UFC LONDON NEWS

Hi..

i used to be quicksuperlee on these boards but have had a lot of personal problems the last couple of months and have had to reregister..

anyway havant been training lately until last night...AND then the news came to me from a very reliable source.......


TOM BLACKLEDGE AND ROB BROUGHTON have recieved their joining papers for the UFC and have had their first fight dates back..LONDON OCTOBER 16 or 17....

This isnt a blag as far as i know..

It really really isnt a blag..those who remember me know where i train and who trains me..

I remember you yes. It will be interesting to see how they get on.

Cheers mate for the inside scoop And be sure to let us know anything else intersting that you've heard.

thanks mate..the trainer bounded up to about 4 of us last night and announced the news plus both Tom and Rob were at the gym last night looking pleased for themselves..and Rob took the mma class before the Thai class!!

Fighters only magazine is now reporting it


http://www.fightersonlymagazine.co.uk/news/viewarticle.php?id=4338

The UFC has signed three fighters from the Wolfslair, Fighters Only has learned. The signings bolster the gym's UFC fighter roster to six as the line up alongisde Michael Bisping, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson and Cheick Kongo.

Light-heavyweight Tom Blackledge, welterweight Kurt Warburton and heavyweight Rob Broughton all have four-fight deals in place and will make their debuts for the UFC later this year.

Blackledge has already appeared on The Ultimate Fighter, being one of the season ten coaches on Team Rampage. A jiu jitsu black belt, Blackledge also has some ferocious stand-up and produced one of the KO’s of the year when he stopped Enoc Torres in M-1 last year.

Broughton recently won a heavyweight tournament in the UK and lays claim to being the country’s top fighter at that weight. He recently signed with the Wolfslair and is the former heavyweight champion of UK promotion Cage Rage, now defunct.

Warburton has fought UFC welterweight Ross Pearson three times between his semi-pro and professional career. The record stands at 1-1-1 and a fourth match could well be on the cards in the UFC to produce a definitive winner of the series.

And Kongo has apparently signed a 6 fight deal.

told ya..i tried all night to reregister on here but cudnt!!!

Yep cheers again.


Also great to hear the UFC coming back to London to UK in October. Dana also promised a return to Dublin later this year.

He better follow it through, if not i'll just open one of those twitter accounts and just abuse him every day of every week until they do

smug look stops now!!! anyway London here i come!!!

Good to see you back, yeah a few MMA sites confirming the story now! Good scoop mate!!

Also on signings UFC fighters tweeted Dana is after BOTH Shields and Melendez (when his contract is up)

Nice scoop mate. More British fighters in the UFC, nice.

great to be back on the BEST mma forum on the net..simple as that the absolute best...

anyway..been thinking..is the UFC signing both Shields and Melendez actually good for the sport? I mean the UFC having most of the best fighters in the world, isnt that a monopoly?!!! Isnt the sport of MMA better having more that 1 major promotion to let the sport evolve?
Just a thought anyway!!!

no actually its bad.

if UFC had a monopoly, its a bit counter-logical, but we would actually see more protected fighters.

Competition breeds excellence.
If the Strikeforce became a really major competitor to the UFC, or Strikeforce bought out DREAM, Sengoku, Bellator, Shine, MFC and became huge.
the competition would be intense and it would force them to put on the most interesting cards they could.

if UFC had a monopoly they would have no motivation to take risks.

...its already started, Joe Silva doesnt want to match up Junior Dos Santos and Cain Velasquez...even though its the fight that everyone wants to see.
apparently it would make the list of contenders shorter.

this isnt mentioning the harm it would do to fighters, yes they get the chance to be undisputed number 1...but without any alternative promotion the wages will nose dive.

if there was a rival they have bargaining room, e.g. "if you dont give me this much per fight i will sign with the other guys"

if UFC had a monopoly, it would be "sign with us for whatever we want to pay you or you can't earn money"

i actually agree manschesthair..although the Strikeforce event (debacle) was terrible at least it provided the UFC with competition...i actually liked affliction with their own events..pity the fighters got greedy with their salaries, and mr barnett who is just a nonce!!!

I do think thought that Strikeforce will get better with time, i means its only been the last 4ish years that the UFC has come the the limelight before that it makes Strikeforces production values look classy!!!

and anyway...japan doesnt want the UFC there so japan will always have a top organisation there

i hope your right, i can't see there being another on the level of PRIDE though.
in fact i can't seeing it getting much bigger in japan than it is now...

if you know about japanese culture, its EXTREMELY "fad-ish" things enjoy short popularity booms and then they stop being popular, mma fad was like...99-05 i guess.
and now for a show like Dream 13 only the hardcore fans would watch. the arena was barely 3/4 full.

the likes of bob sapp (especially), Choi, KID and to a certain extent Sakuraba can still pull viewers, but thats because they are popular mainstream figures.

