Top News Stories for week of 01/26/11

1. Fight For the Troops 2 Aftermath

Mark Hominick made the most of his fight this Saturday against George Roop and earned himself the first shot at the newly-contested UFC Featherweight belt. Hominick used his powerful boxing to knock former training partner George Roop into next week. Hominick used a left hook to floor Roop against the cage and then another left to seal the deal. The referee quickly jumped in to stop the beating, but the damage was done and Roop was visibly unstable as he tried to stand on his own power. Hominick is rumored to have earned a shot at Jose Aldo and his Featherweight belt. Aldo was injured in training and was unable to defend his belt earlier, but it is said that the initial UFC Featherweight Title bout will be contested at UFC 129 in April.

2. Former Champ falls Again

Former WEC Featherweight Champion Mike Brown is on rocky terrain after his second loss in 3 weeks within the Octagon. Brown lost a split decision against Diego Nunes on January 1 st and returned to action on short notice to take on Rani Yahya on January 22 nd at Fight For the Troops2. Whereas Brown won on one scorecard against Nunes, he was effectively shut down against jiu-jitsu ace Yahya and undoubtedly lost that contest. Brown was unable to avoid taking the fight to the ground, where the Brazilian roped Brown in and worked for submission after submission. Since Brown has lost 2 straight fights (and 4 of his last 6 since holding the WEC Featherweight title), he may be in danger of losing his spot in the UFC, though the UFC tends to be more lenient to fighters that have returned to the cage on short notice, as Brown did.

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3. Upcoming Fights Announced

After playing the villain (or junior villain to Josh Koscheck) on the most recent edition of The Ultimate Fighter, Alex “Bruce Leeroy” Caceres will finally get to make his long-awaited debut in the UFC after injury prevented him from taking part on the card of The Ultimate Fighter 12 Finale. Caceres will be butting heads with WEC veteran Mackens Semerzier at the UFC Fight Night 24 card in Seattle. Semerzier burst onto the national scene by submitting Waggeny Fabiano in the 2009 Upset of the Year, but has since dropped 3 straight fights. Caceres will be looking to back up some of his boastful talk from the reality show in his debut, while Semerzier will likely have to win or lose his job in the UFC.

4. Upcoming Fights Announced

Upon becoming the last WEC Lightweight champion, it was widely speculated that Anthony Pettis would challenge either Frankie Edgar or Gray Maynard for the UFC Lightweight title to unify the belts. You know what they say about the best laid plans, and Maynard and Edgar fought to a draw in their New Year’s Day bout. Initially, Dana White said Pettis would get the next crack at Edgar, but hours later reneged on that statement in favor of a third match between Edgar and Maynard. Rather than sit idle while an opponent is named, Pettis decided to get back into action. Dana White announced at the Fight For The Troops 2 weigh-in that Pettis would be squaring off against Clay Guida at the TUF 13 Finale on June 4 th. Ideally, a win for Pettis would keep him in contention for a match against the UFC Lightweight Champion (which should be decided when Maynard and Edgar do battle only a week prior at UFC 130), but a loss to Guida could knock Pettis out of contention for the belt. I currently have Pettis ranked at #7 in the UFC Lightweight division , while Guida is just out of my Top Ten, perhaps at #12 behind Ben Henderson. This matchup is bound to be a fast-paced slugfest as both men like to turn up the heat, but I am curious to see if this will knock Pettis out of title contention. You can’t help but admire Pettis’ desire to get into the cage, and one can only hope that he comes out on top against Guida so he gets a shot at the UFC belt.

5. Nick Diaz being Nick Diaz

In preparation for his upcoming Strikeforce Welterweight title defense with Mr. Cyborg Santos, Nick Diaz seemed pretty focused, albeit on any fighter but Santos. Diaz mentioned in a conference call that he feels he isn’t being paid nearly enough. He mentioned that Manny Pacquiao makes $40 million per fight and GSP is “making a couple million” per fight. (*GSP’s reported pay from the UFC for UFC 100 was $400,000, which doesn’t include sponsorship bonuses, which are likely to bump the salary significantly higher) Diaz noted that while those fighters are making stacks of money, he’s “driving a Honda.” Diaz discussed his financial woes in response to being asked whether he would consider moving up to 185 to fight Jason “Mayhem” Miller, at which point he said he’d need to be compensated enough for him to make the jump to Middleweight. To say the least, this was an eventful teleconference as the elder Diaz mentioned that he would really like to fight UFC Welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre. Based on the hostilities between the UFC and Strikeforce, the only conceivable way that these two would square off is if they met in a back alley a la Rocky V. In my opinion, Diaz put himself in a tough situation when he recently locked himself into a multi-year contract with Strikeforce. In my mind, Strikeforce has far less star-power in each division than the UFC, with the only possible exception being the Heavyweight division. One could even make the argument that the Strikeforce Heavyweight Division is filled with Fedor and a bunch of UFC castoffs (Arlovski, Werdum, Barnett). If Diaz truly wanted to get paid and make the best possible matchups, perhaps he should have weighed his options and tried to mend fences with his former employers.

By Nick Russel
ProFighting-fans.com MMA Staff Writer