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Tim Sylvia weighs-in for UFC 77: Hostile Territory. Photo property of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Update 7:00 PM: Sylvia’s blog now tells fans to tune in to HDNet’s Inside MMA tomorrow night for information related to his “big news”.

After hinting that he may opt to leave the Ultimate Fighting Championship for the greener pastures of M-1 Global last month, it seems that former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia may be set to find a new home of his own after all.

Brian Knapp of The Fight Network reports that Sylvia could announce his decision to leave the UFC tomorrow according to a source close to the decision. However the source also noted that nothing was final and that the door for Sylvia to return to the UFC is still open as of now.

The Miletich Fighting Systems product is coming off of his second straight loss in yet another bid to regain his heavyweight title. Sylvia was submitted by interim champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira at UFC 81: Breaking Point in February.

A post on his official website made yesterday states that Sylvia will be making a huge announcement pertaining to his career tomorrow.

“On Friday around noon, I’ve got a couple of big announcements to make about my career,” Sylvia said in the post. “So all of my loyal fans will want to stay tuned to my website because this is huge.”

Back in February, Sylvia mentioned the fact that Brock Lesnar currently making more money than him could be a deciding factor in the Maine native switching organizations.

"I have one fight left on my contract," Sylvia said in February. "I want to stay with the UFC but I'm going to go where the money is right now. Brock is making more money than me but that has to change. I have a better name than him and I'm the better fighter. My manager runs M-1 so I have a pretty good way of getting in there."

Of course Monte Cox has since parted ways with M-1 Global. Could Big Tim be part of Cox’s planned June show in Chicago?

Kazushi Sakuraba. Photo courtesy of Fight Entertainment Group.

Fight Entertainment Group has announced the first three bouts for the organization’s upcoming middleweight grand prix first round, which will currently take place on April 29th at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan.

Despite recent rumors that a healing cut on his leg would prevent him from competing at the event, Japanese mixed martial arts legend Kazushi Sakuraba will return to action against Karate practitioner Andrews Nakahara.

Sakuraba bounced back from a unanimous decision loss to Royce Gracie in June with consecutive wins over Masakatsu Funaki and Katsuyori Shibata. Nakahara will be making his professional debut.

Funaki will also be competing in the tournament, taking on fellow veteran Kiyoshi Tamura. While Funaki’s loss to Sakuraba on New Year’s Eve was his first fight in over seven years, Tamura has remained fairly active in recent years. He was last victorious over Hideo Tokoro on December 31st as well.

Former PRIDE middleweight grand prix runner-up Denis Kang has been confirmed as fighting in the tourney. He will take on Hardcore Championship Fighting veteran Gegard Mousasi.

Mousasi is currently riding a seven-fight winning streak, which has saw him finish his last six opponents. Kang has struggled as of late, losing two out of his last three bouts, including a brutal knockout at the hands of Yoshihiro Akiyama in October.

Additional fighters confirmed as participating include Akiyama, Ikuhisa Minowa, Dong Sik Yoon, Shungo Oyama, and Taiei Kin.

Photo by Esther Lin/ProElite.

The California State Athletic Commission has surprisingly ruled that Nick Diaz will not be permitted to fight at this weekend’s Elite Xtreme Combat and Strikeforce co-promoted "Shamrock vs Cung Le" show, which will take place at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California.

Why? Well it depends who you ask. While MMA Weekly first broke the news late last night, Sherdog has since learned that there is quite the discrepancy as to why Diaz will not be competing.

According to CSAC Executive Officer Armando Garcia, Diaz failed to submit medical papers in time.

“He did not turn in his medical information in time for the fight,” Garcia told Sherdog’s Josh Gross. “They were just turned in today.”

EliteXC Live Events President Gary Shaw says different. According to Shaw, the issue has nothing to do with a deadline for Diaz’s medical papers and everything to do with the fact that the Stockton, California native owns a medical marijuana card, stemming from Diaz’s case of Attention Deficit Disorder.

“He never mentioned anything about late medicals,” said Shaw. “And if there were late medicals it wasn’t because of Nick Diaz and it wasn’t because of EliteXC. Nick does what you ask him, and you punish him? It’s like if you have a Ferrari and a police officer gives you a speeding ticket before you turn the key.”

Diaz’s adventures with marijuana have gotten him in trouble before. After submitting former PRIDE lightweight champion Takanori Gomi in April of last year, Diaz’s enormous upset was changed to a no-contest after the Nevada State Athletic Commission found that the amount of marijuana in Diaz’s system during the fight gave him a competitive advantage.

Drew Fickett, who was originally slated to take on Jake Shields for the EliteXC welterweight title before Shields suffered a back injury during training, will now step in and take on Diaz’s scheduled opponent, Jae Suk Lim.

So I figured I’d put down some of my thoughts/opinions regarding last night’s televised WEC 33 card on the Versus network.

First off, the WEC may just be my favorite promotion.  Because they feature the lighter weight classes, there always seems to be action.  While many of the guys are raw, they always seem to bring it.

Last night the WEC began using Craig Hummer for the post fight interviews.  I like Frank Mir as the color analyst a lot.  His knowledge really comes through in the call of the fight.  Sometimes he makes the claim that a submission is “locked in” and that “its over” a bit prematurely, but I can live with that.  The only weakness was his post fight interviews.  By using a professional like Craig Hummer, it came across much better. 

On to the broadcasted fights.

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