Dynamite pulled like 17% viewer rates which is huge.


its a shame because they are the best hosts for mma.

just looking at Dream 14 participants on wiki (yes i know it could be wrong but!!) not exactly mindblowing card is it!! so i suppose that the UFC is starting to suffocate the world of MMA...which leads me to this point...

IF the UFC gets to be all conquering can it start tinkering with the rules to suit themselves?

Wud co-promotion be the way to go...

we have seen in the UFC anderson silva and GSP effectively clean out their divisions..would co promotion be a way of getting the best fighters out side the UFC to challenge these guys but not having total control over them?

All i know is, i would be doing yes cartweels all day tomorrow if i woke up and found out that Fedor/Overeem/Shields/Alvarez/Jacare/Diaz all signed with the UFC.


Actually come to think of it, theres not that many top fighters outside the UFC that could challenge the top guys in UFC's division.

I mean sure adding Mousasi, Rogers, Aleks, Arlovski, Mo, Aoki, etc would strenghten the division and give some fun fights. But i dont think any of these guys would be one of the top 4-5 guys in the division.


The UFC has most of the best guys and has a huge roster. And not only that but they also have some of the best prospects aswell... Bones/Davis/Struve/Bader/Rory Macdonald etc...

but red you are thinking short term gains which would be good for the spectator but not necessarily good for the sport

1. Lyoto Machida
2. Shogun Rua
3. Rashad Evans
4. Quinton Jackson
5. Antônio Rogério Nogueira
6. Forrest Griffin
7. Randy Couture
8. King Mo
9. Gegard Mousasi
10. Thiago Silva

1. Fedor Emelianenko
2. Brock Lesnar
3. Shane Carwin
4. Junior Dos Santos
5. Cain Valezques
6. Frank Mir
7. Antonio Nogueira
8. Josh Barnett
9. Alistair Overeem
10. Fabricio Werdum

1. Anderson Silva
2. Jake Shields ?
3. Vitor Belfort
4. Dan Henderson
5. Chael Sonnen
6. Nate Marquadt
7. Paulo Filho
8. Robbie Lawler
9. Damien Maia
10. Ronaldo Souza

1. George St. Pierre
2. John Fitch
3. Thaigo Alves
4. Nick Diaz
5. Paulo Thiago
6. Dan Hardy
7. Paul Daley
8. Josh Koscheck
9. Marius Zaromskis
10. Martin Kampmann


1. Frankie Edgar
2. Bj Penn
3. Gilbert Melendez
4. Kenny Florian
5. Shinya Aoki
6. Eddie Alverez
7. Tatsuya Kawajiri
8. Gray Maynard
9. Ben Henderson
10. Tyson Griffin

____________________________________

This is from Bens ranking of course.


It looks pretty ominous doesnt it?

didnt realise that the UFC had got that many top ten fighters..well looks like the UFC has a monolopy!!!

oh well!!! better shut up and enjoy instead of moaning!!!

last point b4 bed..is it me or does GSP's division look a little light?!!! i mean there is only two in the top ten outside the UFC...and outa the rest there is only daley and kos he has to fight..

Shields should really be in the top 10 ww though, he only moved up because the mw division in sf is so much deeper.

quick sums....

39% of the top 15 from HW to FW are outside ZUFFA.

so definitley a clear majority to Zuffa, but its not a monopoly really.

...and if you count women's mma then the majority of the top worlds top fighters are out of ZUFFA!

Don't jump to conclusions so quickly, the UFC have the best fighters but its far from a monopoly really. They have a monopoly on the WW and LHW rankings, everything else is pretty even. You know, sometimes its better to let your best fighters go to the stronger company. Really I find SF's whole management of the company recently pretty poor. Shields is a WW but he dominated there new star signing. They treated him like shit before the event started. What the should have done is let Shields go to the UFC before he caused anymore damage.

I think they would benefit from letting Diaz go to the UFC as well. I don't think there is any WW outside the UFC who realistically has a chance against him, having a champion as dominant him is just bad for the division. If they let him go, it suddenly gets a lot more competitive and the lesser fighters can start making a name for themselves. SF really need to manage there company better, they should focus on there MW division. They already have a strong MW division, now they need to go out and sign more fighters to make it more competive. Even if they start with UFC rejects, it can only get better from there.

Remember its not just SF. MFC, SHINE and Adrelanine have some good fighters and have put some good shows on in the past. They aren't competition yet but it shows MMA is expanding and when they have former UFC contenders and champions fighting for them it will only help.