there's a rumor going around that Tim Sylvia may return to the UFC by the end of this year.
M-1 Global has suggested that if/when Strikeforce has an eight-man heavyweight tournament in 2011, Fedor will be a part of it.
The K-1 videos we published earlier in the week were indeed authentic, however K-1 is unaware that this happened. The DVDs are distributed by a company in Australia called Eagle/Gryphon Entertainment and they use their own graphic designers who usually re-design the covers for release in Australia.
