“If they think I’m going to go in there and get choked out or lay down and get my armbarred and all that, they got another thing coming to ‘em, you know what I’m saying? Like I said, yeah, you’re right, MMA is not like boxing because boxing is tougher, you know what I’m saying? I look at it like this, if a guy get in there and try to take me to the ground, he might see his head go into orbit. The head is going into orbit, for real. These guys in MMA, they good wrestlers and good grapplers and good kickers, like girls, but, you know, when it comes to throwing them blows, they ain’t got a chance in hell, you know what I’m saying? Then they say I don’t got a chance if I go to the floor. Hey, the only way you gonna know is if you tune in and watch. And that’s what I want you to do. Pay your $54.95, come see James Toney. If you hate me, come see me try to get beat, if you love me, you enjoy the ride, have a good time and eat your popcorn…Randy Couture, he respects my game like I respect his game. He’s the best at what he do in his sport; I’m the best at what I do in my sport. We gonna see who has the better style and everybody know it’s James Toney. If he tries to throw blow for blow with me, he definitely gonna get knocked out. That’s a given, you know what I’m saying? If he tries to take me to the ground, it ain’t going to be easy, you know what I’m saying? He’s still gonna get knocked out. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for him.”

—James Toney telling Fight Hype he’ll knock out Randy Couture wherever the fight goes

I’m not gonna lie, I couldn’t care less about James Toney fighting in the UFC (a boxer in their prime like Pacquiao, yes, Toney, no) and damn sure wouldn’t pay $55 just to see him, but if he fights Couture, it will be kind of entertaining to see what happens if Couture manages to put him in his clinch and dump him on the mat. Something tells me if that happens, it won’t be Couture who gets knocked out.

What do you think? Is Couture the right opponent for Toney? Would Toney knock him out?

Cheick Kongo and Paul Buentello face off in a heavyweight battle on Sunday, March 21, at UFC on Versus 1.

Reminder: Part one of UFC Primetime “St. Pierre vs Hardy” premieres tomorrow night, March 10, at 10PM ET/PT on Spike TV.

Urijah Faber answers a bunch of fans’ question from the UFC 109 Fight Club Q&A. Interestingly, Faber likes Kimbo Slice, but Brock Lesnar…not so much.

It looks like Strikeforce and M-1 Global are in the process of dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on their new agreement.

M-1’s Evgeni Kogan confirmed to Sherdog that the two organizations are currently finalizing their revised deal and they expect Fedor Emelianenko to fight Fabricio Werdum sometime this summer, likely in either June or July. Apparently the reasons for renegotiating centered on the co-branding of M-1 Global.

“We were renegotiating. I think we’re pretty much at the end of that road,” said Kogan. “After the CBS show, we thought that the terms needed a little bit tweaking — nothing major, just a little bit of tweaking. So, we had a round of negotiations with Strikeforce. Everything went positively. We’re pretty much at the end.”

“Obviously, we are much more than the management company for Fedor,” said Kogan. “For us, it’s really important that the M-1 Global brand is acknowledged on these co-promotion events. As much as the partners made a lot of effort to acknowledge the co-branding, the media basically picked up on the fact that it was Strikeforce and kind of forgot about everything else, which wasn’t the most ideal for us.”

Kogan also stated M-1 never once communicated with the UFC or anyone else for that matter. To clear up other rumors, Kogan says there’s no “interior struggles” at M-1, they’ve scaled back Jerry Millen’s responsibilities and Fedor’s hand is fine.

With Fedor essentially back, all seems well in Strikeforce again. Scott Coker is happy at least, and wants everyone to know they are in it for the long haul.

“There’s a lot of benchmarks that I can check off and move forward,” Coker said. “But if you were to say a year ago, before that first fight, ‘Scott, you’ll have Fedor, Gina Carano and ‘Cyborg’ Santos will be the highest-rated show in the history of MMA on Showtime – bigger than even ‘Kimbo Slice’ – you’re going to develop new stars like Gegard Mousasi and ‘King Mo,’ DREAM is going to come to fruition, and that relationship is going to go and really work,’ I would have said to probably half of it, ‘No way,’” Coker said. “It’s an exciting time.

“Think about this: Aoki vs. Melendez, how many people could have pulled that off? I feel very fortunate, and it’s going to be an honor to have Aoki to fight Gilbert and to test our guys against their’s and see what happens. That’s what should be happening everywhere.”

“We’re going to be in this for a long time, and a year from now, it’s probably going to be the same thing,” Coker said. ” The difference between our company and the other companies that went out of business before us is that this is our core business. We’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I think we’re very good at it. My partners that are with me now have made us 10-times more efficient, and they’re very good at what they do, and they bring very smart business prowess to Strikeforce. I feel very lucky.

“To Strikeforce’s fans: Thank you for the support. We’re going to do 20 fights in a 12 month period. Continue supporting us; we truly appreciate it.”

Exciting times indeed…

WEC 47’s Fight of the Night — Leonard Garcia vs. George Roop — didn’t make the broadcast Saturday night. Lucky for us though, Versus has been kind enough to post it online for all to see. Check it out if you have 20 minutes to spare.

HT: USA Today

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Remember when I said all the farewell pieces to Jens Pulver might be a little premature? This is why.

“No, I’m not done,” Pulver said. “I’m disappointed. I just think it’s not fair to do this to all of you, to go out there and just not get the Ws.

“But I guess in the end of it all, that’s not what it’s all about for me,” Pulver continued. “I never did this for money. God knows I didn’t do it for money. I’ve always done it because this is my life and this is my lifestyle, and I’m just on a no-hit streak. I just can’t hit. So we’re going to keep working.”

“I’m not going to say I’m retired, but I want to build Driven, I want to build the gym, I want to keep training,” Pulver said. “I feel very confident in Tony [Fryklund] and the practices that we were having. Three months working out like this and I think the changes were there.”

Not that I don’t agree with all the great things that have been said about Jens Pulver in the last two days or that he doesn’t deserve them when he does retire, but can we give him a moment to breathe and figure out what he wants to do before say goodbye to someone who might not be leaving?

Image via Sherdog

The main event for the not-yet-official-but-totally-happening-to-screw-with-Strikeforce  UFC Fight Night 22 card still hasn’t leaked, but all the speculation is still centering around Kimbo Slice. To add more fuel to that fire, Matt Mitrione was set to fight Kimbo Slice on May 8 at UFC 113, but now he’s not sure what the hell is going on.

“I have no clue what’s going on; the last 15 hours have been pretty crazy,” Mitrione said. “To be truly honest, I haven’t heard a thing from the UFC, and it’s frustrating me. It’s my understanding that it took awhile to get his paperwork signed, but I’m sure it’s signed.

“Then again, that doesn’t mean (expletive). When I was in the NFL I signed a contract, they signed a contract, and they can cut you whenever they want. I know that from first-hand experience.”

“I texted Joe Silva (Thursday) night and asked what was happening, if there was any danger of this being cancelled,” Mitrione said. “His response was basically that nothing was official and that I should keep preparing — that I’m still fighting in Montreal.”

If the UFC does put Kimbo Slice at the forefront of this card, the other question will be who is his opponent? Well, it doesn’t sound like it will be Matt Mitrione unless they’re just keeping him in the dark until they get a green light from Kimbo. The big rumor out there is James Toney, but after he was done telling MDS he isn’t worried about takedowns he said he’s positive he’ll fight this summer on a pay-per-view.

So for now it remains a mystery, but with only five or so weeks left to promote the event we should find out soon enough.

Cung Le insinuates he has a fight lined up, but won’t say when or against who, just that we’ll have to wait till the Nashville show for an announcement. He does however say he wants a rematch with Scott Smith ASAP… Did he just give it away?